Winter Wonder Land

Our winter wonderland has become a little too wondrous! I haven't measured it yet, but there's about 3 feet of snow at our house, so... We have been camping out for the last two nights at my parents house! Neither of us are able to do much shoveling, since Matthew is still on crutches and can't put pressure on his leg, and I have learned from previous winters not to shovel while pregnant, unless I want some serious sciatic nerve pain!

The kids are having a great time helping Grandpa shovel and sledding with Grandma!

Here's what our house looks like. The deck is almost filled to the railing. It's higher than the windows.

Here's Matthew's jeep. Do you think he can get out? It has 4 wheel drive...
We did have our driveway plowed once, and my dad has been keeping it kind of shoveled between snowfalls, (and shoveling out lots of other people too!) but it's still too much for our van to handle! The jeep has already been shoveled out once, and this is the snowfall since then.

It's beautiful and could be fun, but a lot of work! I must officially be an adult now. Oh dear.

More from Christmas

Well, I seem to have loaded pictures in backward order again. Here are some tired kids in their new jammies at the end of a fun day. This year our usual gathering for dinner has changed since they all moved away, so I wanted to start a new tradition of having Christmas dinner at our house. It ended up with my parents being our only guests, because Matthew's parents are in Mexico, and friends had other plans, but it was nice to have a small group. I wanted to make it a fancy special meal, so we had soup and salad for starters, then chicken cordon bleu with a creamy wine sauce, and raspberry kiwi trifle for dessert. It was my first time making either of these, so I was glad it was just my family, but it all turned out pretty good! I think we have a new tradition!

Earlier in the day the kids and I got to play in the snow! It was so beautiful! We have about 4 inches. It's been sunny and around 20 degrees for about the last 2 weeks, Then it snowed right before Christmas!

I pulled the kids on their sleds for a while, but Brennen didn't last very long. I think his hands froze, and he just cried.

Meadow and I made this snowman yesterday.

We hope everyone had a good Christmas!

Christmas Morning

We had a wonderful, white Christmas! It was fun this year because the kids were really excited, and finally know what it's all about. (The presents and Jesus' birth.) We opened presents to a beautiful wintery purple sunrise outside, then my parents joined us for breakfast. I made blueberry french toast casserole. Here are some pics from the day. Meadow is wearing her fairy wings while she paints a horse which is from a "paint your own horse" set we gave her.
Brennen didn't really open any presents, but he sure enjoyed playing with them. We gave him a drum set which he loved! He knew exactly what to do!
Cute brothers

Matthew had a bit of a different Christmas this year. He is recovering from knee surgery which he had two days ago. It was from an old soccer injury that has become worse and very painful over the past few years with all the work he does on his knees. The Dr. found that he has torn cartilage in his knee, so they cut out the damaged areas. He has had to spend the last two days with his knee higher than his heart to keep swelling down, but he's recovering very well.
He's enjoying learning to play his new ukulele. It's solid acacia wood and sounds very nice.

Singing Christmas Tree

We just attended the first nights performance of the Singing Christmas Tree. It was very nice! They sounded great and the whole thing went very smoothly- no glitches!The kids choir, directed by Jodi

The kids all enjoyed the singing and especially the cookies!

Here's a short video clip. I had a hard time holding the camera still because Brennen was fidgeting on my lap. You can also hear him singing along rather loudly! He loves to sing!

Meadow's 4th Birthday!

Meadow had a fun party this evening! Her two best friends, Jenna and Juliette came. We played a game of pin the tail on the donkey, decorated foam crowns with sparkly foam stickers, had dinner- Meadow chose to have pizza and chicken nuggets, then had cake and she opened presents. She was very excited about each one. She got lots of princess things! (The photos loaded in reverse order as you can see. Oh well..at least it's working right now!)
Her cake was a pumpkin log with rainbow colored filling. She wanted an orange cake with red and blue so this seemed like a yummy way to do that.

The finished crowns

Making the crowns. Logan made a hat instead.

All the kids minus Brennen (who was probably off climbing on something), and big momma standing by. Wow...I can't believe she's 4!!

Bad Bad HP

I must warn anyone who may be looking for a new computer or printer. Stay away from HP!!! Far, far away! They are some of the worst products out there. We've had lots and lots of trouble with our computer and printer over the 3 short years we've owned them. They work fine for the first year, until your warranty runs out, then things gradually stop working. The supposedly wonderful phone support costs $60!! And then they lie to you and tell you the parts you have aren't even HP, and there's nothing they can do other than sell you something else!! We are very disappointed by it and can now barely even use our computer, thus the lack of posts and pictures lately!

Thanksgiving

We had a nice large group for Thanksgiving this year! We gathered at my parents house as usual.Auntie Christy came for the week!Logan enjoyed a big piece of pumpkin pie which he helped make.

Kristi is writing something she's thankful for on a fabric square for our Thanksgiving banner. -A tradition I started 2 years ago, so we can look back on who we gathered with and read what they wrote.

The kids all played together very nicely! Meadow and Juliette wore their ballerina outfits for the occasion.

Meadow the Amazing Artist

Meadow is growing up so much! She's very creative! She loves to dress herself and these are some of the results:

She spends a lot of time drawing. Here she was working hard on a bunch of pictures which she asked me to make into a book! She told me the words to write on each page. It turned out very good! We should get it published!

Here is an excerpt from her book called "The Farm Animals". I discovered this picture won't enlarge for some reason, so this is what it says: "One day there was a little cow, and he was walking all around. And the sky was so blue, and the flowers were growing, and the sun was shining, and it was a kiky." We don't know what a "kiky" is!

Here are a couple of her other drawings, which she did completely on her own! This is an elephant.

This is Daddy.

November Pics

Once again I've been a bad blogger because our rubbish computer freezes up all the time, so here are a few pictures from this month. The kids made place mats with pretty fall leaves from our yard. (There ARE fall colors here....for a short time before they turn brown and get blown away!)


We got to visit our old apartment in between renters. We have new renters now. The kids were very excited to see it! I still miss it. We have lots of good memories from there!
We discovered another fun place to play at the Rec Center! We went with Sarah and the kids one day.

The kids loved these horses. The older ones had fun running around the gym playing with balls and riding some little car scooter things.

Cute Little Doh

I had my main ultrasound this morning. Doh looks good! My due date, April 10, is right on. Doh is 18 weeks old. We didn't find out if it's a girl or boy, but we both think it's a girl. We'll see! I'll do a name poll later on when we think of some good names. Any suggestions?

Skype

Sorry for the lack of updates lately! I'll post something else soon. But I wanted to let everyone know we now have Skype with a web cam! Our address is cooke.family572. For those who don't know, it means that if you have a microphone or a web cam on your computer, you can "call" us and you will be able to see us and talk to us. So..AUNTIES, you should register on Skype and call us sometime, (it's free!) and get a web cam so we can see you too! The kids would love it! How modern we are! When I was little I had a book about life in the future, and one of the things was a phone where you could see the person you were talking to. I didn't think that would really happen. Of course it showed the old style dial phone with a screen on it!

Here's Little Doh!

I finally had a doctors appointment today! Looks like Little Doh is due around April 10th, which is Matthew's birthday! According to the measurements from this ultrasound Doh is 14 1/2 weeks old. Isn't "she" cute?

Happy Birthday Brennen!

Today is Brennen's 1st Birthday! We had a party for he and his Grandpa John last night. He had all girls for his party, except for Logan of course!
Enjoying his applesauce cake with Rachel and Hannah.
This is about the only present opening he did. He was more interested in that block he's holding!
Sharing with his brother.
It was a fun party! The mommies and daddies came too and had hamburgers for dinner.

Mommy Update

I still have not been to the Doctor, because my appointment got moved to next week. Hopefully soon there will be pictures of Doh! I'm feeling great now- no more nausea, and I'm not so tired, so that makes life a little easier!

More exciting news!

Last night Meadow asked Jesus to come into her heart! She was up late with lots of good questions about Heaven and God. She asked if there will be toys in Heaven, then asked if there is a church in Heaven. I answered that all the people who have Jesus in their heart are the church, and they will be in Heaven. Then she asked if God has power, and then if we have power. I said that God gives his people, who have Jesus in their heart, his power. We talked about him using his power for good things. Then she asked, "Did Jesus have power when he died on the cross?" So we talked about Jesus choosing not to use his power to not die, because he knew he had to so we could be forgiven for our sins. And that he knew he would come back to life after 3 days and then go up to Heaven. She asked, "Where is Jesus now?" I said that Jesus is everywhere, he's in Heaven and in us, if we ask him to be. Then she asked, "Do I have Jesus in my heart?" I told her that he wants to be, and we talked about inviting him in so he can tell us what's right and wrong, and help us to understand things about him. Then I asked her if she wanted Jesus to come into her heart and she said yes, but wanted me to ask him. Finally she understood that she had to ask him herself and I helped her say a prayer. Then I explained that when Jesus lives in us he wants us to obey him, so she kept praying "Jesus I will obey you." It was very sweet! This morning I asked her about it and she got all giddy and shy, which is how she gets when something is very special to her. She's been very excited all day. She may be too young to really understand things, but the important thing is she knows the simple truth and believes it! I know this is the real thing because I was 3 when I asked Jesus to come into my heart. I remember it well, and I also simply heard and believed. From here she will grow and eventually learn about repentance from sin and God's forgiveness, and everything else.

Introducing Doh!

Well, here's our latest news: I'm no longer one person. Yup, I'm eating for two again! Doh!, our 4th little Cookie, is about 7 weeks old, and due sometime in mid April I think. Here's a picture of how Doh!, who is the size of a blueberry, should look now. I haven't been to the doctor yet so I don't have any actual footage. I've been feeling a little queasy and very tired for the last 3 weeks. That should get better soon though. Meadow seems slightly interested in the baby. She sometimes asks how big it is or thinks of what we should name it. She's come up with Henna, Meadow, and Logan! Logan doesn't seem to understand at all. Sorry if I haven't told you in person yet! I'm too scared to tell people!

Meadow the school girl

On Tuesday Meadow went to her first day of preschool! She was so excited the night before, that she kept asking, "is it time for school yet?" " Is it morning yet?" before she even went to sleep! She also told me that the teachers had beds at school and were sleeping there. :)

Here she is with her back pack on ready to go!
Happy Meadow after school! She had a great day! In the morning she went right in and started playing. She didn't even bother to say good bye! Her class has 7 kids, one of them is a kindergartner. When I asked what she did at school, she said "I did crack"! (She meant craft)Here is her teacher Miss Mandy. Meadow likes her a lot.

V.B.S.

Meadow was finally old enough to attend Vacation Bible School! She loved it! Every day she sings the songs that she learned. Her favorites are Lord I Lift Your Name On High, and The Wise Man Built His House Upon The Rock. Matthew, Tiffany and Krista did a great job leading the songs and stories! There were about 35 kids each day, and 2 got saved on the last day! Meadow sang nice and loud!
She especially liked the craft time.

Brennen Update

Brennen has been learning to stand up! He wants to walk so bad! He's starting to talk too! His first word was grampa! (Mampa) He also can say gramma, mama, dada, bye bye (while waving), and bye bye dada is his first sentence! He says these very clearly and definitely knows what he's saying. He's very sweet. Such a big boy! I can't believe he will be 1 in a month and a half!