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!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Fall cook out!

Every year my Mom and I get bit with the Fall bug!  When this happens, Mom always starts planning a "bon fire" for cooler weather!  It's kind of her thing.  Where the 4th of July is my Dad's big "get everyone together" thing, Mom prefers the cool fall weather for a low key night by a fire!  :-)  I love it!  So this past weekend we packed up and headed to Chattanooga for just such a night!

Lily and I helped Grandmommy get everything ready!  She made from scratch caramel sauce for dipping granny smith apples in - SO yummy!  Of course there were s'mores and hot dogs and chips and Mom's from scratch oh-so-good chili and my Aunt brought brownies that were delish!!

Kenlsee had a big time!  Now that she can walk, she is all over the place and into everything!  We spent some time on the back porch while we waited for everyone to arrive.  :-)  This is pretty much the look she wears all the time - she is nothing but smiles and laughs and squeals of delight!

We carried everything out to the pond in the gator... all three girls were all about riding (and driving) the gator every time we had to make a trip to get food or wood or ... well.... anything!  Papaw, of course, was perfectly fine with the extra passengers "helping" him with everything!

 Anytime we have a get together Daddy gets a cooler and fills it with "the good ice" from the restaurant.  You know the kind I'm talking about?  The little pellets of crunchy goodness???  :-)  Yeah, well, we had lots of "good ice" and Kenslee was all about that too!

 We had so much fun and it was the prefect day - as you can see by our attire.  It was warm, but with a cool breeze.  As the sun went down, everyone was comfee by the fire.

I love little feet!  These are Lily's.  She had shorts on earlier in the day, but on a trip to "put our feet in the pool" with Grandmommy... somehow Bentlee and Lily came back soaked to the waste and giggling like little wild girls should! lol.  They had a blast! 

Jay and Anne came down from Murfreesboro to see their daughter Erin who lives and works in Chattanooga, so the three of them drove over and joined us for the bon fire too!  It was fun showing them where I grew up and visiting over hot dogs and s'mores! 

Once we broke out the food and beverages, Kenslee pretty much started her rotation from chair to chair and person to person sampling from each plate and cup.  She pretty much did this until she fell asleep, lol!

The "big girls" might as well have been in in their own world!  They picnicked in the back of the gator, played hide and seek while the sun was up and flash light tag while the sun was down.  They even went in and out of the house playing outside and then going in to play American Girl dolls and then back out again! 

We ended the night with extra servings of dessert.  We circled closer around the fire and broke out sweat shirts and blankets as the temperature dropped and we told stories of when we were little and when the girls were little and we laughed.  It was so much fun.  We can't wait to do it again!

2 comments:

Sarah said...

great pictures! Thanks for posting this! I feel like I was a part of it now, sort of. Hate that we missed it. I told Malcolm maybe next year we could take time off in October, if you can later, so we can be there for the bonfire and then I can go with you and Sarah and Mom and the girls to the Bell Buckle craft show. Can we tentativly plan on that?

Valerie said...

Great post, Meagan! We can do it again this Friday or Saturday. Ya'll come!