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Christmas Day Pictures 2014

Christmas 2013

Not as many pictures this year, but a fun time was had by all.

Merry Christmas!

Make-shift Christmas card

It has been hectic to say the least this holiday season. With Ana's birthday, Michael's birth (Mom recovering from major surgery), and school functions, the Christmas cards this year did not go out. The plan is to send a baby announcement before the end of the year.....

So this morning Chad snapped this pic of everyone dressed up for their school parties. My favorite is th matching pjs from Nana and the elf slippers! Michael's hoodie has reindeer ears, but it's hard to tell in his 'dear God don't drop me' pose above.

So Merry Christmas from the Hooper kids: Ana, Michael, Daniel and Charlie.

Welcome Baby Michael

Michael Edward Hooper arrived right on time
9:54am 12/6/13
Weighing 7 pounds 8 ounces
20 1/4 inches long.

Here are a few pictures from over the weekend.

Michael is Born

Michael Meets the Family

Michael Headshots

Christmas Decorating

With Michael's arrival just days after Thanksgiving, we had to speed up the Christmas decorating this year. Here are a few shots of the kids "Helping" mom out in the Den.

Christmas Decorating

Cub Scouts

 

I was not a cub scout, so I cannot say Charlie is a second generation boy scout. But Nana, Granddan, Brad and I spent nearly every summer I can remember at Boy Scout camp, or family camp, across the lake. I know how to make a good fire, cook on cast iron and do some awesome basket weaving from my time at camp Tamarac as an honorary boy scout. Later on I was involved in girl scouts and did some fun things like a two week trip to Colorado to hike and ride horses.

So tonight Charlie begins his journey in scouting, and so does Chad! Chad has agreed to help out the den mother this year when he can and as the boys get older hopefully we can both take a more active role in the troop 140. For now Charlie is learning "Do your Best!"

Primrose School Pictures - Fall 2013

Who forgot School Picture day for the Littles? This Mom. Yep, I think it was the first day Daniel went back to preschool after having his tonsils out. I was just so happy he was feeling better I must have spaced out on the actual day. It looks like they took Ana's picture twice. In the Siblings photo she has on her "I Heart Nana" T shirt. At least the yellow matches the stained shirt Daniel was wearing that day. I swear we drop more cash on school pictures....

Primrose School Pictures - Fall 2013

Ana's Second Birthday

Ana's Second Birthday

Happy Birthday Baby Girl! We celebrated Ana's birthday twice this week. Once on Wednesday, her actual birthday, and again on Friday Evening with family. Stephen, Gracie, Mary Alice, Tyler and JP came over for dinner, cake and presents. So far it appears that her favorite gifts are the baby stroller from Nana and the box of stuffed puppy dogs from Grandmommy and Granddaddy. She looks like such a big girl now!

King Charlie the Football Safari Superhero

Lately the kids have enjoyed playing dress up.  They will disappear into the basement for a while, then emerge as some mashup of the myriad of costumes we have acquired over the years.  Ang and I haven't seen some of the items in years, so it's always a surprise what they come up with.

Today Charlie came up to me and proclaimed, "I'm a Football Safari Superhero!"

Patron Saint of Fathers

Charlie's religion homework, make a saint card for next week (All Saints Day). He picked Saint Joseph immediately. I asked why and he said, "because he is a daddy, Jesus' daddy!" I melted :)

Mom's Babymoon - I mean extended work trip

A two week training class for IBM? Ugh. No wait... a two week trip to Tampa with a weekend in Clearwater beach. Okay! Officially I am 31 weeks along with Baby Michael and this will be my last work trip before he makes his appearance. So this is my working babymoon. I wish that I didn't have to be away from Chad and the kids for 11 days straight! But spending yesterday with a icy drink, a good book and the view below was very, very nice.... Thank you to Chad and Nana for running the ship back home. Now lets hope I can finish up all of the training and work required while distracted by the beautiful weather, ocean and sand. At least the view from my hotel desk is nice.....

Happy Momma, relaxin'

View from my chair

Giggles on the swing

Daniel and Ana enjoy the Tire swing in the backyard. I just love those little voices!

Snow Bunny - Ready!

Not even 30 days ago she was in a bathing suit running around the back yard. This snow bunny is ready to head to school in 30 degree, flaky weather!

Cheers from the Tub Club!

Supporting Miss Denise - Komen Walk 2013

The Primrose teachers and staff are like a second family. Truly these women are the "Other Mommies" to our little ones, especially Daniel and Ana having started out in the infant rooms at Primrose. Through the years we've come to know many of the teachers and they have supported us with Charlie's Cancer journey and fund raising events. Last year practically our whole Light the Night team was comprised of Primrose staff! Miss Denise, with the early toddlers, was one of our supporters. Denise was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. She and Charlie were on the same meds and had the same "tubies & bump (port)" for much of the first half of 2013. We are happy to say that Miss Neese is doing great and is a Breast Cancer SURVIVOR!!! She is currently Ana's primary teacher. Below are a few pictures of the Hooper Clan supporting Miss Neese's Komen Walk team this past Sunday.

Komen 2013

Daniels first birthday party with friends

Daniel helped Marni Berry, our neighbor and friend, celebrate her 3rd birthday today. It was a milestone for Marni of course, but this was Daniel's first "friend" party to go to alone, sans-siblings! They held it at the gymnastics place we all go to on Saturday mornings and I think everyone had a great time. Daniel is eating pizza and sitting next to Cameron, who is in his normal gym class.

The Face of Quiznos' LLS Campaign

Yep. That's Charlie holding a picture of Charlie at Quizos! We were approached by the Quiznos Corporate folks a few months ago about having Charlie be the face of their fund raising campaign in September that raises awareness and funds for LLS. We took the family in for lunch the other day to show Charlie the marketing material. The crew at our local Quiznos were like..."I thought that was him, the kid in the picture. Do you live here?"

Charlie is part of the NATIONAL Quiznos marketing. This picture was taken in a Quiznos in Texas by one of our extendend family members.

We are proud of our little survivor and hope that his silly grin will get people to donate to the LLS.

9News Segment for Light the Night

Charlie and Mommy did another segment for 9News with Corey Rose this morning promoting LLS and Light the Night. Not sure how long the video will be up on the 9News web page, but the embedded video is above and below are a few screen shots from the broadcast.

Movie nights

Now that the "littles" are a bit older and have more of an attention span, we are trying out "Movie Night." We have invited our friends (mainly Nick Schneider) over to enjoy a little Disney action and snacks on a Saturday night.

Two of a kind. Thumbs, blankets and Cinderella.

The Little Mermaid and Ice cream, Cant beat that.

So far we've watched:
The Little Mermaid
Cinderella
The Lion King
Mary Poppins

The Last Days of Summer

We had a couple of warm days that seemed to have signaled our last days of Summer weather.  We took out the lawn sprinkler and had a "Splash Day" in our back yard, finishing off nicely with an ice cream Popsicle.

The kids had a blast, but now its time to pack away the swimming suits and break out the sweaters.

Dental Superhero Daniel

Daniel had a dental cleaning this morning and Mommy and Ana got to watch! Daniel was PERFECT during the appointment and did everything he was asked to. He has 20 very clean, shiny and cavity free teeth! Ana was very interested in the scene and will hopefully do well when it is her turn.

Dad's Birthday

That's right... We are getting older! Since the Hooper Scoop is not just a place for pictures of the kids, I decided to mark the milestone of Chad's birthday by posting a few pictures. Nana made this fantastic Oreo cookie cheese cake for the adults and cupcakes with birthday rings for the kids. We had a nice little family dinner and Chad got to open his gifts which included tickets to the Great American Beer Festival in October. We hoped for another gift, that A&M would BTHO Alabama, but sadly, it did not happen.... Here's to a fantastic 35th Year!

Happy Sunday!!

Rockies Game

Last year Charlie received two tickets to a Broncos game from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Dad and Charlie went and had a great time.  This year, Charlie got four tickets to a Rockies game so Mom and Daniel got to join us.  Here's a rare shot with Mom behind the camera instead of Dad.

The boys had great time cheering the Rockies and eating ice cream.

Big boy bike

Last weekend we went to the Springs and Charlie started riding Evelyn's 2-wheeled peddle bike. Before he was riding a bike that Chad took the peddles and stuff of off so it was more like Daniel's Strider bike. Hoping to capitalize on the weekend's experience, Charlie and I went to the Specialized bike store after school and picked out his very first "Big Boy Bike." It is just a bit too big (note the tiptoes in the picture) and we are working on building his confidence while riding. Hopefully by the Spring he will be an expert and we can all go riding as a family.

First Day of First Grade

Charlie started 1st grade at Saint Vincent de Paul Catholic school today! Here are a few pictures from the big drop off morning. Charlie is in Mrs. Gerken's 1B class with 22 other 6 year olds. We are looking forward to a fantastic year with our new school community

Waiting to head to class, out on the blacktop at SVdP

Sitting at his new desk in Class

Ready for 1st Grade

So today is Charlie’s last day of summer and on Monday he will be starting 1^st grade.  This morning he really played the part by doing some “big boy” things. 

 

When I went in to wake the boys and get them ready, Charlie sat up in his bed and the first thing he said to me was, “I’m going to make my bed!”

 

“Uhh, okay.” I replied. 

 

I must admit I was very taken aback by his pronouncement.  He had never done anything like that before.  Sure enough, before he even got dressed, he patiently pulled his sheets up and tried his best to smooth them out and make it look nice.  My parents will tell you that I never did anything like that.  He even prepped his bed for this evening by putting Daniel’s pillow on it.  The boys try to sleep in the same bed as much as possible and it’s something we permit on non-school nights.

 

I praised him for being such a big boy and turned around to get Daniel dressed.  Charlie disappeared and came back a few minutes later.  In that time, he had completely gotten ready for school, including brushing his teeth, all without even being asked.  He’s usually pretty good about doing things, but it always takes at least some direction.  This behavior may be regular for most kids his age and maybe even some younger than Charlie, but for us it is a very welcome development.  Lately, it has been a struggle to make Daniel even listen to us, much less do something without having to tell him three times.  It is really nice to see results from the same type of struggles we’ve gone through with Charlie in the past.  It really made it sink in that we now have 1^st grader in our family.

Charlie's last ride with Dad to Primrose.  <sniff, sniff>

Overheard

Daniel and Ana saw a picture of Granddadddy this evening and this was the resulting conversation:

Daniel: Ana, that's a different kind of daddy.

Ana: Oh?

Daniel: He's a Granddaddy.

Ana: (Said with amazement) Ohhhhh!

Disneyland!!!

To celebrate the end of Charlie's treatment Angela and I took the boys last week on a weeklong excursion to Disneyland.  We actually managed to keep the trip a secret from the boys for about four months.  We were able to tell them where they were headed the day before we left, at the Leftapalooza event that we spoke at for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  It was exciting to see their reaction.  We were so glad we kept it a secret because for the next 12 hours we heard nothing but, "When are leaving for Disneyland?"

We left Ana with Nana for the week which turned out to be a very good decision.  Sorry Ana, next time you'll get to go.  Daniel, at three years old, was just old enough to enjoy it.  If he was any younger, I think he would have been a complete bear the whole time.

Overall, the boys did great and had a fantastic time.  Check out the album below which has some commentary along with it.  We got to do pretty much everything we could or wanted to.  We did leave a few things for the next visit though.  And if you ever need any advice on taking a three year old and a six year old to Disneyland, we learned a few lessons.

Disneyland Trip

Ana Takes the Dogs for a Walk

Lefta

The Left hand Brewing Company is one of the fantastic companies we have met through our work with the LLS. Left hand coordinator Josh asked us to be part of the Leftapallooza fund raiser this year in Longmont. Chad, Nana, and I are taking all of the kids up there this Saturday for beer, food and fun. I will speak multiple times with the Emcee on the importance of raising money for LLS. Last year they raised over $28k with this event and this year they are hoping to break that record. Here is the ad

 

We also helped with the advertising by writing a quick editorial for their local paper, the Longmont Times Call. The article link is here. Not sure how long they keep things up so I took a snapshot for historical purposes.

The text reads:
Chad and Angela Hooper: Help Charlie help others
Posted: TimesCall.com 7/30/2013
We think Charlie Hooper is a remarkable boy. He can brighten any room. He can charm any person. He isour role model and superhero. He is also our 6-year-old son.

At the age of 3 Charlie was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Over the last three years,
Charlie has endured things no child should ever have to go through. Through it all, he never complained and he even managed to cheer up the people around him. Throughout Charlie's three-year treatment plan, he had some tough times. There were whole weekends spent on the couch and midnight trips to the ER for even the smallest of fevers. With his immunity suppressed by the chemotherapy, we took no chances with things like pneumonia and bacterial infections.

Charlie is now a cancer survivor. He finished his chemotherapy earlier this month and he continues to inspire us as his body is going through a readjustment phase. Our family has been forever changed by Charlie's journey. Today, we are sharing Charlie's experience with leukemia in an effort to help the many organizations that raise funds for researching a cure. We feel that it is important to teach Charlie to give back as much as he can because those who have in the past have done something great for him. Please join him in helping the next family that hears those awful words, "You have cancer."

We're honored to have Charlie as this year's honoree for Left Hand Brewing's Leftapalooza event this
Saturday. Join us as we celebrate life and support the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society at Leftapalooza.

Oh, yeah, the nine bands are pretty cool, too.
Chad and Angela Hooper
Denver

It's a BOY

"Baby Hooper" has been further designated as "Baby Boy Hooper!" We had the big ultrasound on Monday and are thrilled to see a healthy baby boy ready to make his appearance in early December. We are still debating names but will most likely settle on one and let it be known before the big day.

The normal ultrasound lady, Paula, is no longer at my OB's Office (tear...) so the pictures we received leave much to the imagination. One is a "boy" shot and the others are hands and fingers or something..

Quiznos Light the Night Kickoff

Today Charlie and Dad took a trip downtown to help Quiznos kickoff their corporate LLS Light the Night Team.  Dad got to present Charlie's story as Charlie stood there looking cute.  Afterwards, "Mr. Stuart" (as Charlie calls the Quiznos CEO) made Charlie Quiznos' very first Honorary Junior Chef and presented Charlie with his very own chef's jacket.

After the presentation, we walked back to Quiznos' corporate office for a tour of their test kitchen and to attend a meet & greet with the corporate staff, most of whom were at the kickoff earlier.  Charlie worked the crowd as only Charlie can.  I was talking to some folks and realized Charlie had wandered off.  When I found him, this was the scene:

No doubt, talking about super-heroes or Transformers.  It was a great event and afternoon.  I thank all the LLS and Quiznos staff that made us feel so welcome and had such nice things to say about Charlie.  We look forward to a continued relationship with the Quiznos Family.

Family photo shoot

We took the opportunity at Charlie's chemo party to have a photographer come and snap some family photos. Thank you Lisa Hodnet for the beautiful pictures. we can't wait to get our digital CD! Take a look at the pictures at the link below.

Family Photo Shoot - Proofs

Daniel's Day at the Zoo

Charlie's summer activities at Primrose included a field trip almost every week. Daniel kept asking, "When do I get to go on a field trip?!" Poor thing, he just doesn't comprehend that age plays into these sort of things. To Give D a little TLC, Mom and Dad decided to take him to the zoo for a very special Friday afternoon "field trip." It was really nice spending time with just Daniel. He has such a quirky and fun-loving sense of humor that is even more apparent when he is removed from his siblings. Take a look at the few pictures below.

Daniel's Day at the Zoo

Ana moves up at Primrose

To commemorate Ana's transition into the 'Older Toddlers' Room, we received this funny gram from Primrose today the text reads:

Hi Mom and Dad,

     I was feeling nostalgic recently, as I started to think about where I’ve been and where I’m going. So I took a literal & figurative journey. I (literally) went next door on a (figurative) trip down memory lane. It was, of course, a short trip, considering the baby room is 7 feet away &  being so young, my “lifetime” of memories is pretty limited thus far.

     Anyway,  The reason for my trip was two-fold.

1)      I wanted to go back to a simpler time. A time when all you had to do was decide when to sleep & when to eat There was no stress about making it to your ONE nap a day or worrying about your neighbor trying to swipe your lunch at the community table.

2)      I felt it was important to let the babies know they should relish the time & freedom to can kick back in a bouncy seat (or play some b-ball)…all day if you want, because you’re a baby & you can. Because before you know it, you will have to fit Circle Time, Art and Thumb’s Up! in all before lunch. As a toddler there are more scheduling demands & no more bouncy seats!

However, they say  you can’t live in the past. All you can do is move forward. So that’s what I must do! I’ve been a baby, a Young Todd & now I must forge ahead to the next phase (the older Todds Room)!

Love, Ana

A close up of Ana invading the Infant room.

Light the Night Speech for Vistar

I wanted to share one of our LLS speeches on the blog. I delivered this speech on a web conference  fundraising kick off for Vistar, one of the National corporate Light The Night sponsors. This is basically the transcript from the YouTube video.

It was 2010 and Charlie had just celebrated his 3^rd birthday and was limping and complaining of foot pain. Being new parents, we took him to the podiatrist, to the pediatrician, and ultimately to the orthopedic.  I think we were on our fifth visit to the hospital, third visit to the orthopedics, maybe our tenth x-ray, but only our first complete blood workup, when the results came back.

We heard: “We found blast cells in Charlie’s blood. He has cancer.” Specifically Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. We had come to treat a broken leg, but were admitted to oncology and by the end of the evening; Charlie was receiving his first doses of chemo.  

Over the course of treatment, Charlie’s little body was pummeled by a barrage of surgeries, drugs, and  side-effect after side-effect. We watched our happy-go-lucky three year boy fade away into a moody, sickly looking figure that hardly resembled his former self.  What I call our Treatment Transformation. 

Learning to be parent a Child with a terminal cancer was difficult. Yes, Charlie’s cancer is considered terminal even though his cure rate is over 85% for his risk factor. We decided to keep things as normal as possible in his little life. Charlie stayed in preschool through the majority of treatment. When he was too sick or tired or had no immunity left he would stay home with Mom. But other than that we tried to do fun things such as hikes, gardening and playing outdoors. We developed a ‘New Normal’ as we like to call it. And that included trips to the hospital for simple things like the flu or scarier things like pneumonia which could have killed him. 

These trips to the hospital became bonding times for Mom and Dad and Charlie and introduced us to an amazing community, one that nobody ever expects that they will be a part of.  Since being a part of the LLS community, Charlie has been given the opportunity to participate in a St. Patrick’s Day Parade, received tickets for Broncos football and Avalanche hockey games.  In the life and mind of a five year old, these are not trivial events, especially when he was too sick to get off the couch some weekends. 

For two years of Charlie’s Leukemia journey, we were on the receiving end of all the good things LLS does for families like ours.  The educational materials, the exciting events and of course, the treatment that Charlie was undergoing are all the product of vast amounts of donations, research ,and hard work by individuals associated with LLS.  

Last year we decided it was time to start giving back and we formed our Light the Night Team, Charlie’s Cancer Crushers.  Knowing that we were doing something good for other people with experiences like our own, challenged us to do more.  This year LLS gave us another great opportunity when they asked us if Charlie could be the LLS Honored Hero for this year’s Light the Night event. 

His representation is the perfect culmination to the 3 ½ year therapy that as you can see ended this past June! Charlie received his last injection of chemo and his last pill. We were thrilled.

We are here today not only to share Charlie’s story, but to let you know there is still a lot of work yet to be done.  Midway through Charlie’s treatment, my favorite uncle battled (AML) another form of Leukemia, only to succumb to the disease after 5 months. Attending his funeral and returning home to my cancer patient was one of the hardest things I’ve had to endure.

That is why it is so important for companies like yours to get involved with Light The Night this year. We are still losing battles! To combat this, in 2012 alone, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society invested 100 million dollars in blood cancer research, and over 10 million dollars to Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, the specific type of cancer that Charlie had.  This is one of the many reasons why we decided to get involved and to do everything we can to educate others about the importance of raising funds for this organization.  We hope that like us, you too decide to join in the fight to create a world free of blood cancer. Thank you.   

Light the Night Honored Hero 2013 Story

I created this video to help with the LTN 2013 campaigns. Charlie is this year's LTN honored hero and we are very excited to be part of this important event. The slides and speech are a little less than 5 mins in length.




A direct link to the YouTube video can be found here for sharing : http://youtu.be/VqvvAQkjnHo

Sunday park-day

We found another great park to take the kids, Westland park in Greenwood Village. Next time we need family pictures we need to go there. Very pretty and cool playgrounds, ponds and trails.

Charlie's End of Chemo Party

So last weekend we had a bunch of family and friends over to help Charlie celebrate the end of active treatment for ALL.  Three years ago we started this journey and it was time to let loose and have a good time.

The kids had great time bouncing in an awesome Robot Bounce House, getting their faces painted by Happy the Clown and watching Happy's Magic Show.  Undoubtedly, the unexpected hit of the day was G-Deb and Gary's gift to Charlie which was the kiddie roller coaster.  Every kid had blast riding that thing up and down and our lawn has the tracks to prove it.

Charlie had a fantastic week with all of his friends and family and we thank all of you who travelled great distances to show your support for Charlie's achievement.  For Angela and I, this party was as much about thanking all of you in our lives that helped us get through these years as it was about celebrating Charlie.  For those of you who were unable to attend, our thanks go out to you for keeping Charlie in your thoughts and prayers over the last three years.  Without all of you this would have been 100 times more difficult and I believe Charlie would not have weathered it as greatly as he did.

Charlie's End of Chemo Party