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!

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Baby Shower # 1

I has been over a week since I posted, which really surprises me!  It feels like I have been SO busy.  I have been overwhelmed by the desire to "nest," but because we are planning to move from our town house into a "real" house here in a few weeks, it's pretty hard to set up for baby!  Luckily Mom coached me up this weekend and I have spent several days now happily doing what I can to get ready for Ava Grace and I feel much better!  One of the things that has occupied my time has been going through all the wonderful gifts we have received from friends and family!  I have been organizing, removing tags, will be washing little clothes soon, and all that fun stuff!  So, for my return to the blog I need to rewind and tell you how we got all these sweet baby things and update you on what we've been up to the past week!

We'll start with baby shower #1
My sister-in-law, Sarah, planned a beautiful shower for me last weekend, so we all headed to Chattanooga for a weekend full of family and fun!

I love the wreath that Sarah made!  It greeted us on the front porch when we arrived at the shower!

This is a picture of our bedding.  I wanted to put it on here for two reasons.  One, to show you how everything at the shower matched the bedding - it was so cute!  Also, to say that we got our bedding at this shower and I was so relieved!  I am so blessed to have a husband that enjoys being involved in every aspect of our family and parenting, right down to decorating the nursery!  It took us a while to find bedding that we both loved!  There were several that we liked, but we wanted something that we both would really be excited about!  Then, when we found it, it was out of stock! lol.  So, my sweet friends Moo and La came to rescue, finding the bedding on babysupermall.com and sharing my concern about bedding with my mom.  I was very surprised to get my complete bedding set from Mom at this shower and relieved to mark it off our list!  :-)


The strawberry cake (my favorite!) matched the bedding and theme of the shower decor!  Isn't this the prettiest cake ever!?!?  It was just as yummy as it looks!

 And of course there were girly balloons and baby things all around the house... I thought this clothes line was a cute shower idea!
 Sarah had also prepared a lot of WONDERFUL food!

 We planned the shower date so Lily could come too!  I think she'd kill us if we went to Chattanooga without her... especially to "Bentlee's house."  This trip was extra special because of the shower, but also because...

 ...Lily was invited to spend the night!
These two girls have SO. MUCH. FUN. together!
They did all the fun sleepover things like stay up late, drink caffeinated drinks, and eat lots of chocolate!

 Here I am with Sarah - the hostess with the mostest!

 ...and here I am opening gifts - with lots of help!  :-)  Kenslee, Brady, and the big girls were big helpers as I unwrapped all the wonderful gifts for Ava Grace!

We got tons of cute clothes, necessities like diapers, wipes, burp cloths, toys, etc, our pack and play, our swing, and our bedding!  Lily even got in on the action with some crazy socks, a monogrammed bag (gotta love thirty-one), books about a new baby sister, stencil and art fun, and all kinds of goodies!

Overall, it was a WONDERFUL day with friends and family!  I am so thankful for everything we received!


3 comments:

Sarah said...

I love the wreath Sarah made! Great shower and I'm so glad Lily got to come! Thanks for the post so I could "be there" through your pictures since I had to miss it in person!
Love you all!

Allyson said...

Yay for baby showers! I love that you and Lily match with your black leggings and black tights. :) And pay attention to how Sarah made the wreath--that's the same way my sister-in-law made Henley's tutu on a ribbon to tie around her that turned out sooo cute!

Valerie said...

It was so much fun, wasn't it?! So was shower #2. Can't wait to read your blog post on that one. Love you!