Happy Birthday Myles!

We celebrated Myles' 3rd birthday in Florida with family. It's hard to believe he is three! 

Myles - you are full of spunk! That red hair will probably serve you well but give us headaches :) You are walking, and you can almost run! You love to kick a ball outside with your brothers. You'll do anything to keep up with them... even if it's stand at the backdoor with your hand glued to the knob yelling and yelling and yelling for someone to notice that you want out!

You don't have any verbal words yet, but you have many signs and can almost tell us anything you need. You are just now trying to mimic some sounds. Some of your favorite signs are ice cream, ice cream, drink, and ice cream :) I'm fairly sure (and I'm not joking) that you'd eat an entire container of Breyers if we'd let you.

You finally have figured out how to crawl out of a pack-n-play. You have a love/hate relationship with Tessa... one minute you are hugging her and stroking her hair, then the next you'll pull her hair and shove her over. She's putting up a good fight when you take her toys so you better watch out!

 Many days, you have us baffled as to what you are doing or saying or wanting... you like to play tricks like pull your high chair over signing 'eat', but then the minute we reach for you to put you in it, you run as fast as you can and lay face down on the floor with your hands tucked under your tummy. This will happen several times until we chase you down. Sometimes it's cute, other times it's not :)

Your love for others and sweetness is a blessing to us always. Everywhere we go you smile and wave with your hand up by your chin. You get LOTS of compliments on your red hair and the freckles that are growing!

 We're not sure how much you understand about God yet, but you love going to church and singing and praising God with others. We sit in front of the sign language interpreter and you do signs and wave your hands around and sing without refrain. At bedtime, you always sign 'Jesus' and want to sing Jesus Loves Me.

 You are an incredibly special little man!! You are loved much!!! We look forward to the next year!

Larry and Karen...

 …. are kind of like another set of parents to us who are local. We moved to Ohio about 10 years ago, and we met them at our church. One Sunday, probably about a year after we lived in OH, they approached us at church and said they wanted to pursue a friendship with us. They had us to dinner and the rest is history. For the past 10 years, we have gotten together with them for dinner every 3 months, and Karen and I get together once a month to pray and talk about current things on my heart. They are dear to our hearts and we have a very deep friendship with them… we always laugh about how 70-yr olds can be friends with 30-yr olds. It's a beautiful thing :) They have shepherded us through financial hardships, new jobs, new babies, and simply life. They have been an encouragement to us and always remind us to remember God's faithfulness and provision. They love our kids and always engage them when they are in our home. Such blessings to us!!!





 Earlier this week, we read a book about safaris. Larry and Karen have been on several safaris in Africa, so I asked her to bring over one of their photo albums. The boys were so intrigued by the pictures of the animals and the tribes. Thank God for older people who come alongside younger people!






























































Myles on his way to somewhere with Karen's purse... Jonathan and Larry talking stock market :) 

Remembering summer... and it just started

My days go by so fast. We are in a stage of parenting that is more intense than anything else we've experienced in the past 7 years. And that combined with just plain ordinary life makes time fly. I forget I even have a blog. Then one day, I'm like, shoot... I have a blog. And I don't post entries. Which might be a little sad for the few souls who look at it, but much more sad for me since this is my only documentation of this Cooper family. So anyways, a few pics to jog my memory a few years from now. Our kids are at beautiful ages. I can't even describe it, but woven into all of the difficult moments (or hours... or days) of parenting are these glimpses of wonder that I find in each of them. I. LOVE. THEM. And they're not even mine to keep! Summer has been full already of late nights, play dates, visits with cousins, visits with grandparents, dominoes, too much sugar, and lots of time at home.

Happy babies...

.... who are growing SO fast! 

Mom and Dad's

My parents live on 13 acres -- typically when we go visit, it's over a holiday or we are always trying to connect with other siblings.

This time, we set aside the 4 days to just stay at their place and visit solely with them. It was a really great time... kids loved it and so did we. It's fun to see what types of games they come up with when left with a lot of property but not many toys. They had no trouble filling up their time!

We ate popcorn, watched movies, rearranged furniture, went to the candy shop, and loved on Buck (their yellow lab). Very thankful for time with my family ...