Cooper in the House

It was finally time on Monday night (26th) to go to the hospital and get Cooper here! Slowly but surely Mandy progressed and after unbelievable patients, courage and love Mandy delivered Cooper at 3:30am Thursday morning (29th). They are both recovering and getting better quickly. Cooper weighed 7.5lbs and was 20 inches long. Thank you everyone for your love and prayers...we needed every drop!

The Nursery

This post is full of pictures of the process ERICK went through to make the perfect NURSERY! Erick, you did such an AMAZING job! All that HARD WORK paid off....and now COOPER has the PERFECT room to come home to! THANKS babe! It meant the WORLD to us that you did it!

The inspiration for this wall came from Cooper's CAR SEAT of all things! I fell in love with the AEGYLE pattern and so we decided to duplicate it. Little did we know, Erick would be painting this wall SEVERAL times over! LOL! Let's just say we learned A LOT along the way!

First of course, is taping. The great people at Lowes assured us the best way to go was to use this green "FROF TAPE"...... apparently it has adhesive that seals it to the wall to prevent any bleeding. But from our experience, let us put out the WARNING......this tape bled worse than any tape we have EVER used, and we have done A LOT of painting! STAY AWAY FROM THE FROG TAPE!!!!!!! Erick painted all the diamonds and they all bled! He had to RE-TAPE and START OVER! Poor guy!

One of my FAVORITE qualities Erick has is his OPTIMISM! He seriously has a way of making EVERYTHING so much FUN! We had a blast with this project together and made so many MEMORIES!

Don't these diamonds look PERFECT?!?! After the "FROG TAPE" bled so bad, a good friend, Shiane, told us of the silicone trick. Tape the wall.....then get a silicone based caulk.....spread it on the edges of the tape.....let it dry.....then paint....peel tape....PERFECTt lines! It's A LOT of WORK! But so so so WORTH it! Look at those PERFECT lines! Way to go hubs!

Next Erick taped for the PINSTRIPE. On the car seat this strip was BLACK and looks so cute. We didn't think twice about it and threw that black paint on.......this is how it turned out.

Now don't get me wrong, this wall is ROCKIN COOL! Just a little INTENSE for a baby room. LOL! We laughed that it looks like a chain link fence. We agreed....the black was too BOLD and had to GO!

...Good Bye Black...HELLO WHITE!

This picture says it all! LOL! To get rid of the black Erick PRIMED the black away, then RE-TAPED and RE-TOUCHED all the diamonds, then RE-TAPED for the pin stripe, and PAINTED it cream. WHOA! That was a lot of WORK!

HOOAH!!! I think that's how they say it in the Army. =0)

DUN ... DUN ... DUN...... And the FINISHED PRODUCT!!!! We had so much dang fun putting together the crib and rocking chair! We love our little NURSERY and can't wait to bring COOPER home!

THANKS again HUBBY! You win the GREATEST HUBBY award for all your hard work in this room! I LOVE YOU!

Baby Belly Pics

July 25th is just around the corner and Erick and I can hardly wait to get little Cooper here! Here are a few baby belly pictures to show how my belly has grown!

Whoa! Another Post in One Month? No Way!

Hey everybody! So I've had some down time lately and haven't been feeling so well. What a better time than to catch up on all your fun blogs, and add to mine! I know it's been like forever since I was at all into blogging, but I think I've caught the blog bug again! =0) And I actually have fun pictures to upload.

A few weeks ago Erick and I went camping with our good friends Ashley, Eli and their two adorable kids! We went up to Tonto National Forest near Payson. It was so beautiful and so refreshing to feel like it was fall! Check out these pics.....

This is Eli, Ashley, Jaxon, and they also have little Ty (not shown here). We love love love love loved camping with you guys and had such a blast! Can't wait to do it again!

Me, Jax, and Ty got to play lots. They are the cutest boys ever!

Saturday morning we cooked a killer breakfast; bacon, eggs, and blueberry pancakes! Yummmmm!

Erick, Eli and Jax cooked the bacon over the fire. It seriously was the yummiest bacon I've ever had!

Just hangin out in our tent.

This is the cutest mess ever! LOL! Those are some messy hands!

I got to hang out with the kids while everyone else set up and took down camp. Lucky me!!!!

This was a gorgeous view we just had to stop and see! Aren't parts of AZ beautiful! Who knew???

On Saturday we found a cute little lake, took out the canoe, and went fishing. Erick and Eli found this Bald Eagle while fishing and caught some amazing pics of it! Erick was pretty stoked! That was the first time he's ever seen one!

Now that Erick is through the hardest part of Dental School we're finding we actually have time to take some adventures! This one was amazing and beautiful and we loved it! We can't wait to see more of AZ and enjoy it while we're here! Any ideas for us? Let us know!

Fall Fun!

Happy Halloween!!!!

The night before Halloween Erick and I had a blast carving these pumpkins together! We watched scary movies and got creative! It was so much fun! Erick did the one on the Left and I did the one on the Right.

Then Halloween Night we were invited to a Murder Mystery Party at our good friends Jessica and Nate Larsen's house. Their party was absolutely fabulous! Thanks again guys! We had so much fun!

I dressed up as a dead prom date...

This is my good friend Val, isn't her costume great?!?!

Here is Erick, Todd, and Mike...They were all so into character! We had a blast!

FUN with Lynsi and Steve!!!!

Lynsi and Steve and their two adorable girls, Lydia and Tana, came to visit us last weekend! We had so much fun with them! We miss you guys already!

Steve and Erick went golfing. This is Steve being CRAZY! I think this picture rocks!

My sexy hubby rocking the golf course!

We had a blast playing at parks, swimming, playing baseball, playing games, eating good food....and celebrating with Steve for finishing his huge P.E. exam! Congratulations Steve! We're so so proud of you!

Here's just one last shot of Erick playing with Tana at the park. How adorable!

(P.S. Lynsi! I just realized I don't have any cute pics of me and you together! What a shame! Next time eh?)

Thanks again for coming! We love you guys so so much and miss you tons already!