The Cooley Clan: September 2009

September 22, 2009

Luke William Cooley

Here is our little boy with his eyes wide open! Isn't he such a cutie pie?! He is a mild-mannered baby which is great for mommy! I think he looks like Jacob...my eldest, but he has the Cooley nose. Most every other feature is Nebeker though! What do you think?

Our Family Is Complete!!!

Our Family of 7 ... Richard LeRoy (38), Charise Alithea (31), Jacob LeRoy (10), Rachael Anne (8), Qaiden John (5), Aleah Reese (2 1/2), and Luke William (newborn).

Saturday afternoon, Richard brought the kids over to see their new baby brother. The nurse, Gloria, took this picture of us together. The kids were so excited to take turns and hold baby Luke. They are so gentle with him and can't seem to get enough time with him! I have the best kids in the world! It has been a GREAT few days.

Baby Is Here!!!

Here, Luke is relaxing on top of me after getting all cleaned up. There is no feeling like having just given birth to a baby and the nurses putting him/her on my chest. I have such an intense love for that child at that point and there is no way to describe it except it is a HEAVENLY feeling...

This is what true JOY is!

Luke weighed in at 7 lbs 14 oz.

Luke William Cooley arrived at 8:28 a.m on Saturday, September 19, 2009 after 7 slow hours of labor. He is such a cutie and so good. Not fussy at all. We feel so blessed to have a healthy little boy and know that we have a great responsibility to rear each one of our children to grow up to be the best they can be and to contribute to making the world a little better place! Luke is another added blessing to us and we are sooooo happy to have him be the newest member of our family!!!

Labor Begins...

Me in Labor...don't I look LOVELY?! I guess my husband snapped a shot to show you how tired I was. It was about 4 a.m. when he took this picture. Let me tell you how the labor went...It was 1:30 a.m when I woke up to a hard contraction and I just knew we had to leave for the hospital. We left at 1:45 (after calling Nan Schmalz, a neighbor/friend to come sleep over here for when the kids woke up) and got to the hospital at 2:00 a.m. After registering, we didn't get to the Labor and Delivery room until 2:30 a.m. After checking my cervix, I was dialated to a 4 and then a 5 a little while later. From there, I didn't get very far very quickly... for some odd reason, my uterus was not contracting like it should have and I stayed at a 5 forever! I then got to a 6 finally and I asked my midwife, Stacie Carter if she would just pop my water...maybe that would speed things up. Well, after popping my water, I got to a 7 and then hung out at an 8 forever! I was getting very tired and fed up with how slow I was progressing, so when they asked if I'd like some potossin (which helps speed up the contractions), I didn't hesitate! After they gave me that, I had the baby in just a few contractions which was probably 15 minutes later! FINALLY!!!

Funny Kid Moments!

December 20, 2011- We were all in the kitchen making gingerbread and I had just taken out the first batch of the gingerbread boy and girl. As I attempted to scrape up the girl on the spatula, she was too soft and started to fall apart as I quickly placed the mangled mess on the brown paper bag! Qaiden pointed to the messed up cookie and said, "Ladies first!" and "Mom killed her!" It was just so funny I changed from being really upset that I had ruined the cookie to laughing so hard at the random funny comment! I keep telling the boys, "Ladies first", and I guess it is sinking in!

November 2011- I like to recycle plastic containers and so I had just washed out one of them and placed the plastic lid on top the toaster (near the sink) to dry. Jacob went to put some bread in the toaster and while in there, the lid melted! Just a little while later as I was getting dinner prepared, Qaiden sat on the stove counter right next to the hot stove top. I told Q to get down off the counter but he was slow to obey. I had turned off the stove, but one of the burners was still hot and so as Q sat there, his coat was lying on the still hot burner and his inner part of the coat melted. I was a bit angry with him for not being obedient and was pretty frustrated. At this point, I turned to the boys and said, "Ok, and the winner for the 'NO-BRAINER' award goes to...drum roll please...QAIDEN!" I changed from being angry to laughing because of how funny my own comment seemed to me! ;) (Sometimes you just gotta laugh at yourself!)So, whenever we do something stupidly funny, we call it the NO-BRAINER award! It's become quite funny to see some of the silly things we do each day!

May 25, 2010- As the kids got ready for school this morning, I asked Rachael if she remembered to get a leotard for Gymnastics today after school. Qaiden overheard and said "...it's NOT Aleah-tard, it's a Rachael-tard! And I would wear a Qaiden-tard!" Ohhhh the silly things that kids come up with!

Jan 20, 2010- I was in the middle of winding the cord of our kirby vacuum cleaner while singing 'Ring around the rosies a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes we all fall down'...and Aleah just standing there all the sudden dropped to her bottom without bending her knees (looked a little awkward). It was just one of those moments that made me laugh because it was so unexpected!

Who Is... Richard LeRoy Cooley II

With much pushing and proding from Charise and a little from her Mom, I am attempting to briefly answer the question "Who am I?". To begin, I was born to wonderful parents, Richard LeRoy Cooley and Leah Tryon on October 16, 1970 in Little Rock, Arkansas. I am the 2nd eldest of eight children... Nichale, myself, Rodney, Roger, Oralea, Tawnya, Andelaura and Gayla. I moved to Mesa, Arizona when I was about 3 years old and lived there till I was 9 years old. In the summer of 1980 my family moved to Carthage, Missouri where I spent the most important and influential part of my childhood. It was during my time in Carthage that I finished grade school, Junior High and High School. I graduated from Carthage High School in May 1989 and shortly after entered the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, Utah, January 1990. I served an honorable mission to Brasilia, Brazil. Shortly after my mission, I enlisted in the Air Force and was Active Duty for 9 years. My time on active duty in the Air Force was spent in San Antonio, TX (Lackland AFB) for basic training, then I went to Technical School in Dever, Colorado (Lowry AFB) after which I moved to Hill AFB in Clearfield, Utah. I was afterwards, stationed in South Korea (Osan AFB) and was there for 1 year. Then I cross-trained from Munitions (otherwise known as "Ammo") to Computer Maintenance and went to Buloxi, Mississippi (Keesler AFB). My time as an "Active Duty" enlisted member ended in Anchorage, Alaska (Elmendorf AFB), where I met and married my wonderful wife, Charise Alithea Nebeker. Her father worked as the Chief Auditor at Elmendorf AFB and was just around the corner from the Headquarters bldg. where I worked in what was called the RAOC - pronounced rock - (in the basement of that bldg.). We met in June, 1997 at the LDS Singles Branch at the Maplewood Chapel in Anchorage, AK and dated till she went back to Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho. Charise came home for Christmas and we got engaged January 1, 1998 and got married that summer, July 18, 1998 in the Salt Lake City Temple! It was a VERY special day for me! We lived there in Anchorage till 2000 and then moved in to Charise's parents home (10411 High Bluff Dr., Eagle River, AK 99577) for 10 months to save money for school. Thanks to Charise's parents we were able to save a substantial amount for school, which eventually was used as a down-payment on our 1st home. We had just had our 1st baby, Jacob LeRoy, August 26th, 1999 and then we were blessed with a baby girl, Rachael Anne on March 9th, 2001. We moved to Logan, Utah, May 2001 so I could go to school at Utah State University to finally finish my degree in Electrical Engineering that I'd been trying to finish for quite some time and which was VERY difficult to do while working in the military and moving around a lot. I also transitioned from Active duty to the Air Force Reserves shortly after arriving in Logan. I got my Bachelor degree December 2003 and got a job working with the government on Hill AFB as an Electronics Engineer six months later in a three year internship. We moved closer to the base in May of 2004 soon after our third child was born; Qaiden John, April 6, 2004. I was fortunately to get commissioned as an Officer in the Reserves about a year after starting work at Hill AFB and just before going back to school to get my Masters of Engineering in Electrical Engineering. It only took me a year and a half. I am currently a Captain in the Reserves and work as an Individual Augmentee (IMA) in the 508th ASW, which is an Active Duty unit. Our 4th child, Aleah Reese was born on my wife's birthday, February 28, 2007, in Layton, Utah and we had our 5th child, Luke William on September 19, 2009 at Davis Hospital and Medical Center in Layton, Utah as well. Life is going well for my family and we are grateful for ALL of our blessings!!!