Hall of Halls: we miss you Cooper

Saturday, March 21, 2015

we miss you Cooper

Today is Cooper’s birthday. He would have turned 8 and we should be busy with all his baptism stuff, but we aren’t. Instead we are missing him and counting another year that he’s been gone. Although it is sad, we also have much to rejoice about. He is in heaven, what better place is there to be? And we have an eternal family and I know that through our temple sealing we are able to be together again someday. As we do every year, we celebrated your birthday with sadness and happiness. We miss you Cooper and love you always.

My brother Andy and his wife Elizabeth sent us something to remember Cooper. It is a beautiful jewelry box that is engraved with the words: Brightness of Hope. Those words can also be found on Cooper’s headstone and in the scriptures.

They also gave us a boys silhouette charm that says Cooper on one side…

…and his birthdate on the other side.

I can’t wait to buy a necklace-chain, so that I can wear this charm, but I will probably wait to where it until Carter is a little older and not tugging at my jewelry anymore. This is by far one of the most special gifts I have received, thank you guys and love you all!

Each year my parents send us some money for us to use for celebrating his birthday.

We try to do fun stuff on this day.

Porter went with the Cub Scouts to the gem show and brought home some treasures.

Then I took Porter and Carter to the aquarium and Carter loved the fish. I’m telling you, having another baby boy since losing Cooper has been great for my Spirit. I just soak this baby in.

The penguins were awesome.

I love how Carter kept pointing his little index finger at all he saw. Here’s Porter touching a ray.

Then we watched a 4D movie about sea life, but we had to leave early since Carter screamed when the sea creature popped out of the water! It was funny and sad at the same time how scared he got.

shark tank

Checking out all the sea creatures…

pointing fingers

The rainforest room is hot!

When he wasn’t being toted around we laid him in the wagon.

Then we met up with Laun, Clayton and Marlee who had all the stuff for Cooper’s birthday celebration.

Each year we release balloons for how many years old Cooper would be, so this year was 8!

My goal was to get pictures as we were releasing the balloons in the air, but the timer on my camera caught this:

And the next picture was this (you can barely see a string from a balloon in the far right, middle corner):

Here the kids are watching the balloons fly away and I’m walking back to the camera. Darn it! I needed a faster setting I guess!

We had our traditional flavored milks. We do this because when Clayton and Porter were young and they’d come to the hospital (while Cooper and I were patients) Laun would let them get flavored milks in the cafeteria. I love this tradition.