A Family is a Gift That Lasts Forever...

A Family is a Gift That Lasts Forever...

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Construction: January 28

January 28, 2010

More Framing
The side of the house from Hardisty Road (where our driveway will come up)
Our garages-3 separate garage doors
Inside the garage
Looking upstairs to the 2nd floor
The den
The kitchen
The bonus room upstairs
Front
Back
Back great room windows

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Construction: January 27

January 27, 2010
More framing of the upstairs floor

Bonus room on top of the garage
The boy's bedroom
3rd bedroom upstairs
The view from the front door
Looking at the front door from the living room
In the kitchen/hearth room looking up at the loft upstairs
The back of the house
The front of the house

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Construction: January 25

January 25, 2010
Framing the main floor & beginning framing the 2nd floor

This is standing on our 2nd floor loft and looking down at the house

This is the upstairs hallway
This is standing on the loft looking out the back of our property to the woods

Monday, January 25, 2010

Cooper's Birthday Parties

Happy Birthday Cooper!!! 2 Years Old!!!
We had a family birthday party for Cooper at his Grandma Great Routsong's house in Kendallville. He loves Mickey Mouse, so of course his cake just had to Mickey. He loved it!! He was so excited to blow out his candle and he knew that this day was all about him!! He even learned how to sing "Happy Birthday" all by himself. He loved opening presents and having so much attention! It was a wonderful day!!

Cooper is just beginning to realize what "friends" are He has Jaxton to play with all day long every day, so he never really needed anyone else! But now he gets excited when we go play with "friends" or go to other kids houses. So we decided to throw him a last minute "Friends Party." We invited some of the families with kids his age over to our house to play and visit. He loved blowing out his candle and eating his cupcake. He was just in heaven! If anyone asks now, he will tell you that he is 2! What a big boy! Happy Birthday Cooper!!


After he ate his cupcake and drank his ice cream off his plate...




Sunday, January 24, 2010

Happy Birthday Cooper!!!


Cooper is 2 Years Old!! I cannot believe how fast he has grown up!! Here are some things all about Cooper at 2 years old:

1. Cooper's favorite cereal is Cinnamon Toast Crunch. He also loves pancakes drenched in syrup

2. Cooper's favorite activity is basketball by far. Nate has season tickets to the Fort Wayne Mad Ants basketball team, and Cooper treasures every time he gets to go. They have those balloon bangers that make noise and he is an expert at those. He bangs those and cheers on the basketball players like a real fan! He will sit on Nate's lap the entire game and just focus on the players, the ball, and watching it go in the basketball hoop. He is just passionate about the game!! At home he will practice throwing balls and catching them with me and Nate. He is really, really good at both catching and throwing for being just 2 years old!

3. Cooper's favorite song these days is the Sunbeam song. He loves to sing this right before bed. I will hold him and will bounce him up at the "beam" part of the song and he just giggles. He also loves me to make up songs. He will tell me "Cooper and Mickey-Mad Ants-basketball song" and wants me to sing a song that involves Mickey Mouse, the Mad Ants basketball players and Cooper all playing basketball together. So I just make stuff up to a common tune. He loves it!

4. Cooper will sing "Yeah Yeah" (2 different notes) out of nowhere sometimes. It is the cutest little singing voice ever. Definitely something we will remember about him at 2 years old.

5. Cooper adores Jaxton. He is just so enthralled in him. He wants to be just like him. He wants to do everything that Jax does. Sometimes when I snap pictures of the two of them, a lot of those pictures just happen to capture Cooper looking at Jaxton, to see what he is doing. He just adores him to pieces.
6. Cooper's favorite character is by far Mickey Mouse. He loves to watch Mickey on TV, sing about Mickey, and hold his stuffed animal Mickey. He was Mickey for Halloween and likes to wear the sweat pants from his costume to bed. He calls them his Mickey pants. He wears them with his Mickey sweatshirt that Grandma Hutchinson got for him.
7. Cooper is a very picky eater! He has certain foods that he will eat and eat and eat, but anything out of his comfort zone, he will just not touch. He is very stubborn about trying new foods too. His favorite foods are peanut butter sandwiches, milk, chicken nuggets, crackers, bananas, cheese, and cinnamon toast crunch cereal. If I make a casserole or a main dish that looks unique to him, he simply will not touch it. He will not even taste it!! We can bribe him with a treat after or with crackers or anything if he will take a bite or two, but it does no good. He simply will not touch it. He is the most stubborn little boy I know! Needless to say, he doesn't eat much. Has a good size head, with a skinny little monkey body underneath his clothes because he really doesn't eat much! I do make sure he eats decently and I'm sure that he will grow out of it soon...silly little boy!
8. Cooper loves Nursery at church. Just a few months ago, he would cry when going into the nursery room. But now, Jaxton is not in his class anymore. He doesn't seem to notice that, and now for some reason, he loves his class. He goes right on in and sits down with all his "friends." He really enjoys it. He loves to sing in nursery and loves to sing the same songs at home. I think he is impressed that I know the same songs he learns in his class!!
9. Cooper loves to ride in Daddy's truck. He just feels so big and important whenever he gets to ride in Daddy's Simplx truck. He can recognize the Simplx logo on Daddy's other things, like magnets, business cards, and papers, and he always associates the logo with Daddy's truck. He loves to sing about Daddy's truck too!
10.Cooper has learned to pray. He says such sweet prayers. He will fold his hands in front of him. He tries super hard to keep his eyes shut, but just can't do it most of the time. He has to see everyone else closing their eyes. He will bless everything he sees and never misses a member of his family. He does not know when to end his prayers, so with prompting, he will say, "Name-Jesus-AMEN!" It is just to die for listening to him pray.
Cooper, we love you so very much! You are so special to our hearts!! Happy Birthday!!!

Construction: January 24

January 24, 2010
Framing the main floor of the house
This is the kitchen/hearth room where our kitchen table will go
This is the master bedroom
This is looking at the back of the house, the walkout basement and the main floor being framed
This is the basement. You can see the main set of stairs coming down. In the very back, there is a set of stairs coming down from Nate's "business garage" into his future Simplx office.
Framing the main floor

Friday, January 22, 2010

Construction: January 22

January 22, 2010
Building up the basement wood burning fireplace


Thursday, January 21, 2010

Dentist Field Trip

We took a field trip to a Pediatric Dentistry here in Fort Wayne. The kids really had a lot of fun playing with all the equipment and tools, and pretending to be dentists themselves! The staff have the day off on Friday, but 2 kind ladies came in just for our group of kids. They were so friendly and helpful. Jaxton will be going to the dentist in a couple of weeks, so this was really helpful for him to get familiar with the dentist office!

Here, Jaxton is the dentist in the Dentist's chair. He is taking a look at his friend Koby's teeth
They are showing the kids the little hose that they squirt in peoples' mouths. She is squirting it directly into the vacuume.

The kids all get to feel how the tooth polisher feels as it goes around and around on their fingers.
Jaxton is looking at himself in the dentists' mirror
The kids watch the big stuffed animals as they get their teeth brushed. Then, the stuffed animals actually squirted water out at the kids, showing them how to spit! They loved it! They each got a goody bag with a toothbrush, a sticker, and some other fun dentist goodies! What a fun trip!

Construction: January 21

January 21, 2010
Basement Framing Begins

Back of the house / walkout basement walls

Looking out of Nate's future Simplx office window/door
Basement framing
Floor on top of the basement