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!

Monday, April 2, 2012

Treasures

Today I bring you three Christmas Kitchen Treasures!

Three items I got for Christmas and treasure in my kitchen!  I haven't had a chance to blog about them for obvious reasons, but I want to share them with you now!

A couple years ago I decided that my recipe box just wasn't functional and that I much preferred a book!  My mom had already started a book of her own using all kinds of delightful scrapbook paper and stickers to coordinate with all her favorite recipes.  I might get to that point one day, but at the time I just wanted to ditch the recipe box and put my recipe cards in sleeves in a notebook!  Mom joined me in the project and we discovered that you could take a high quality sheet protector, put in a large recipe card, and then use the sewing machine to sew a seam across the page and the put in another recipe card, so one sheet protector would hold two large recipe cards perfectly!  I set up my notebook.  It's just plain white with plain dividers, but it serves its purpose and I enjoy having a book!  It's so much more convenient and all my recipes are protected in a plastic cover in case I splatter or spill!



For Christmas, Mom got me a large recipe binder!  It's made for exactly the project we had in mind with beautiful, already labeled dividers, sheet protectors, and recipe pages!  I love it!  I have been so busy with new house and new baby projects I haven't "moved in" to my new recipe book yet because I really want to take time and enjoy the organizing process, but setting up my notebook is rapidly moving up my "to do" project list as I strike off the necessary projects in order!  I think I might get to it this very weekend!!


Another gift she got me was this great set of melamine bowls!  I have been wanting some for a while now and I found this set at Sam's over Christmas!  I mentioned them to mom and she went and got them for me!  I LOVE them!  I use them almost every day!  They are great because they have a non-skid ring on the bottom, I have one in every size I could possibly need, they nest for easy storage and they have spill proof lids!  These are being added to my "every kitchen must have" list!
And my #1 favorite and another kitchen must have for EVERY KITCHEN is the new food saver she got me!  Are you kidding me?  I was using the zip lock freezer storage system prior to this and it doesn't even compare.  I had no idea how very very easy a food saver was to use and how much I would use it!  I am doing a lot more cooking ahead and freezing and lot less throwing away! 

This past week I made chicken casserole (Chris' favorite meal ever) and I multiplied the recipe by 4.  We had chicken casserole for dinner that night and then I froze 2 dinner size casseroles and 2 lunch size (1/2) casseroles.  Chris pulled one out Saturday for lunch!  I think it's safe to say that we both love our food saver!  :-)

1 comments:

Sarah said...

the food saver is a MUST HAVE! I was throwing away so much food because we'd get the call to leave the house and I'd still have groceries that I had bought to feed us for a few more days. No problem now! I just cook the thawed chicken and vacuum it for refreezing, or seal up the veggies. Cheese that was opened but still half a block left that would mold in our absense? Vaccum and seal and it's the same as having an unopened block of cheese waiting in my fridge for our return. LOVE love love the food saver. It saves food AND money! Mom showed me the bowls. They were really neat. And I have a recipe book too. But like you, I've been saving it so that I could give it the due time and attention and not turn it into a rush project.