Merry Christmas!!

Well, I did get Christmas cards sent out(without a letter), so I thought I would update my blog!! Does that count for my Christmas letter this year?!
This year has been so different because I have 2 kids in school, so 2 mornings a week it is just Coop and I! Maddox goes to preschool 2 days a week and loves it. He is such a boy. Loves building with his blocks and lincoln logs. He loves playing sports with his daddy....bball, catch, golf, you name it! He can dig in the dirt or sand for hours! One day I couldn't find him in the house and he was in our dog run diggin' away! When Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas, he told him diggin' shoes! Yea...it was a bit embarrassing that my son asked for shoes for Christmas! I think his favorite thing to do would be to go to work with daddy. He loves it and would probably do it everyday if we let him. Maddox is in his first year of Little Friends at church. There are many nights when he would rather stay home with daddy, but he loves it once he gets there! Maddox is so active and never sits still. From what I have heard I think he is much like Jon when he was a boy.
Addison is now my big kindergartner!!!! She goes to school from 8:55-3:38 everyday. Boy, does she love it. She loves her teachers and has made so many friends. I am amazed at how much she has learned in 4 months. Jon and I were talking about how we were learning to tie our shoes and had nap time at school. She is doing math, science projects, and learning what it means to be a risk taker. She is also learning about being safe and responsible, having academic perseverance and being open minded. I think the thing she is most proud of is that she has learned to read this year!!! McGraw, her school, has running club as an after school program. On Monday and Wednesday's Addison, Maddox, Cooper and I all head to running club. The kids love it and get so excited when they have gone their 5 miles so they can add a foot to their necklace. What a great program it is!! Addison graduated from Little Friends and is now a Daisy at church! She LOVES it! She is always asking me when she gets to go to church. She has some really good little friends that she loves seeing! Addison is my sweet eating TV watcher!! The Dr asked me at Maddox's well check if I was happy with the way he ate. I said he wasn't a big sweet eater. Then he asked Maddox if he watched TV. Maddox said no, but my sister is our sweet eater and couch potato! As we were driving back to Colorado from Kansas for Thanksgiving, Addison started screaming at me...I couldn't imagine what was wrong...she said mom, my tooth came out!!!! She lost her very first tooth and was soooooo excited. She looks so different with that one missing tooth. She said she thinks she saw the tooth fairy as she was flying out of her room!! Imagine that!
Little Cooper has really changed in the last few months. He is getting to be so much fun. The greatest thing is that he has not had a single ear infection since he had his tubes put in in July!! What a blessing. He has had other issues like RSV, bronchitis and croup, but not one ear infection. Whoohoooo!!!! While Addison is losing teeth, Cooper is getting them. He now has 5 teeth. Cooper started walking the beginning of December. He looks so adorable when he is wobbling around! He is our one child that is into EVERYTHING!! He is the reason why people baby proof. I have never covered an outlet, put a gate up or locked a cabinet, but he might just be the reason why I start! He and Maddox are becoming good buddies. They play so well together while Addison is at school. He just screams when is is tired of Maddox antagonizing him! He has 4 words...mama, dadda, there and thank you. He screams for everything else!
On November 17th, we celebrated Annabelle's 3rd birthday. The kids wanted to make brownies this year instead of a cake, so we decorated brownies. Yep, they look just about the same as the cakes we've made the last 2 years.....frosted and covered with candy! They each drew her a picture and said something special about her. We sang Happy Birthday to her and ate our yummy brownies!
Jon started a real estate company, Front Range Realty, with another partner. It has been great! He is so busy, but loves what he is doing. he is hoping to make it skiing more this year. That hasn't happened much since we've had kids!
Not much is new with me. I am staying at home with the kids and love it! I have increased my taxi driving hours though! ;-))
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Summer is Flying By!

Cooper

So sweet!

Having fun in the swing.

Preschool Graduation....Addy with her teachers. Mrs Fagan wanted to hold Cooper.

A weekend getaway to Boulder. On Pearl Street at the water spouts. So fun!!

Pearl Street before Jon joined us for the night.

Mad Dog

Our Cinderella at her dance recital

Our little soccer player.

Cooper in his gown getting ready for surgery.

Surgery all done....now ready to go home.

Gowns and hair nets on and almost ready for surgery....aren't they cute?!

Cooper standing with some help!

I can't believe it is already July 30th!!! Where has the summer gone? It is hard to believe that in less than a month, the kids will start school. I am not ready for that! Addison will start full day kindergarten on August 19th. She is so excited and ready to go! Me? Not so much. I am so sad she will be gone all day, but excited for her as well. Maddox will miss her sooooo much. They are good buddies and play with each other all day long. Maddox will be going to preschool on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Those 2 mornings I will only have Cooper....what am I going to do with myself?! Oh yea, I will probably still be holding Cooper!!!! Yep, it's true, that sweet chunky monkey that we call Coop Deville is my fussy little dude!! He likes his mama to be holding him!!!! You would think that he would get enough of me during the day, but apparently not cuz he screams for me at least once a night!!!! 9 months and still not sleeping through the night!!!!! Addy and Maddox both slept through the night by 2 months so each month I would say oh it's just taking him a little longer.....now I just pray that he will be sleeping all night by 1 year! Cooper is so smiley which is how he got his nickname, Cheese. He just started scooting and now he really gets around. I have noticed the screaming is getting less now that he is getting more mobile. Coops favorite thing to do right now besides sleeping and eating is playing legos with Maddox. I'm not so sure that Mad appreciates his help, but he is very good with him most of the time! Because of the crazy weather in Colorado this summer and our schedule, we've only been to the pool a handful of times. I can't believe it's July and I feel like making a pot of chili! It feels like football season. At the beginning of summer break Addison went to vacation Bible School. She loved it! Then that next week, she did our church's VBS which was a sports camp. She did the cheerleading and LOVED it!!! She is either dancing, cheering or singing. I think she constantly has music in her head. I think she got the Base's voice. Thank goodness!!! Maddox did soccer. He really liked it and did a great job. I was glad to see that he wasn't picking flowers like Addison did when she played soccer! They did a sports class together which they enjoyed. Basketball was the first week, hockey the second and it ended with baseball. Jon is banking on that last sport for Maddox since he is left handed! Addy, Maddox, Cooper and I went to Kansas for a few days to see my parents, sister and her family. They love playing with their cousins. Swim lessons were great. They were able to be in the same class this summer. Addison is quite the swimmer. Maddox is.....crazy. He does everything a hundred miles a minute! He is just like Jon! I would just sit there and laugh....he's so funny. Speaking of funny, a couple weeks ago, I was checking on Cooper while he was supposed to be napping. Well, I saw his diaper up by his head, so I decided it might be a kodak moment....oh boy was it! I opened up the door and there was poop everywhere!!! He was covered from head to toe in poop. He had either been smearing it everywhere or he was actually eating it. I like to think the first one! He was so enjoying it though. He had the biggest smile on his face! On July 24th, Cooper got tubes put in both his ears. He is doing fine and you would never know he had surgery less than a week ago. That same day, Addison had her adnoids and tonsils taken out. She had chronic infection but never got sick from them. Her tonsils were huge! She also had sleep apnia and snored. They were blocking 85% of her airway. No wonder she choked on her food when she ate! Since the surgery I have had to take a double check on her to make sure she is still breathing cuz she is so calm and quiet! Unfortanately her recovery has not gone as smoothly as Coops. She has not been eating or drinking and she is now dehydrated. She has had a low grade fever, lethargic and her breath smells like there might be a dead animal in my house. Doc said she has an infection which also causes her to not want to drink or eat anything. She is now on an antibiotic so hopefully that will help and she will be feeling better soon. She has been such a trooper. We haven't been out of the house since Friday so I think we are all going to be ready to get out of here once she is feeling better! We were supposed to do our annual camping trip this weekend with a bunch of friends, but we will have to miss this years.:-((((( We look forward to that weekend every year, so hopefully this will be the only one we have to miss. That is about it for the Base's. Will update once school starts. Enjoy the pics!!

Spring is Here!!!!

Easter Day....The kids and Jon minus his face!

Maddox playing Wii tennis for the first time!!!!

Dessert

Easter morning

Even Cooper found an egg at the hunt!

Dying Easter eggs with our friends.

Maddox liked the bunny ears the Easter bunny gave him.

Our visit to see the Easter bunny!!!!

We love you Hank!!

Hot Cocoa after sledding......Colorado's March blizzard

Bathtime

yummy....rice cereal for the first time!!!

St Paddy's Day in Old Town Fort Collins

Check out Cooper's face....one of the many reasons why I have been to the Dr so many times!

Cooper's Dedication

Ok, so I keep getting emails from somebody saying I needed to update my blog so here I go!!!!!!! I can't believe it is already April. And I really can't believe Addison is going to be 5 years old in less than 2 weeks. She is so excited she is going to be going to kindergarten next year. We school of choiced her into the Poudre School District and she was accepted into the full day class so we have decided to send her full day. I know I'm not ready for that, but she is thrilled. I get teary eyed just thinking about it so I can't imagine how that first day of class will go!! She will be going to school with a couple friends from the neighborhood and one from preschool and church that we know of so far. Maddox is excited for preschool as well. He always says when he is four he will "do whatever it is we are talking about". When he is four he will like broccoli. When he is four he will wear underwear to bed at night. He spends his whole day "digging". I mean all day long he digs and digs and digs. He is such a boy! He loves jumping on the tramp and climbing on the swing set as well. I am amazed at his energy level.....Constantly going! In the last few months I have decided that our sweet little Cooper is "temperamental"!! He can be smiling and happy and a second later he will be screaming. I know all kids are different, but he is so different than my other 2. He makes me feel like a first time mom! We have nicknamed him Cheese, cuz when he is awake and not screaming or crying, he is smilin'. He is almost 6 months old.....wow, seems like I just had him. Oh, I guess that could be because when they are newborns, they get up every few hours....hmmmmmm I'm still doing that! He is definitely not my sleeper. I called the dr when Addison was a newborn because she took 3 2-3 hour naps and slept from 9pm-9am by 6-8 weeks. I thought maybe something was wrong with her. They laughed and said you are calling because your child sleeps too much?! He won't take a bottle so Jon can't help with the feeding at night. As I have said before, he has a set of lungs like no other, so usually I would let them cry themselves back to sleep, but he is a persistent little guy! He has had a couple more ear infections but hasn't had one in a month or so. I took him to the Dr one day in March(ok, I had been in there at least once a week for something) because he was up screaming all night.....I just knew it had to be an ear infection. Anyway, Dr Booth had somebody following him and after he told me that Cooper looked just fine, that he just had a really bad cold, the lady said, now should we have Nicole come back in 2 weeks to just double check those ears. Dr Booth and I looked at each other and he busted up(and I mean he was just about rolling on the floor laughing)and said, yea usually we do like to schedule a recheck, but I don't think we need to do that with Nicole!!! He knew I would probably be in to see him before that 2 weeks anyway!! Cooper was dedicated at church the beginning of March which was very exciting. Maddox had just learned to snap his fingers so he was up on stage snapping the entire dedication! Spring Break was a bit of a bummer for us this year.....Maddox was sick and then as soon as he was well, Cooper came down with it. We spent most of our break indoors. We had a wonderful Easter. We took the kids to see the Easter bunny at the mall. Maddox loved him. He walked up to him and said, '' You are adorable!" I could barely get Addison to walk up to him let alone get a picture with her in it. She is not fond of mascots! We had a couple Easter egg hunts which the kids loved. Addison was very concerned about spending Easter as a family. She kept saying, Daddy you are not going to work today right....it is time to spend the day as a family! Ok, that is what Team Base has been up to the last few months. I'm so looking forward to summer and the the business that it brings! Thanks Tara for reading my posts!!!!! Check out the pictures of our chunky monkey!!!!
Love,

Not much new in the Base home these days, other than visiting the dr office about once a week!!!! Cooper has had 3 ear infections and he is 3 months old, so he is working his way toward tubes. We are trying to eliminate that he doesn't have allergies, so I'm cutting all dairy out of my diet. He is just so fussy most of the day and never really seems content. Once we eliminate that the ear infections aren't related to allergies, then we will be doing tubes. I am hoping that it will make a huge difference and he will be more comfortable. Poor little man. Some days I tell him, good thing you are so cute little guy!!! Even though Coop is so unhappy, he sure is smiley!! I love when he talks(coos) to me. He has the cutest little laugh. Addison can always get him to smile. He really does love her! Addison is getting ready for dance recital in May. The daddies in her class are doing some of the dance with their daughters. It is going to be so sweet. Her dance is to Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman. I don't know how excited Jon is about doing it, but Addy is thrilled!! Maddox has decided that he wants to be a girl. He says he wants to be beautiful! He wears Addy's nightgowns to bed and loves to wear her clothes during the day(Of course only while we are at home!!) He has snuck a headband and flip flops without me knowing, so I'm sure people think I'm crazy, but oh well! That is about it for now!