Just Awesome!

My birthday was this last week. Ben worked the night before my birthday and he likes to sleep in until 11 or so when he gets home. I don't really like to clean until after he wakes up because I don't want to wake him up or Macie during her morning nap. In the morning after I got Travis off to school I had several dishes around from breakfast that I just put in the sink. I planned to do them later, but after Ben woke up he wanted to go shopping so I quickly took a shower and off we went. When we got home we were starving so we ate lunch, but didn't get to clean after that because Ben wanted to start preparing for dinner and didn't want to pick up lunch because it was just going to get messy again and we would get in each others way. So dinner came and we scarfed it down and then Travis and I had to go because of swimming lessons. I fully planned on getting some dishes done when we got back, but when we did get home Ben said that Natalie had fallen asleep in the front room. I certainly was not going to wake her up because she can get quite crabby when she's woken up before she's ready so I just let her sleep and went downstairs and played Skylanders with Travis. I took a break and went upstairs to get a drink when I heard the doorbell. Charlie of course started barking and woke up Natalie. I normally would have ignored it and pretended I wasn't home, but because of all the commotion I was doomed to open it. It was two women from the Relief Society Presidency dropping in to say happy birthday. They came in and sat on my Charlie hair covered couch where there is a wide view of the disastrous kitchen. Travis was so excited to have company over that he grabbed one of the ladies by the hand and told her all about the birthday cake we ate and then proceeded to drag her into the kitchen by the stove so she could look at it. In the middle of the floor was two full garbage bags and one grocery sack that was completely see through with a Costco size box of Tampax.... Just awesome.
 On another note a couple of weeks ago we had a little family barbeque. Everyone had their assignments and everyone came through with their assignments except for Kurtis and Tristan who had the easiest assignment of all. All they had to do was send a postcard and they failed to do so. Freeloaders!!! Here are a couple of pictures from the bbq.

And this next picture is "Grandma with the yellow hair" getting talked into a game of Skylanders with Travis. Needless to say, he was not impressed with her lack of butt-kicking skills. When it comes to Skylanders he gets very serious!

 

 

 

 And one of my favorite pictures. This is what happens when a recipe calls for wine and the recipe is in the hands of Mormons who have never handled alcohol. I think it's safe to say that these here are some good Mormons.

 

 

 

 Today we had a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Cook. It was a short visit, but it was nice to see them. The kids had a lot of fun and so did Charlie.

 

 

 

Lastly, Macie is almost 9 months old. She has grown so much since she was born. She is definitely developing quite the silly personality. She has started to make these silly squinty face poses. She's so darn cute, you can't help, but love her. She's been really sick the last month, but you'd never know it if she didn't have a runny nose because she's such a trooper.

 





Tender Moments

I have found motherhood to be quite the challenge with three children. Someone is always crying and someone is always fighting it seems. Every once in a while I get to enjoy some tender moments. During this last weekend I took the kids to Rigby so give Ben some quiet study time. While we were in Rigby Travis and Haiden were playing and Natty started to follow them. She started to cry and said, "I want Travis, I want Travis". Travis stopped what he was doing and said, "Oh, sissy wants her brudder". He went over to Natty and gave her a big hug and a kiss on her forehead and then invited Natty to go play with them. It's those sweet tender moments that make all the hard things worth it.

Crazy Busy!

  The last two weeks have been crazy busy! Travis, Macie, and I have been little sicklings. In fact Travis had to go to the doctors office because he had an ear infection. He really enjoyed talking to the doctor though. He was very chatty with him. We are finally getting over it all though. We were so sick that even Natty and Ben who have the best immune systems of any human being on the planet earth have caught a few sniffles.

 
  I almost forgot to mention, about three weeks ago Macie had the experience of a lifetime and boy oh boy was she a happy camper. She experienced her first ever.... Oreo! She was in heaven and she thought she was something else! What an experience.

  Benjamin kind of was in the dog house this week. I made him a nice big lunch for his clinicals and he left most of it at home. Luck for me Natty was hungry and decided to take it over for him.

  Last Friday Travis and Natalie had a dentist appointment. Both of them were cavity free so they got to choose out of the treasure box. Here is what Travis chose.

  Last note, Macie Jo has hit quite a few milstones this week. She finally started to army crawl on Tuesday. She's such a lazy baby whenever she wants to get somewhere she literally just rolls and rolls until she gets there. It's really funny to watch her make her way across the room by rolling. Not anymore though. Now she's army crawling and I don't think it will be long until she is crawling regularly. She can get up on all fours so now it's a matter of building those muscles so she can put one knee in front of the other. She popped out two teeth on Wednesday and then another on Thursday. She's got two teeth now. She's pretty excited about it. She keeps chewing on her tongue. She has chewed a sore right on the tip of it. She is definitely a busy girl.

In Good Company

  Ben has been working at Portneuf going on three years now and since he's been there we have never gone to a work party. We've always got the tickets to go, but never actually gone. Each employee gets a plus one and since I work there now I used my plus one for Tuesdee and Ben used his for Aaron so that we could double. We went there and the party itself was not our kind of thing. The food was good though and the company even better. It was so nice to get out and do stuff as a couple while the kids were home having fun together as well. Special thanks to Chelsie for watching them for us. Sometimes parents need to just get out. Even though the party was lame we still had a good time together. Next time I think we will just get the food and run.

Macie Jo

 As I look back at our old posts I realized that both Natty and Travis got their own personal post after their birth, but I have neglected to give Macie her own post. This one is all about her.
 Macie Jo entered the world July 12th at 7 pounds and 1 ounce. She is a very happy baby and very well fed. Macie Jo, like my other two, was given a special name. Many people have the middle name Jo. It's a very common and cute middle name that really goes well with anything. In the Cook Family Jo is a very special and sacred name. It is the name of Ben's grandma, Josephine Johnson. I had the privilege of meeting Josephine when I was in high school. I saw her a handful of times before Ben left on his mission. There are people you meet in this life that when you first meet them you automatically know that they are special. It doesn't happen often and that is why when you do meet these people you just know. That is exactly how I've always felt about meeting Josephine Johnson. It's not something I can explain, it's just something I knew from the first time I met her. She was special! After Ben left on his mission I wondered if I would ever see her again due to her health. Lucky for me I did. In fact Ben and I went to her house to tell her when we got engaged. She was so excited for us she could hardly stand it. Before she passed away I had the privilege of giving her one of her last baths and doing her hair and make up and making her feel as beautiful on the outside as she was on the inside. What an honor and a memory I get to keep with me. Our little Macie Jo has big shoes to fill, but I have no doubt that she will fill them as she is a very special girl as well. She is a happy little girl, a ray of sunshine.