Miss Callie Jo our beautiful baby girl turned four years old today. We had a fun little party for her and for Aunt Jasmine and Uncle Patrick’s birthdays at Grandma’s house on Sunday. Of course the party had to have a pinata (ask Callie how we got the candy into the burro pinata…. she would love to tell you…).
She came home with nine new Barbie dolls. We have definitely entered the Barbie phase of existence at our house. This is her haul from the party alone. This pile does not include all the Princess Barbies and other Barbies she has already collected for Christmas and rewards.
Callie dressed up in her I am 4 dress today and took treats to her friends at daycare. Then after Rob and I got done at work Callie picked McDonald’s as the birthday dinner place to be. Yum, Yum…..
She is not exclusive in her toy choices so I made she a dress based on her other love Strawberry Shortcake complete with Strawberry’s green and white leggings. (All the dresses in this post were ones I made for her… you can get the pattern over at Lil Blue Boo for two of the three dresses. The third (purple polka dot) is just a variation of a pillowcase dress).
All in all Callie says she had a good birthday and wants to say “Thank you, thank you and I love you” to everyone that sent her birthday wishes and presents.
And all things considered we think we are pretty lucky to be blessed with Miss Callie Jo as part of our family. We love her and most of the time want to keep her (the other times we just ship her to grandma’s house…..).
Craig only has three more school days left until he is done with first grade. Everyone at our house knows the countdown since he reminds us every morning. The kids are excited for their summer adventures. But first some cuteness from Craig’s First Grade Program at school yesterday. All the kids were so cute and did a great job. Callie and I really enjoyed watching them.
It is never easy to watch a loved one battle cancer or mental illness. I know from our family’s experiences the tole it takes on the people that are caring for/loving/sharing their lives with some one who is battling either of these things. I can only imagine what it would be like to be the person living with these things.
My whole life has been filled to some degree with this bright shining ray of redheaded goodness know as Aunt Julie. She has not had an easy life by any one’s standards as she has lived with mental illness since childhood that left her dependent on family members who loved her but did know always understand the demons that haunted her experiences. She always tried, though, to live her life full of love and kindness towards those around her despite her own struggles in this life. I know that her siblings, siblings-in laws, and her nieces and nephews all have great memories of our times with her. This past year as we have watched her endure an added struggle with terminal breast cancer has not been an easy thing for Julie to experience nor had it been easy for any of the family members, neighbors, and friends that have been blessed with the opportunity to know and learn from Julie. But is it one that I guarantee everyone that has know and loved Julie felt privileged to be allowed a part in. I know I would be a far different person if I had not had the blessing of growing up with Julie as a part of all the important events in my immediate and extended familys’ lives.
A lot of my earliest memories include her and some of my favorite childhood memories are filled of times that Aunt Julie was sneaking candy to me and my siblings, or tickling us until we felt like we were going to pee our pants, or taking us on grand bus adventures around the city to various exciting destinations while she was staying with us or we were visiting her.
My family was privileged to have her living at my parents house for the last several years until the cancer got to bad and she had to move into a care center. For me this meant that my own children got to have a lot of shared memories with Aunt Julie as well since they/we spend a lot of time at grandma and grandpa’s house. My kids will feel the loss of this great lady just like I will. I am glad that they got to know her and love her in such a way that now they will miss her and notice her absence. I think that you can know that a person lived an extraordinary life when the people that loved them can feel their absence in that kind of way. Those are the people who helped to shape who we become and truly impact our lives. For me and my family Julie was one such person. Not all the memories are of easy times. It would not be accurate to say that having Julie in our lives always made things easier but I can say that having Julie in our lives definitely enhanced and blessed us in such a way that made all those tougher times well worth the struggle.
I will miss you Jules and will carry your memory with me always. I hope that you have more peace in your new existence that you had in this one.
My name is Craig Hooper. I having been waiting on your prediction today hoping that you would get the right answer. I am sick of winter. I hate it. There wasn’t even any good snow storms at my house to build snowmen with this year. That is the ONLY good thing about winter and since that isn’t happening I want it to be OVER. Please go back in your hole and come out again with the right answer.
For some reason I have felt like sewing this month (using up all that spare time I should spending cleaning up my house). I found a couple of really cute clothing patterns created by Ashley over at Lil Blue Boo that I purchased off her etsy site. I have been using them to make some fun shirts and dresses for Craig and Callie. (If anyone has old t-shirts that they don’t want anymore I am willing to take them off your hands to make Craig and Callie more cute clothes out of recycled tees.)
I used Ashley’s Sienna dress pattern to make this dress for Callie and I modified the pattern to make a shirt for Craig too. Callie is liking all the new dresses she is getting out of this deal and Mommy is liking that dresses actually stay up on her (unlike most pairs of pants I have tried to buy her in the past two years….).
We also took the kids on a nice snowy hike this month for some exercise. They seemed to have fun and we kept it short so they would not whine about the cold too much. Callie even hiked in one of her new dresses.
So the kids have been trying to come up with their New Years Resolutions.
Craig has two of them: to earn his yellow belt in Karate in 2010 (I think I will copy this one since I am liking Karate as much as Craig) and to listen to Mommy when she is talking normal (cuz apparently my yelling gives him a headache— what a coincidence me having to yell at him to get him to do what I ask gives me a headache too….).
Callie’s is to stop hitting and kicking her parents so much (valiant goal- I think). Where she learned violence is the answer to her problems I have no idea but that child spends a lot of time in her bedroom because of it.
Here’s to a quieter and violence free 2010 in the Hooper house.
So we have ventured out to do more Holiday things then usual this year. We kicked it off (hahaha) with the WestWind Karate Christmas party on Dec 11th featuring Santa Claus. The kids had fun chatting with Santa Claus’s “helper” Santa and letting him know what they wanted for Christmas. I managed to convince them that Santa was going through hard economic times this year so they only had two items each on their “Santa” lists.
We followed that up with a Ward Christmas party the morning of Dec 12th featuring no other then Craig in the angel choir…. (notice the halo and the bored look on his face). This is the first year he has made it on stage so yeah for progress….
I followed that up with an evening of The Forgotten Carols with Miss Jasmine (Thanks Jaz it was a great night). Loved the songs as usual.
We were treated to a special ballet performance by Callie’s ballet class on Dec 18th (see video in separate post) and she dazzled.
On December 19th Miss Jasmine and I took Callie to the Mountain West Ballet’s The Nutcracker. The Mountain West Ballet casts ballet students from a lot of the area dance school to preform in the various roles. The woman that owns Callie’s dance school helped with the choreography for the show. Callie loved it and even tried to dance along with the performers at the end.
After the ballet we grabbed Craig and the Bohannon family and headed out for the ZooLights at Hogle Zoo. We had a lovely time looking at the lights and freezing our buns off.
Then on Dec 20th we headed downtown with Jasmine and Jared for some Temple Square Lights (aka freezing the buns off part two). We had fun (even if Craig denies it) and we got to listen to the Christmas Story with the full size figures on display.
All in all we have had a busy and fun Christmas season and the kids can’t wait cuz Christmas is less then a week away…… more pictures to come of Christmas Day fun (I know I know everyone is waiting with baited breath).
Performing for your viewing pleasure. In her debut performance… Callie Jo in Ms Jill’s class performance of Holly Jolly Christmas. (Disclaimer: Craig was assisting with the video by constantly bumping my arm…. sorry it is so wobbily.)
Miss Callie Jo (there are two Callies in ballet class so ours goes by the stage name Callie Jo) was very excited for her first ballet performance ever for all the parents and siblings of Ms Jill’s ballet students in the 3-5 year old ballet class. She entertained Craig and I with dance greatness on Friday Dec 18th. Enjoy.
Callie Jo, Jasmine, and I also attended the Mountain West Ballet’s The Nutcracker on Saturday Dec 19th. Callie was fascinated by the dancers and has vowed that she will one day dance on The Nutcracker stage. Watch out world Callie Jo is coming at ya.
So I have been holding out and putting it off but I finally became one of “those” moms.
You know the ones of which I speak. The taxi driver moms that rush around all for the sake of getting their kids to fun (expensive) places.
I now have a Karate Kid who requires shuttle services twice a week for a year….
And a Ballerina that is committed to once a week until June….
So now I know what I will be doing every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the next year. But at least they are both loving it and look so darn cute doing it. I guess the taxi driving is not so bad if I get to crack up three times a week watching them learn.
