Toy Story 3 Disney on Ice

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Abby received Toy Story 3 Disney on Ice tickets from the Gandy's for her birthday.  She was super excited to know that she was going to see all her friends live.  She had a great time laughing, clapping and cheering for her friends as they skated along the ice.  It was a great show and a memory that will be cherished forever.  Thank you Uncle Fred and Auntie Andrea.  This was a really wonderful gift.

Abby turns 3 & It's Fancy

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Per Abby's request she wanted a Fancy Nancy birthday party.  We put on a very fancy party for her.  Lots of friends and family came out to her party, even though it was extremely cold out.  She really enjoyed her time with all of her friends. She received many wonderful gifts.  Thank you all for such a great celebration.  We are so excited to see Abby turn 3.  She is such a wonderful and fancy little girl.

NYE 2010

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NYE 2010 was spend at the Brister home in Matteson, IL. A winter storm in South Dakota made us change our plans change to travel home a few days sooner. We had a great time at the Brister home with our family and their friends. The kids really enjoyed the games and dancing. Max woke at 11:45pm just in time to take in the New Year with his family. Cheers to a great 2011



Abby & Max Christmas 2010

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We had a wonderful Christmas season with our family. Abby's 3 Christmas turned out to be the best so far, and Max's first Christmas was very special. Our visit to South Dakota was wonderful as we got to spend lots of time with our family. A trip to Huron to Mina Lake to Langford, all great memories for us. We had to shorten our trip by a few days due to a winter storm that was approaching....good thing we did, South Dakota was hard to get out of come the few days after our departure. We also celebrated with the Cooper and Carters in Frankfort for the holidays. We love our time with our family and hope for another great year of 2011 with them.

Abby's 1st Christmas Concert

We were so excited to see Abby perform in her first Christmas concert at her school. They had practiced everyday for the month of December on their songs and performance. The 15 minute concert included an opening song of "C" is for Cookie and with a finally of "Jingle Bells". The kiddos all did their formal bow at the end of the concert filling the room with many clapping hands. Abby was such a great performer with smiles and signing throughout. Afterwards Abby, daddy and mommy went to McDonald's for a quick dinner together. (Max was still at the hospital) Abby loves her "Cheeseburger happy meal". We are so proud of how well Abby did, Great job Abigail!

Hospital Visit

After a few days of Abby coughing, soon enough both Max and mommy were doing the same.  Our little Abby loves to play with her brother, thus he was coughed on a few too many times.  Cold weather combo with coughing in the house, our poor little man ended up in the hospital for a week's stay.  They say he had a small case of  pneumonia.  We know our little man is so tough because all the nurses said he was the best kiddo on the floor; always trying to give a smile to us all.  Because it was the week before Christmas he was blessed with several morning visits from Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with 2 huge bags of gifts from the volunteers in the hospital.  We were happy for the good report from Dr. B on Friday of that week that we could all head home.  Another good report at the 4 day follow up visit to Dr. B allowed us the good news that the Coopers could travel for the Christmas holidays.  Thank you Jesus for healing our little man!

Getting back in the swing of things

It has been a busy few weeks in the Cooper house.  Transition from vacation to 'real world' can be a little shocking when you have a 6 month old (still waking 1-2 times a night) and have a little girl who had a fever reaction to the flu shot.  We spent lots of time cuddling with the kiddos and watching Abby's two favorite flicks of all time; "Alice in Wonderland" (yes the one with Johnny Depp) and "Toy Story 3".  It was a good week of family time, but lots of rest, medicine and love.  Everyone is doing well, just going through the winter season of colds, yucky.  Wishing everyone a wonderful and blessed 25 Days of Christmas!  (make sure you are watching abcFamily's 25 days of Christmas series, the Coopers will be watching all the classics).

Special Memories in Mexico

Enjoy this slideshow of some of our favorite memories of our vacation in Mexico. 

See the next blog below for more details of this wonderful vacation.

Make your own free digital slideshow

Vacation & Wedding in MX

Layton and I have been planning our vacation to Mexico since this past April.  Jennifer, my best friend, and Kyle picked Puerta Vallerta Mexico as their destination wedding spot.  As the months grew closer, we began to get more and more excited about our trip.  We decided it would be our 5 year Anniversary gift to ourselves. 

The Coopers kept the kids while we were away for our 8 day vacation.  Abby was able to stay at Uncle Fred and Auntie Andrea's house for 2 nights too, which she found to be great fun!  Abby went to Build a Bear and had a great time making her "Hello Kitty" themed bear.  Lots of time with Mama, Papa, Tee, Chase and Kyndall....it was tons of fun for them. Abby wanted to try on her new dress and pose with her new baby doll from Mexico, such a little diva.

Our travels started out a little rocky.  One week before the vacation we found out that our tickets (paid and bought for in April) were no longer good, Mexicana airlines went bankrupt and left no notice to us.  So we looked and with a little stress found tickets for our trip.  With just one week out we decided to take the cheaper tickets and stay at the resort a few days longer (same money, more vacation time). 5:05am departure time from O'hare airport (PV at 1:45pm) was the plan, "mechanical problems" was the reason for a flight cancellation.  We were put on a flight at 9:30am (PV at 6pm) with stand-by seats at 7:20am flight.  Things were looking up, we got on stand-by and were on our way to Phoenix for a short layover.  Phoenix flight on and off all on time.  As we are hoovering over PV again and again, the flight attendant announces that the plane is going to have to fly to Mazatlan, MX to land while the PV airport fixes a sink hole in their one and only run way.  While in Mazatlan we took in the duty free stores, hot dog and beer stand and witnessed 2 Federal Police planes land and deplane 4 buses of criminals, scary stuff! 2 hours later we were back in PV (5:45pm).

Our stay at the Dreams Resort and Spa was wonderful.  Words cannot explain the beauty, excellent service and great food/drinks it had to offer. We had an ocean view room with balcony for our 8 night 9 day stay.  The resort had 5 restaurants, and 4 bars.  It had nightly entertainment from movies on the beach, fire show, Mexican Festival, Casino night and much much more.  Due to the season, sea turtles were hatched daily on the beach each morning and at 6pm, the resort had an organized turtle release for all to participate in.  It was really neat to learn about this process and be able to hold one of the little ones before his adventure out in the ocean.  We meet lots of people during our days at the beach and pool.  Layton played beach volleyball most days and I was able to enjoy relaxation by the pool every single day.

 

Jennifer and Kyle also had a delay of flight on their way to the resort, but made it to the resort on Saturday afternoon.  They were followed by lots of family and friends.  It is hard to describe the friendship that Jennifer and I have without saying 'endless and heartfelt'.  I could see in her eyes the excitement of her big wedding plans all taking into action.  Many, many months of planning and phone calls were made to make her dream come true.  Their wedding day was beautiful, as all days in paradise are.  The girls spent the morning at the spa getting our hair done and the guys were able to hang out all morning.  Pictures were beautiful with the beach and blue sky and ocean behind on each view.  Jennifer was a truly beautiful bride.  She glowed the entire day with excitement and joy.  The ceremony at the pavilion was toasty with the sunshine but filled with smiles and tears with the wonderful occasion.  Sealed with a kiss, Kyle and Jennifer were pronounced husband and wife.  The reception was great fun.  Dancing, music, great food, friends and family, the night was perfect.

The remaining days at the resort were filled with sunshine, friends/family and drinks.  We enjoyed each and every single minute of our vacation in Mexico.  We are thankful that our travels were safe and that this trip was able to bring Layton and I even closer together in our marriage.  We vowed to ourselves we would do this again within the next 2-5 years. 

Congratulations Jennifer and Kyle, we wish you two the happiest and most blessing filled life together!  We love you.

Grandparents Visit from SD

We were so excited when we found out that Grammie and Grandpa Bob where coming to visit us for a long weekend.  To much surprise both Maggie and Grandma Great came along also.  It was Maxwell's dedication service at the church (previous blog) so it was great to have them here to help celebrate.  We enjoyed a relaxing weekend with most of it spent in the house allowing everyone to enjoy both Abby and Max.  We were fortunate to have Lewis University allow them to the stay in the "Guest House" on campus for free.  This was so nice, as it allowed them to have their own space and be very close to us at the end of each day.  We enjoyed our visit with the family and were sad to see them go on Monday.  We look forward to the holiday season as we plan to make a trip to South Dakota to visit them!