Where's The Luke?!

So as you can see, the kids are getting around very well and are out of their minds sometimes! They have figured out that the laundry basket is a great toy, especially when you flip it over. And, maybe most importantly, they have discovered how much fun the dog dishes are (okay, maybe not that fun for us!).

All three are getting everywhere, especially Jackson and Lucas. We are figuring out pretty quickly that no place is uninteresting and no cord untouchable. And when we turn our heads for just a sec, mostly to rescue one child, another has dashed off to do who knows what!

Case in point: Chloe had a, uh-hem, accident the other day and we were taking care of her. Kristen took her upstairs and I helped with something just to the edge of the stairs. As I turned back, to see the boys (left in the middle of the living room) I see 2 sets of mini legs and feet disappear into the laundry room! I sprinted over but was a hair too late: Lucas was diving into the dogs water bowl as Jackson was rolling around with the empty food bowl! Needless to say, on a night when that was not supposed to be a bath night, there were free baths for all my friends!

The babies are doing amazing. It astounds me how much they change from day to day and week to week. We are pretty lucky to have had these three come into our lives.

9 Months!

The babies are now 9 months and doing great. We are starting to get peeks at what life is going to be like VERY shortly. The babies are starting to move around a lot. Chloe still likes to stay fairly stationary, but we are working on her with that. Knowing how quickly she has picked up everything else, we hope she picks up what we are trying to teach her here. Who knows, though, Chloe could be one to not crawl and just go to walking.

The boys, though, are crazy! You leave them one place and turn around for a second, they are in a different spot. They haven't left any rooms yet, tumbled down any stairs or anything, but we see where that is about to come into play. While it is a little crazy to think about with the three, it is also a riot to think about. I mean, three little mini human beings going around cracking up and getting into whatever?! That just makes me laugh....very hard!

Speaking of cracking up, they do a lot of that now with each other. They are playing a lot now with each other. Jackson gets all of them going by just making eye contact and laughing his great laugh. That gets the others going and then the whole house is laughing. Nothing like a house full of babies laughing.

So about 2 weeks ago, we celebrated the one year anniversary that Kristen went into the hospital for the rest of her pregnancy (not the kind of anniversary that is celebrated with a huge party!). Very crazy to think about that. I mean, she went in there at only 20 weeks along, and was in there for around 15 weeks. Unreal! I though deployment was a challenge, but I won't be complaining about that any time soon. It is crazy to think about how that could have gone. The babies had to make it to 24 weeks to even be viable. They had to make it to 28 weeks to have a 90% chance of having nothing majorly wrong with them. And they made it to 35 weeks! And the best part about it? We had NOTHING to do with it! We believe all of it was do to the power of God and prayer. We learned that not only were people praying all over the country, but all over the world. And God heard and answered the prayers!

Does that mean that our faith would have been pointless if they hadn't made it? Absolutely not. As the three dudes it the fire pit (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) said, "Our God can save THEM, our God will save THEM, but even if he doesn't, he's still God." So true even today.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone. I hope you all have enjoyed your holidays and rung in the new year in style last night. Us? We ate some Chinese and watched Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and, ironically, fell asleep. We were and are still exhausted from our whirlwind trip to Atlanta with the crew for Christmas and got back here on Thursday afternoon.

Overall, the trip was a huge success, including the flights. We were actually able to make it work pretty well, thanks in no small part to having Kristen's mom Linda with us to take care of one of the babies. I meant to take pictures of the whole plane ride, but as you can imagine, I had my hands full. Some of the highlights of the trip (goods and bads):

-We found out it was a good idea to actually arrive 2.5 hours early to due unexpected diaper blowouts.
-TSA......wasn't too bad. A bit slow in Seattle but overall very helpful for us (probably because the boys and I showed up in just diapers and skivvies, respectively).
-The trio are pretty good sports about everything. Be it getting up way early to staying in strange places, they do pretty well.
-Kristen was able to sit next to a guy who looked like my brother circa 2006 (shaggy hair and beard) on the plane ride out. Chloe had the guy freaked out; he didn't know what to make of her. At one point, she screamed (usual, not mad, just Chloe) and the guy, who had just dozed off, almost hit his head on the overhead due to jumping out of his skin. Needless to say, he was pretty happy to get off the plane.
-On the first plane ride, we sat down and a guy immediately dinged one of the flight attendants and wanted a new seat. "There are just so many babies around here." He then looked back at me and said, "No offense, they look like great kids." I said, "Uh, huh." He then looks at all three and says, "So you have twins, eh?" I look at all three, look at him and say, "Yep, all three are twins!" He leaves.
-The flight attendants on both flights had a blast with all three and were a huge help. They wanted to hold all of them, which was cool. I think Jackson (flight time MVP) came away with a few phone numbers.
-I got to deal with many diaper blow outs on the planes. No fun! Lucas successfully peed on a wall in the bathroom (true) and Jackson kicked his dirty diaper all over the floor (true). Don't worry, I cleaned up everything with soap and water, boxing the little human beings onto the changing table with my butt. Oh, and you can not get poop out of clothes with baby wipes and hand sanitizer. Found that out, much to Kristen's discontent!

Again, overall, it was a great trip. Saw a lot of family who hadn't met the three and also a lot of friends who hadn't. Kristen's family hosted an open house for many friends who came over. Very cool to see a lot of people who have been praying for us for a year now for these three.

Hopefully we can get some rest and get back to normal around here. Looks like an excited year is ahead for us. Hope it is for you too! And if you want to see more pictures, I'll upload a few more to my FB account.

Key West, 6 months, and a Pumpkin Patch

So.....it has been a while. I could keep on apologizing for not updating this more regularly, but life has just been a little crazy. Here's a recap for the month of October (so far).

I went out of town on the 1st of October for 2 weeks on a detachment that ultimately brought me to Key West, FL for some flight training. Along the way, we stopped by Dallas to do a flyover for the Oklahoma-U. of Texas football game (the Red River Shootout). In a word, it was AWESOME! After doing the flyover, we raced to the stadium where we watch the rest of the game from the sideline (highly recommended). That is one experience I won't soon forget. My night was spent sitting in the hotel restaurant and talking with people from all over. Great times and met some pretty cool people.

We left Key West on Sunday and landed in beautiful Key West, where many Navy air training exercises take place. It was a pretty interesting time, being away from the family for the first time and getting to concentrate on my job. I had almost forgotten what that was like. But while I love the job, I definitely missed Kristen and the kiddos.

While gone, Kristen held down the fort like the true rock star she is. Getting much needed help from her cousin, Chelsea, and my mom, Kristen held everything together as she always does. I was a little nervous about the return, wondering if the babies would remember me. I was especially nervous about Chloe, who has become very suspicious of people she does not know (crazy screaming usually takes place). But that was all put aside after about a second. Once I took off my sunglasses, Chloe wouldn't stop smiling and cooing. Hollywood Jack put on his best ear to ear smile, and Lucas just started laughing and wanted to play right away. Very, very cool. While this Key West trip will fade into a distant memory soon enough (sorry, fellas), coming home to see those kids and Kristen won't soon be forgotten.

This past weekend, we took the kids out to a pumpkin patch to get some pumpkins and take a few pictures. Good times.

The kids are now just over 6 months old and are doing very well. All weigh about 20 pounds, with Lucas and Chloe coming in over that mark. They definitely like their meals! Enjoy the pics. If you want to see a few more, I posted some more to my facebook account.

First Video

Okay, Speilberg I am not, but I may be right there with the Blair Witch Project dudes. The below link is to the first video I have captured of the crazy trio. At almost 5 months (I don't know what happened to months 3 or 4; makes me a little sad to think that high school will be here before I know it :( ) the babies are now getting their cereal a couple of times a day. Has that slowed them down on their milk? Heck no! These are some growing babies. Last check (last week) Chloe and Luke weighed in around 17 and a half pounds and The Littlest Jack was around 16.5. Needless to say, they like their cereal (along with ice cream, Big Macs, and Frosted Flakes).

This video captures some of the hysterics, but it doesn't get it all. I'll work on that. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF4bze8g5yM

Baby(S) Dedication

The last Sunday in August turned into Dedication Sunday for the Cooper Trio at our new church home, New Covenant. We were happy to have a few family members there, as well as some great friends, but were disappointed that both my parents and Kristen's dad could not be there (one of the not so fun parts of being so far apart from family). It was a great Sunday, though, and the babies were on their best behavior up in front of everyone. The highlight of the moment was when a woman prayed for Chloe, and Chloe IMMEDIATELY responded loudly, letting the kind lady know that she approved of what she said (we think??!) Here are some pics from the day.

I took a couple of days off from work and, combined with Monday off, had a 5 day weekend. But it has turned into anything but a 5 day weekend off! We have taken the babies all over the place, letting them enjoy the good weather we have had and people out and about (mostly all positive comments this weekend, which was nice for a change!). They are changing at such a rapid pace (Luke and Jack have started to get the hang of rolling over now; Chloe-not so much) that it is good to be here for a stretch. But man is it some work. I am worn out. My hat is definitely off to Kristen for the work she does day in and out with the babies. I think I will try to blog a "typical" day for her. It is pretty crazy. And I have to upload some video of them eating their oatmeal. It is a trip!

4 Months!

Yes, I know, it has been a couple of weeks since my last post. Things have been pretty crazy. Currently, I am working on being the project manager of a $60k hangar renovation. In other words, I was VOLUNTOLD to be in charge of EA Ball, which is about as low as it gets! Not too much flying lately, a lot of phone calls and such. Basically, I have a regular job again. NOOOOOOOOOO! Oh well. This fun will end in a week, and I can get back to the real world. Oh, wait, that means 3 crazy babies. What in the.....

So Saturday, the babies hit 4 months. I still can't believe that there are three babies in the house, let alone have now been in this world for 4 months.

And they have completely changed! The other day, I bought a scale to weigh myself, then me holding the babies (poor man's doctor scale). A week before they were 4 months their stats were: Jack: 14 lbs 6 oz, Chloe: 15 lbs 2 oz, Lucas: 14 lbs, 12 oz. HUGE. At least there is some consolation in the fact that they eat over 40 oz of formula every day (still fun to make).

They are doing some funny things now. You can get Jack to laugh and smile all the time now. It is especially good in church when he decides to laugh very loudly at everything-good times. Chloe is really the same. She definitely has the things she likes and dislikes and isn't afraid to say. But she is so fun to get "talking" and smiling. Once you get her going, you can't really get her to stop. And then the Luke. That kid is going to be WILD. He is trying to run before he can even crawl. He smiles all the time as well. And feeding him is a trick now because he is so long and while burping him he throws his body everywhere (I am waiting for him to give me a black eye, or launch himself over the couch). Crazy stuff.

And one of the best parts? They now basically sleep through the night! That's right. The boys have done it for about 4 weeks now, and Chloe, after some trial and error, is doing about the same. She may wake up once or so, but goes back to sleep very easily. Definitely good for Mama, who is having some long days keeping up with them.....and they can't even move yet.

Here are some picks of us with the kids at my squadron's Change of Command, and a few others. Enjoy.