Tyson Hugh Hooper

Tyson Hugh Hooper
Our son, Tyson Hugh Hooper, was born with coarctation of the aorta, hypoplastic arch, and a transitional avsd. His first open heart surgery reconstructed his aorta and was on day 9 of life. His second open heart repair was not anticipated to be needed until two or three years of age. Ty had other plans. We spent the vast majority of his first 3 months of life at Vanderbilt as he went into heart failure and was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension. As a result, the medical team concluded that he needed the repair much sooner than usually recommended, and at just shy of 3 months old Ty underwent his second life saving open heart surgery. God has already worked so many miracles in Ty's life and the life of our family and we know he is using our story. Because of this, we are grateful for Ty's special heart and feel beyond blessed that God chose us to travel this road. We ask for prayers as Ty continues to heal. We are praying for a full recovery and life without restrictions for Ty. We are praying for God to use our family and Ty for His glory.

Thank you to each and every person who supports us through prayer, giving, or just by loving on our family! We are humbled and blessed by all of the ways the Lord is providing for us and know that he is using Ty and his story to do great things!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Other Halloween Happenings....


This past Sunday we attended our church's Fall Festival complete with trunk-or-treating, blow up jumps and slides, games, and pumpkin painting! It was SO. MUCH. FUN! Lily had a blast and stuffed her little mouth with everything sweet she could find! :-)
Trunk-or-Treating was as new concept to me and it was a great idea! Each Sunday school class and some of the church couples brought cars, trucks, and even Harley's and parked them in rows with the trunks, beds, and saddle bags open and decorated! The kids then went from car to car trunk-or-treating! So cute!! Ann and Scott had a car there and we stopped in to see them...
...and of course Melody and Lily had to climb in and play for a while! They love seeing each other and I thought it was especially cute that they both had costumes with wings!

Scott and Ann were fun to see and visit as always! Scott is one of Chris' closest friends and we just love him to pieces! Getting to know his family better this year has been a joy!

Lily LOVES Scott! His last name is Kinney and so all his buds at work, us included, have nick named him "Skinny" which Lily thinks is funny, so now she calls him Skinny too! It's so funny and cute hearing her little voice call his name!!

Their other daughter Robin was there too! Can you guess who she is??? That's right, it's Little Red "Robin" hood! :-)

We spent the most time at the bouncy play things! Lily went down the slides and in the bouncy things over and over and over again! It was so well organized and spread out that there was very little waiting and lots and lots of playing! It was wonderful!

And, being Thumbelina (because it was pink and had wings) she twirled and spun and shrieked and played! She ran across the field saying, "Look Daddy, I can fly!" at the perfect time of day when the sun was streaming down! It was so precious!

Here are the three of us! She is being silly, and it's no wonder after that sugar!

I'll just call this one, "Sugar High!" She was a SILLY LILY for the rest of the afternoon!!!! But, she was the prettiest Thumbelina ever in the whole wide world!
Yesterday we decided to carve pumpkins! It was so much fun! I love the fall and carving pumpkins is just part of it! This made Halloween week official for me...

Nothing like ooey gooey hand full of pumpkin guts to ring in the Halloween holiday! :-)
Daddy takes his pumpkin carving seriously!!!!! He worked much harder and longer than Lily and I! He gets all the credit for the beautiful pumpkins...



I thought they turned out great!! While carving, Chris commented that he had never had toasted pumpkin seeds! I have as a kid and wasn't a fan, but I figured I'd attempt to toast some and we could all try! I washed and dried two batches and baked them up... some with sugar and cinnamon and some simply salted!


Turns out... we don't like them! lol. Now we know! They tasted mostly like pop-corn, but not nearly as fun to eat! :-) Hope you're having as much fall fun as we are!!!!

Sunday, October 25, 2009


























Parade Picture Post...

This weekend was FULL of Fun! One of the many things we did was go to the MTSU homecoming parade!!! Megan asked me to bring my camera and take "some good pictures" so of course I went wild! I don't know about the "good" part, but I took a BUNCH of pictures and there are so many I love that I decided to post A LOT of them! With subjects this cute, the pictures have to be great! So, I'll let the pictures tell the story of our parade adventure!


Lily and Vance claiming our spot to watch the parade!

Lily smiling for the camera... waiting for the parade to start!


Vance cheesing for the camera... waiting for the parade to start!

It's fall, so of course we had to take a picture with a tree trunk! It just fits!



Gotta love this grin!
Vance can seriously work the camera when he stops long enough for the camera to catch him!

Vance = 100% boy! "Look Lily!"



Web and Vance going to see the band warm up before the parade!


Lily running to watch the band warm up!


Megan and Jack at his frist MTSU homecoming parade!
He was a trooper!!!!


Chris and Lily Mac... these two are ALWAYS crackin' each other up!


Me and Chris... Mmmmmm! :-)
Doesn't get better than this!


Web, Megan, Vance, and Jack getting ready for the parade!



Got their bags and waitin for some CANDY!


Check out this look.... hard to say no, huh?! lol

Here they come!!!!!

Anticipation.
Candy.



GO, Go, go! CANDY!!!!


See? Candy!


Vance and Web waving at the FIRE TRUCK!



Baby Jack taking it all in!
He's a natural at this parade stuff!



Lightning came by to give Lily a high five!


Vance taking it in!


Me and Lily Mac!
What a precious, precious girl she is!


Parade over.
"Vance, come with me to my daddy's gym!
I'll show you the way!"

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Fun on the Farm...

I never got back to tell about the rest of my weekend, so here it goes!

Saturday after Mom and I had lunch and shopping, I headed to the farm (Megan and Web's) to see my two best galz and their boys! We had SO. MUCH. FUN. Lauren brought chocolate chip muffins and Sonic drinks (um, none of us can pass up a Sonic Happy Hour Cherry Coke)! :-) I brought sausage cream cheese casserole for dinner. We all three went super comfy in yoga pants and had the best time hanging out and having fall fun with the boys!


Baby Jack is growing like a weed! Well... like a little butter ball anyway! He is one chunky monkey and full and overflowing with bright baby smiles! I had a great time cuddling and snuggling! As Leigh Ann would say, "holding him makes my uterus hurt!" LOL!!!!!

Megan was a wonderful hostess! Her home is always unbelievably clean and tidy yet cozy and inviting! It's a wonderful place to hang out and I just want to give her props because I don't know how in the world she keeps things so clean and organized AND works AND is a great wife AND is an all-star mommy, but somehow she does!


And another all-star mommy, house-wife, working woman.... La! (Dang I have some awesome friends!) La was, of course, beautiful and crackin us up! This is one chick I can count on to make me smile! Usually around La I end up in pain because my mouth hurts from smiling and my abs hurt from laughing! :-)

As wonderful as my two beautiful best friend's are, it was the little men in our presence that made us laugh and smile the most! They were TOO. CUTE!

"ROAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" This is Vance's "roar" face and he did it over and over and over! We were laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes! It was especially funny because he was doing this to Dawson back and forth in response to....

...Dawson's "I'm scaring you" face! They were SOOOOO funny making their funny faces and I was excited to actually catch them on camera! These two have the best time playing together!
Although it was meant to be a relaxing, lazy, hang out kind of afternoon, we are all three big planners! We are also all three big play-with-your-kidders! SO... we had a few projects planned as well! Moo provided the art projects:

Dawson and Vance colored Candy Corn pages and then we got the paint out and let them finger paint trees! They had so much fun putting leaves on the trees with their fingers! Vance got so excited he even used his whole hand! It's funny... just like Moo, Vance wasn't afraid to get down and dirty with it! Dawson, on the other hand, like HIS Mama, was very careful and precise and wanted his hands cleaned off immediately! It was so cute! Here are their finished products...

Dawson's is on the left and Vance's is on the right! I thought this was a wonderful idea, Megan!!!
After the art, the playing, and the dinner, it was bath time for the boys! Megan bathed Jack first so he could take a bottle and settle in for the night....

(Like our carefully placed bubbles? Nice, huh? LOL!!!!) Look at his big beautiful blue eyes!!! They're huge and adorable! And... he really is a little Weblet!
After Jack was taken care of it was time for the "big" boys to head to the tub! It was SO funny! They both played and bathed and laughed and laughed! At one point they were laughing so hard, Dawson was literally doubled over with his hands on his little knees! It was SOOOOO funny!
Overall the night couldn't have been more fun! Just good, relaxing fun with some of my favorite people! Thank you La and Moo for such a great night! I love you both and I love your boys so much!!!!