Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Late Merry Christmas!

No photos yet, but I thought I'd share the highlights of our Christmas in Florida with the Thorntons.



Low point

Sadie's decision at 8:30 a.m. to roll in poop



High points

Spending Christmas with Mom, Dad, Bill and Toby!

The little pink stocking Santa left for MiniCooper, with cute pink ballet slippers, a musical giraffe and fabulous tiny socks.

Giving mom a 3D photo of MiniCooper. (Don't worry, Cooper family - yours are on their way!)

Toby's famous stuffing (thanks to Sally for the recipe!)

Visiting with the neighbors I used to babysit and getting to see the oldest daughter's preparations for her wedding.

Seeing a photo of Beth Cooper with the cutest baby bump. As one would expect, Beth looks perfectly gorgeous and skinny with a cute little basketball-like bump. Only about four weeks till Baby Tosh makes his or her appearance!

Merry Christmas!

Friday, December 11, 2009

Rewind! Travis, Tristan and Hannah turn 3!

Mom, Dad, Toby and I visited Bill, Hannah, Travis and Tristan to celebrate the kids' 3rd birthday last month. (Sorry for the massive delay in uploading the pictures.) The kids were cute as ever and had a great time eating cake and blowing on their little horns.

Here's Travis going to town on his cake....

Here's Tristan with his jungle-theme hat, a fork in one hand and a horn in the other. (Please ignore the crazy looking lady in the background.)

And here's Hannah learning how to toot her horn!

(I think the kids were more interested in the horns than the cake)



And as Toby calls this photo - birthday bliss. We all had a good time playing with the new puzzles and reading new books. It was the first time all day that all the kids were sitting and playing quietly!



Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Mush

Just wanted to post a little message saying how amazing my beautiful wife is (the prospect of being a Dad seems to be making me a little mushy).

Not only is she doing a fabulous job of caring for and growing our little girl, but she still manages to take care of all the day to day business, guide me through the "American Way" of doing things, impress her bosses at work and come up with fantastic holiday get away ideas (with a little help from Susan).

Thank you for being fab, Baby!



Friday, November 20, 2009

Trying on for size

As soon as we found out Mini Coops' gender I started to scan through the various baby clothing catalogues... well that was more for show really, you see, I already knew where I was going to purchase the first few outfits. Metallica.com! (PS if you hadn't already guessed, it is I, Coops, again.)

After keeping track of the little package as it made its way east from sunny CA for nearly a week, the FedEx man finally delivered the box of treats. A little baby dinner set and two little (very cute) onesies. I am thrilled with the purchase - not so sure whether Krista joins in my enthusiasm though!

"Trying on for size"

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Sadie's Little Sister

We told Sadie that she is having a little sister - she seems pleased, doesn't she?!


Sunday, November 15, 2009

Toby's latest masterpiece

Toby spent most weekends these last few months transforming a tiny, dark, scary, spider-infested closet at the back of our garage into a brilliant, wide-open, light-filled room. (Toby's playroom/Man Cave to be exact.)

I have been so impressed seeing everything he's been doing - including demolition (except for the part where he almost gave himself a concussion), water mitigation, electrical work (except for the part where he blew the fuses in the house), framing, laying the floor, hanging drywall, hanging doors, etc. etc. He did the whole thing, soup to nuts!

We don't have a good "before" photo, so just imagine a tiny, dark, scary, spider-infested closet.

The closet was behind this wall - you can see the old door on the right to access the closet. Toby knocked down this wall, along with the ceiling on the other side.

I missed taking photos of a couple of weekends of demo and wiring, but here is Toby part way through the drywall phase (which, coincidentally, was also the beard phase).

Here it is after the drywall was mostly up, the door to the garage was hung and most of the flooring was down.



The drywall was incredibly heavy, and I was not helpful, so Toby did all the muscle work himself!


Ta-da! The finished product looks fabulous!



Even the gross old window looks great after Toby framed it out and cleaned it up!


Well done, Toby! I am so impressed, and now you have your own no-girls-allowed hideout.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Congratulations Michelle and Richard!

Michelle and Richard are the proud new parents of Richard Rawls Barnett III. I think he's going to be called Richard Rawls, thought it might just be Rawls. Stay tuned. By all appearances, the whole family is doing great!