John Plays Along

John is a great big brother. He puts up with a lot. Here he is sitting at a Disney princess table and eating breakfast just to keep his little sister happy. Sylvie-Faye has apparently graduated herself from the high chair and insists on eating at a table, so I bought her this one. She loves it. She wants to eat all of her meals there and sometimes she just sits at it and plays with kitty.

Kitty Kitty Has To Eat Too

My child thinks her "kitty kitty" is real. Meal time has become extremely unpleasant because Sylvie-Faye will throw a huge fit if her kitty doesn't get to eat with her so she can feed it. Kitty ends up getting food and drink all over her and I have to wash her every day. If I try to tell Sylvie that kitty is not real and kitty is getting dirty, she gets mad and screams and fusses for the rest of dinner. Afterwards she wipes kitty clean with a wet wipe.

UH OH!

Sylvie-Faye got a hold of Bertrand's permanent black marker and drew all over herself and a bit on the carpet in her bedroom. Little stinker! As I was coming up the stairs with Chloe, I saw Sylvie-Faye shutting her bedroom door. I put Chloe down for a nap and went and listened at Sylvie's door. She was talking and playing and I thought, "Oh, how sweet. I'll leave her alone and go do some work". A few minutes later she came out of her room and ran up to me saying, "Uh-oh mommy. Uh-oh." She handed me the permanent maker and then hung her head in shame. I'm learning that anytime she's about to do something naughty, she shuts herself in her room.

Visit from Miss Kitty

One morning a couple of weeks ago it was nice and cool outside. A nice change from the heat! So, I opened all of the windows, including the back sliding door, cooked up a nice breakfast and we all sat around the table and enjoyed the morning air. Suddenly we heard a "meow" at the back window. Sylvie-Faye was SO excited! She absolutely loves cats. Whenever she sees a cat she either says, "Mommy, it's a mee-ow" or "Mommy, c'est kitty kitty".

We let her out of her highchair and Bertrand brought the cat in for the kids to pet. Sylvie-Faye was in heaven!

Yes, my men are shirtless. Our standard is down around here. We're working on it. Sorry about that. Just focus on Sylvie and the kitty kitty.

SISTERS

These are my girls just hanging out together. Sylvie-Faye is having a hard time not being the baby anymore. She still wants a bottle occasionally because she sees Chloe taking one and she just wants to lay underneath the baby playground and bat at the little critters too. Chloe loves it. Everytime Sylvie-Faye enters the room, Chloe perks up and smiles and coos to her. One afternoon Sylvie-Faye was trying to climb all over me while I was feeding Chloe. I kept telling her to sit down and I eventually had to physically make her sit, so she started trying to kick at the baby. I pushed her off of the couch and told her that was naughty, so she threw a fit on the ground and just laid there crying. Chloe couldn't drink her bottle. She was so concerned about Sylvie-Faye. She sat up and just stared at Sylvie until she stopped crying.

All About Silver

This is my Silver. She has so much personality and spunk it's hard to keep it under control. She is such a goof! And she has so much determination. She knows exactly what she wants and if you try to stand in her way she either throws a fit or finds another way to accomplish her goals. She loves to be silly and make us all laugh. And she is attached to her stuffed kitty. This picture of her with her kitty is the day we bought "kitty kitty". She can't go anywhere or do anything without her and she especially cannot sleep without her.

All About J

This is my J. That's what I call him. He's The Man. Without him, I don't know what I'd do. John is my son from my first marriage. I had him when I was 20 years old. He was exactly what I wanted - a boy first and someone who would be a good big brother to the rest of my children. I sifted through the pictures trying to find ones of him alone and it was tough. It's tough to get a picture of him without one of his baby sisters in it. They adore him. And he loves to play with them...and sometimes make Sylvie-Faye scream. But, what big brother doesn't get pleasure out of hearing the shrill scream of a ticked off baby sister?

John is very serious and intense, a big reader. He's very much into science and social studies and history and he can pretty much tell you anything about anything. He amazes me. He has a very creative mind and he's constantly thinking up new ideas for stories or games (especially video games). But he also has a goofball side, which he got from his mother. I annoyed him for years by acting like a huge goofball and now I've finally rubbed off on him. He's taken on an apprentice and now he and Sylvie-Faye like to clown around together.

I love this picture of John with his Grandpa Poulsen. For 7 1/2 years this little boy of mine had to live with a single mother and all I have to say is Grandpa Poulsen was a lifesaver. He was the man John looked up to and wanted to be like. He loved having a suit and tie just like Grandpa.

The Other Twin

Chloe Lorraine Coppee was born January 9, 2007. She's my baby string bean. She's in the 88th percentile for height and 45th percentile for weight, so she will take after her father. Lucky girl. She's our smiley baby. The first six weeks were rough. Sylvie-Faye didn't appreciate her new baby sister. She screamed and threw a fit when we first brought her home. My days consisted of me sitting on the sofa all day feeding babies bottles and changing diapers. It was awful! But, I just had to keep telling myself that someday it would all be worth it when they were a little older and we could all go shopping and spend all of daddy's money! YAY!

I call Chloe the other twin because everyone tells me that I stamped the same baby out twice. Some of their photos, I admit, are difficult to tell apart. Their 4-month-old photos look almost identical, so we will have to mark all of the photos well since Chloe wears a lot of hand-me-downs from Sylvie-Faye.

There is one unique feature on Chloe, though, and that is her unusually tiny head. It's so funny. Almost everyone comments on it. One day one of my friends was over hanging out and her 5-year-old son started to tell me something. He suddenly stopped mid sentence and said, "Um...why is your baby's head so small?" It cracked me up.

SURPRISE!

One day, as the children were sleeping and all was quiet, I had some time to actually THINK! That thinking is what made me suddenly realize all was not well with me. One pregnancy test later we discovered another member would be joining the Coppee family soon. I bawled my eyes out for about two days. I was not ready for another baby. I had plans. Big plans. And they were not going to allow for another pregnancy. This is me putting on a brave face and playing with Sylvie-Faye the day I found out the news. It was definitely a sucker punch right to the stomach. Bertrand and I canceled our plans with friends that evening and just stared into space in disbelief.

And Then There Were Four

So, we got our baby girl and everything was wonderful. I made plans to lose the baby weight and Bertrand agreed to become the new drummer for The Mending Seed. We talked to our accountant who advised us to put out an album and start making money again in 2006, and we had a lot to do, including new band photos, more songwriting, more recording, more promoting, and more shows. We were excited for 2006!

A Wish Fulfilled

So, Bertrand got his wish...kind of. A blue-eyed, bald-headed girl, but there was still hope. Sylvie-Faye Gretchen Marie Coppee was born 09/21/05. Sylvie-Faye means 'woodland fairy' in French, Gretchen is my mother's name and Marie is Bertrand's mother's name. So, basically she took it all just in case there wasn't another little girl in our family. We decorated her nursery in fairies since she was named after one.

Our New Little Family

So then there were three of us. But not for long. Within two weeks of marrying Bertrand I found out I was pregnant. Later we discovered it was a baby girl. We were so excited! Bertrand had always wanted a little girl - ever since seeing the movie 'I Am Sam' with little Dakota Fanning. He wanted a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl.

The One

Then, one night, after playing my regular gig at Latitude 30 I returned home and tried to phone my boyfriend at the time. He didn't answer. He ignored my calls all night long and I was frustrated. I had seen the signs of him pulling away already...like they all did eventually. I decided to check my email messages and there was a message stating that someone on LDSSO.com had sent me a message. I had forgotten my profile was still on that site. I looked it up and wasn't really interested in the guy who had sent it, but when I looked up the guys who had checked out my profile, I saw this one. I thought he was cute and he said he was French, so I was immediately interested. (Cute - check. French - check. See how easy I am? It doesn't take much to get me excited.)

Long story short...we talked that night and didn't stop for a whole month. He flew into Phoenix on December 9, 2004 (one month from the night we started talking) and I took him off to the Justice of the Peace and married him. It was the first time we had ever laid eyes on each other. But, I knew he was the one...and apparently he knew it too because he wasn't kicking and screaming on the way. And those drums. I couldn't resist marrying a drummer. I had lost my other drummer and I had always joked that if I married the drummer, he couldn't leave the band.

Oh, and that boyfriend of mine. Well, he called three weeks later to tell me "Sorry" he hadn't called me back yet and that he felt like we needed to take a break, to which I replied, "Oh good. I'm so glad you feel that way because I'm actually engaged and I didn't know how I was going to tell you, but it looks like you won't care anyway".....(long moment of silence on his end). "Hello? Are you there?", I asked. He stuttered a bit. "You're engaged? When did this happen? Wow. What if I had still wanted to see you?" Ah yes! It was glorious!

The Mending Seed

I asked for a guitar for Christmas in 2000 and learned to play. Then I started a band called Frass, which was later changed to The Mending Seed because some of our fans looked up Frass on the Internet and found out it meant "caterpillar poop". I didn't care, but this bothered my bandmates. I wrote about 20 songs, recorded them and started playing out locally just to pass the time and take my mind off the fact that I was single and getting too old to find a new man and have more kids. (You can see a picture of the full 5-member band and hear some bad recordings of our early stuff at garageband.com - look under The Mending Seed).

In The Beginning....

This is the story of the Coppee family. First there was me and my son, John. We were a team for 7 1/2 years. I worked full-time from home as a medical transcriptionist and on the weekends John and I partied with our "single mother with one or two sons" friends.