Back to Crazy

 Things are finally back to crazy after the holidays. We had a great holiday that we were able to spend with both our families.
 Ben was able to take time to spend with us which doesn't happen often because of school and work. We continued with our newest tradition for the second year in a row of making Gingerbread Men and then eating them as we watch a Christmas movie. This year we watched The Polar Express, per Trav's request.

 Christmas day was fun. The kids got everything they had hoped to get except for Travis who changed his mind after Santa's sleigh was packed, but he was still happy with what he got.

 Our first stop was Grandma and Grandpa Cook's house. Unfortunately I don't have the pictures from our visit with Grandma and Grandpa Cook's because we used their camera, but hopefully I will remember to get copies when we go for our next visit because we had so much fun with them there. We went sledding down the hill in the backyard and opened presents and ate a nice steak dinner. Travis had some major bonding time with Grandma as they built a Lego helicopter together along with a couple other things. It was really nice to be able to relax and enjoy our time with them.

 Kurtis and Tristan came for a Visit from Virginia which was really nice because we don't get to see them very often. My dad bought us all dinner and we were able to visit for a while.

 After the New Year we went to my mom's house and visited for a couple of day's there. That was also a lot of fun. The boys drug the grandkids around in the sleigh with the 4 wheeler. Haiden tested out her Christmas present of nail polish and it turned into a family party and we had the big family game with the ball of plastic wrap and dice that almost turned into a family feud. Ben and I of course won that game, 50 bucks and we didn't even cheat. The adults had a tea party with Natalie which just made her day! We also went paintballing, which I don't have pictures of, but that was fun as well. I'm not saying my husband is a butthead, all I'm saying is that he shot me in the butt and I still have a bruise and it's been a month and a half. That's all I'm saying. It was fun though. I might need the painful memory to fade a bit more before I go again, but I don't regret going like I thought I would.

 One last event of our holiday break was Ben taking Travis and Ethan out on a guys night. Those boys thought they were sure special. They went to the store and got their own drinks. While they were in line Travis made sure the cashier knew that Ben was not Ethan's dad, but it was okay because they were having a guys night! They had pizza. Natalie had a sleepover with Haiden and Macie hung out with me for the most part. It was a special night for those boys and they really enjoyed it.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

We are ending 2015 in style. We've had a great month of December. My Dad came over last weekend and got us a tree as he does every. It's kind of become a tradition. The kids love to go with Grandpa "Harry" (as they call him, but that's a story for another day) to pick out their tree. I think he likes it too. The kids went crazy with the decorating. They are so darn cute and they make Christmas fun again. They are so excited for Christmas they can hardly stand it. Macie even got into it this year. She doesn't quite realize that you have to put the hook on the tree, but she put the decoration in the tree though.

A couple days after setting up for Christmas we had a snow storm. Ben and Natalie mad it out to shovel the walks for. After all that hard work was done it looked like he needed to go out and shovel again because the snow wouldn't stop coming. It was good for him and Natty though. They got a little daddy-daughter time together.

We have also been doing our best to keep up with the house so that it is clean for Santa Claus. We've run into a few distractions though, namely Macie Jo. Ben was trying to vacuum the stairs and that little stinker kept going in front of him and laying across the stairs so that he couldn't vacuum it. She thought she was so funny.

With all this snow my sister, Chelsie, had this genius idea to take the cousins out to the hills at the university and go sledding. Macie was a little skeptical, but didn't mind watching. Everyone had a great time. We ended the evening by eating homemade chili and sipping on hot cocoa.

November 2014

This year for Thanksgiving we celebrated it at my mom's house and celebrated it with her, Doug, and Ashley and her children. It was a nice Thanksgiving. After dinner Doug and Ben hooked up this sled to the four-wheeler and Ben drug the kids around the field. I think Natalie and Ethan outlasted everyone. We had a great time. I wish that I had more pictures, but I forgot my camera. Thanksgiving snuck up on me this year. I didn't even realize it was Thanksgiving week until the Friday before. It came quickly and it went quickly. We have so much to be thankful for though. We have been truly blessed in our lives and in our family We count our blessings every day. We look forward now to Christmas and spending more time with our families and celebrating the birth of the Savior.

 

Halloween Town

  The last two weeks at the Cook house have been filled with lots of fun. Travis has been nagging me to get the Halloween decorations out so they can decorate. Little does he know that we don't really have any. While Ben was sleeping last Saturday morning I packed the kids up and we went to the family dollar and bought $15 worth of Halloween decorations. When we got home the kids went haywire decorating. The kids put all the window stickers on the windows of their choosing. Some windows are quite bare while others are packed nearly sticker on sticker. They chose where they wanted the wall decorations and spider webs and I put them up. They had so much fun. After all was decorated they went and woke up Daddy to show them the surprise of the "spooky" decorations. Boy was he surprised to go to bed with a normal house and wake up to such spookiness.
  Natalie had her first field trip. They were supposed to go to the pumpkin patch yesterday morning, but due to poor weather it had to be rescheduled to this morning. I had planned on going until it got rescheduled. I had to work the night shift last night and am in no condition to be driving the girls around today. I am a little sad that I missed her first field trip, especially since I am pretty much the only parent who didn't go. She did have so much fun though. I am glad that she went today too because the weather has been a tid bid nicer and less cold. She seemed to have fun with Miss Kara (her teacher) too. She came home and has been jabbering all about it. She brought home a small pumpkin and told me she needed to wash it to "get all the buggies off". She has been carrying her pumpkin around for the last twenty minutes since she got home. She has been a little cutie.
 On another note, about a month ago Ben and I got invited to a "free" dinner to Johnny Corino's in Idaho Falls with some friends. There is nothing free in life, just keep that in mind. It actually turned out to be a free spaghetti dinner over about an hour to an hour and a half presentation on fire safety. While that sounds boring and was kind of boring, Ben and I actually learned a lot about fire safety. For instance you are supposed to check your fire alarm weekly, you should replace the batteries in your fire alarm every six months, you should replace the whole fire alarm unit every ten years, you need to tip your fire extinguisher upside down and give it a good shake every six months or less, we also learned the difference between an ionizing detecting fire alarm and a photoelectric fire alarm, and a carbon monoxide alarm should be present on every floor of the house. We learned a lot more and did some personal research after the meeting was over for ourselves. After all the meeting was not just about fire safety, the presenter was their to sell fire alarms and heat detectors. While we ended up not being interested in his product we did learn a lot. Not more than a couple weeks later when I was volunteering at Trav's school, the fire department came into the classroom and talked fire safety with the kids. And about a week ago there have been fire safety things on the news. I've felt like this is a premonition or something and if I don't listen to all these warnings we will be the ones caught in a fire. It's quite expensive to be fire ready. We have had a couple fire extinguishers that have been tipped upside down and shook recently as you could guess. The batteries in the alarms were checked and actually two alarms were not working. Last year when we replaced the water filter in our refrigerator we found that the old water filter had not been changed in over ten years so if that hasn't been replaced I think it's safe to assume that the fire alarms in our house are the same fire alarms that were placed when the house was built. Slowly, but surely we are going to get every single one of those alarms replaced and get a fire ladder. We also need to have a fire safety plan for our children with a meeting place. That family home evening lesson is to come. We have a whole lot of work ahead of us, but I feel like we need to do it with all these fire safety warnings we've been having.

Family Picture Day

Today was Chelsie's birthday. We all gathered at her house for a family get together. I decided it would be a great opportunity to retake our family pictures. We took them earlier at the Cook family reunion and I really didn't like the way they turned out. My hair was awful and uncooperative and my shirt made me look 7 months pregnant. Today my hair went exactly the way I like it for family pictures, can't say much for the 7 month looking belly, but that's a work in progress. I managed to get the kids and Ben in the outfits I picked out and no one spilled on them before we went out. The only thing that didn't cooperate was the wind and the sun. It was a bit irritating. Between those two downfalls it was making the kids a little more squirrelly than normal and they couldn't see a dang thing and of course squinted into the sun. Can I just say, I FREAKING HATE family picture day! Nothing ever seems to go right. Last year was the best year we had for family pictures. Our pictures turned out lovely. I just have to remind myself that when I look at how great they turned out, the fight it costs to get good pictures like that. I mean if you look close at last years pictures you will notice a wet spot down Natty's pants. No it wasn't water either. She peed her pants right before pictures. I remember being so irritated. Today I went through and looked at the pictures after it was over. While one or maybe two turned out ok I will have to say the family reunion ones were a little bit better. This by no means was the photographers fault. Chelsie took them for us and she took them just how I like them taken. No ones heads were chopped off, no ones bodies were chopped off. Everything was just right. It just didn't work out like I had hoped. It is very frustrating thing. Family picture day is really false advertisement of the picture perfect family anyway. All these pretty smiles and really just before the click of the camera there is chaos. Everyone screaming and fighting (mostly me) and others running around like wild animals (mostly the kids) and the rest are just pouting (mostly Ben). Well I think you get the picture. He are the fruits of our labors today.

 

 

 

Here are some cute one's that I was able to get of the kids. Poor Nat's lips have had it. I can't get her to stop licking them. Still a cute little stinker though!

 

 

 

 

Here are some pictures I captured of everyone else with us: