Sister/Cousin Visit

The last couple of years my sister, Heather, has come with my nephew, Paxton to visit us on her birthday! The boys always have so much fun and we thoroughly enjoy just hanging out together for a few days.

Lots of Game Playing!

Colby, Carson, Cooper, and Paxton

 This year my sweet husband even watched the boys all day long for us to get away for a day of shopping and lunch in Murfreesboro. We also went to Cookeville to visit Hannah (my niece, her daughter) and see her college campus and where she lives. Then, my sister-in-law, Beth came and brought Emma and Alea (my 2 sweet Georgia nieces) to ride back to Arkansas with Heather to visit family there.

Beth, Emma, and Alea

Heather and Me

LOVE having this time together.....it truly fills my cup!

Carson's 8th Birthday

Our oldest, Carson turned 8 years old on May 20th! He typically has a big backyard party with lots of friends, neighbors, and baseball teammates over to play baseball games, etc. This year we gave him the option to have just a few friends and a very small party...in exchange for a nicer gift from mom and dad. After all, the money we saved from having a smaller party would be worth getting him a little more for his birthday. That's what he chose! So, just a few friends came over and had a "build your own ice cream sundae" party and then had a home run derby in the back yard. It turned out perfect!

Spring and Summer Baseball

Since I am so behind at blogging, I am going to do a little summary of Carson and Colby's baseball from the Spring season and also from Carson's All-Star team this summer. Both of the boys LOVED playing baseball again. The main difference this year, was that their dad was not able to take the head-coaching role, as he was the Commissioner for Baseball for EWA (Our athletics association) and also ended up taking a new job with a lot of travel in the midst of the season. Rod was able to be assistant coach and was there as often as he could be. Both teams had great coaches and it worked out just fine.

Carson moved into the machine pitch age division and was on the Dodger team with a lot of his buddies from past seasons. He truly enjoys playing and we really enjoy watching him. He is such a little competitor and gives it 100%. Carson also enjoys pulling for his teammates and I love watching him encourage others. He played short-stop most of the time and really did an amazing job! He then went on to play on the All-Star team, the Knights! It was a lot of fun. He played pitcher on this team. We are so super proud of him.

Colby played on the 6U team as a Dodger, and was most excited that his buddy Zach was on his team. Colby played 2nd base and right field most of the time. He was nicknamed, Colby "Cheetah" Cook as he was encouraged to run like a "Cheetah"......bless his heart, those little legs just don't have the speed yet as a lot of the bigger players. He never gave up and continued to try his hardest, improving so much over the season, and always had a positive attitude. His team ended up going all the way to the championship playoffs and came in 3rd out of 16 teams in their age division. They were truly a team with so much heart, that were so fun to watch! They improved from the beginning of the season to the end by leaps and bounds!

Primrose Spring Fling and The Cooper Trooper Foundation

This year The Primrose School in Cool Springs invited The Cooper Trooper Foundation to be the recipient of their Spring Fling charity event. We were honored and thrilled to be a part of this opportunity. The foundation received a very generous gift of $3000 from Primrose School.

Unfortunately, it started off as a dreary, rainy morning. Fortunately, there was plenty of fun to be had indoors with a bake sale, amazing auction, pancake breakfast, games, face-painting etc. There was a gigantic inflatable outside as well.......the kids didn't let a little rain stop them from enjoying it either.

We truly appreciate being selected to benefit from this generosity. Primrose is an impressive program, full of caring people. There is an immediate feeling of "family" within their community of parents, children, and staff, from the moment you step foot in the doors. We enjoyed spending our morning at the school and getting to know the families and staff. It is an honor that they wanted to contribute to our mission of helping families impacted by childhood cancer.

THANK YOU PRIMROSE!

Visiting Family in Arkansas

The boys and I took a little "last minute" trip to Arkansas over spring break. Originally, my sister, Heather, was going to come to Tennessee for a visit. However, my niece, Hailey, has been in and out of the hospital and Heather did not need to leave her. So, we decided to go for a few nights to see everyone.

Me and my sweet niece, Hailey

Colby and Carson with their cousin, Paxton (in middle)

My parents (Nonny and Papa) with Colby

Me and my brother, Jeff

Hailey enjoying the fresh air at the park

Paxton and Carson- these 2 have a great time together

My sister, Heather, with her Hailey

My other sister, Lauren, with the boys

One of the "highlights" of our trip was the beautiful weather while we were there- it was in the 70's each day and just gorgeous. We spent a lot of time playing outdoors with everyone. One day we went to a park and Nonny ordered pizza for everyone. There was a creek that the boys literally spent hours playing in. They had an absolute blast just throwing rocks and walking in the creek! I remember loving to play in the creek as a kid.....oh for the simple, fun things that our kids seem to miss out on with all of the technology, etc. distracting them. It was so much fun to watch them really PLAY! 

Nonny playing in the creek with my boys

Cooper loved throwing rocks in the creek

Colby throwing rocks!

Carson just chilling

My niece and nephew- Abby Grace and Paxton

Cousins having fun- Paxton, Abby Grace, Carson, and Colby

A Date With My Carson

I got to have a date with my sweet boy, Carson, when his school did a special "Boys Night" last month. The boys got to invite their mom, grandma, sister, etc. for a date at their school...complete with dinner, a disc jockey playing some dance tunes, and a Home Depot workshop to build your own birdhouse.

 Carson had a blast dancing on stage! He was cracking me up with all of his cool "moves". Most of the moms just sat and watched their sweet boys dancing like crazy up on the stage. It was quite entertaining to say the least!

We built a super cool bird house in the gym in record time! I get the "handy" gene from my dad. We were a great team and it was a lot of fun.

Carson with some of his buddies really strutting their stuff! It was such a fun night, and Carson was quite a little gentleman. He opened the car door for me and even told me that he would pull out my chair at the table (like his daddy told him to), except that the chairs were connected to the cafeteria table so he couldn't...... so sweet! I hope he will be a gentleman like this to his wife one day, but for now, I will just enjoy him being a little gentleman for his momma!

Cooper's Latest MRI Update

I realized that I had not updated the blog after Cooper's last MRI (March 7th). We are so thankful that Cooper has had another "ALL CLEAR" scan!

We went that morning, and in true "trooper" fashion, Cooper slept until I woke him up to leave for the hospital, never even asked to eat or drink, and even bobbed his head around dancing and smiling to the music in the car on the way! It's amazing how these little details are so important, especially at his age.

Once we went back to Radiology, he suddenly realized where he was and what was going on. His face went from just fine to horrified the minute the big doors opened. After pulling out a bag full of his "little men", which are his favorite thing to play with....he settled down.

We are so thankful, yet a little sad that we know the nurses, anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists, and radiologists on a first name basis at Vanderbilt. They are amazing people and do their jobs beyond expectation. We were happy to have our nurse, Christa again this time.

Cooper with his nurse Christa

It definitely took longer to wake up from anesthesia this time and he has had a more difficult time over the last few MRI's, as he is getting older. He likes to point that finger and tell everyone "NO", if anyone tries to talk to him! He also threw up all over himself in the car on the way home.......not fun!

We met with Dr. Pine, one of his oncologists, on March 9th. Sadly, we found out that she will be leaving Vanderbilt to move to Utah soon, working with a Hospital specializing in bone marrow transplants. She has been such a blessing and will be missed. Dr. Ho will continue as our primary oncologist with Cooper and has been following him from the beginning.

Cooper with Dr. Pine

Basically, we got the exciting news from Dr. Pine that Cooper can now go 6 months between MRI scans until he is about 5 1/2 - 6 years old. If all scans remain clear between now and then, he will be discharged from the care of the Oncologists and considered in complete remission at that time!!


God is so good and we are so very thankful for this news!