Wildman....U better believe it!!!

On December 3rd, 2008 we got a call from DCS asking us to take a 3 year old male.  I without any hesitancy said YES. A little bit later they called back to say they had messed up and he was 3 months old. I said OK big difference but YES I will still take him.  They called back yet a third time to say oops he is actually 3 days old!  So, Payton and I jumped in the car when we got the go ahead that he was ready to be discharged from the hospital to pick him up.  We were all immediately in love with this little guy.  

Sadly in April of 2009 just before Bryce was scheduled to go home in May that he had a very serious heart condition.  He has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. In May we went for some testing and the next day the doctor called us and told us that he would need to have open heart surgery that Friday at Vanderbilt in Nashville.  We were devastated but we knew that it was what had to be done in order for him to survive so we packed our bags and headed to Nashville.  He has the surgery on Friday and we were heading back to Knoxville on Tuesday.  He did amazing.  Today he is doing quite well but we never know when things could get worse.  I still believe to this day that God allowed that horrible illness to keep him from going back to his bio parents because after the surgery he never did another over night visit with them again (he had been doing them before the surgery to prepare him to go home).  

He is quite spoiled, LOL since we had not had a baby around since Baleigh and she was 10 when we got him.  This picture was taken last year when Payton and I took him to Disneyworld for his 2nd birthday, his first trip to Disney he was 6 weeks old.  The lipstick you see on his face was from Cinderella, whom he loved VERY much.  

I really do not know what I would have done if he would have went back to his bio family.  It would have killed me and almost all of my family members.  Luckily on May 27th, 2011 we were able to adopt him and he became Bryce Oakland Cooper FOREVER. 

He is a fun, energetic, mean little booger.  He has some behavior issues that we are working hard at trying to correct or at least improve.  He attends a local Christian preschool here in Knoxville and he loves every minute of that.  Everyday he comes home either in trouble for being mean to another child or he comes home trying to persuade me that another child as mean to him. LOL

He will be turning three this year, OMW! He is the funniest little thing you will ever meet.  He loves his daddy and all his brothers and sisters.  He loves to play outside and do anything that Payton is doing.  Right now his favorite things are saying "I help" with whatever you may be doing and asking "What's that?" about 12 million times per day.  But I am so thankful for everyday that I have with him.  I am so blessed.

Here is a link to Bryce's favorite show right now.  You must understand that nothing keeps him still for any length of time.  One day I was just flipping through On Demand and found this and he LOVES it.  It will watch it for about 15 minutes without moving, which is saying alot for him.