Meadow's Happiness

Family Christmas Picture

2011-12-22T22:53:00.003-09:00

Well friends, I'm obviously not going to get Christmas cards sent out by Christmas, so I'll just post a family picture on here and say Merry Christmas from the Cooke family! Here's the "best" picture we got. I was inspired from my sister Katie's blog post with their family pictures, where she posted some of the less perfect ones because they more accurately show the kids personalities. ( www.faceofmyfather.blogspot.com ) They managed to do a bit better than us with 13 kids! So I'm posting ours too. They're pretty funny.

"We can't see you, but merry Christmas anyway!"

Such a lovely shot... the bare feet, the messy shelf, the random shoe..it all adds to the composition, don't you think? (and all those things are around Brennen, which definitely captures his personality!)

And this one could have been great...if it wasn't for Brennen half sitting on Logan's head, making him look like a Frankenstein! Well, you can pick which picture you like best and that can be your Christmas "card". Have a Merry Christmas everyone! :)

Singing Christmas Tree 2011

2011-12-12T14:30:00.005-09:00

Here are some pictures of our church's 30th annual Singing Christmas Tree. This year for the first time in a long time it was all done acapella or with live instruments instead of backing tracks. It wasn't perfect, but I liked it much better! Conductor Rob played one of his various instruments, like in the first pic he's playing flute. Scott W. played flute a lot also, Matthew played guitar and ukulele, Tim L. played picking guitar, and there was harmonica, a drummer, a bass player, and we now even have a cellist!!! I played clarinet in a little "salvation army" band that greeted guests as they came in. We even had to wear salvation army hats! It was actually pretty fun, even though we were all a little rusty and had some tuning issues. :( I realized I miss playing my clarinet.

Kid's choir was cute! Matthew playing his ukulele. The background was Creek Street (minus Dolly's house of course! If you don't know why, just look up Ketchikan's history!) We wanted it to be a local scene to celebrate the 30th year. I got to paint the background! It was fun. I really like painting murals!

Ashlen and Grandma John enjoying the music. We sit at tables and have homemade cookies and apple cider. It's one of the favorite local events!

Singing Christmas Tree videos

2011-12-12T11:15:00.006-09:00

Matthew played along with a few songs, as well as being one of the sound guys! On this one he played ukulele, (which my phone didn't pick up very well) while the choir sang silent night.

The kid's choir was cute and did a good job! Logan is the little guy on the end and Meadow is 4 kids down from him. She says she doesn't like it because the lights are too bright.

Meadow's Birthday

2011-12-12T09:59:00.003-09:00

Meadow is 7! We gave her a beta fish and her own little fish tank. She named the fish Isabella.

She had a fun girl party with friends. They decorated cookies and had icecream.

Later we had a family party, where she was surprised by the arrival of the other birthday girl, Auntie Christy!

This is the cake which Meadow decorated herself! So now we begin the adventure into older kid-ness! I'm quickly learning that 7 year olds get embarrassed very easily.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T21:45:00.003-09:00

We had a nice relaxing thanksgiving gathering. A few of us were nerdy enough to dress up this year because the kids really wanted to, but in the end none of them ended up doing it. Another couple (Tim and Hannah) was supposed to join us as well, but she decided to go into labor and have a baby instead!

Meadow made cute little name place markers, or whatever they're called.

Pilgrim Krista with Ashlen laughing at daddy

Bingo had a relaxing day too!

Snow!

2011-11-04T09:31:00.003-08:00

We woke up this morning to the first day of snow! The kids dug out their snow clothes and went out in the dark before the sun came up! They were so excited! Here are some dark pictures that have been edited so you can actually see something in them. My phone camera isn't good in the dark.

Hmm, last year's snowsuit doesn't fit so well anymore! Look at those bare legs with no socks on! :)

Finally some sun!

2011-11-04T09:09:00.002-08:00

Yup, this year, an actual sunny day is a blog-worthy event! Brennen went out to play yesterday morning, and this is where I found him, leaning on Bingo. So cute! He said the rest of the yard was too cold because it was in the shade. It was about 35 degrees.

Later that one and only sunny day, we went on a nice walk with grandma on the salvage trail. Here are some cute pictures...

Silly Brennen and Ashlen...It's really different just having 2 kids all day, while the other 2 are in school!

Big Boys

2011-10-02T20:28:00.005-08:00

Today was Brennen's 4th and my dad's 60th birthdays! We celebrated with a nice spaghetti dinner and yummy worm cake!

Brennen loves sharing his birthday with grandpa! Meadow decorated my dad's traditional applesauce cake with a helicopter made from raisins.

Mmmm, yummy worms in the dirt cake!

Yesterday we went for a walk to Carlanna Lake, and discovered a new trail along one side, which will eventually connect to other trails over the mountains! It was lovely! Meadow was being an almost-7-year-old -grump!

Cuties Logan and Ashlen! Ashlen is an amazing little hiker! She pretty much runs the whole way!

Wedding

2011-09-05T22:00:00.003-08:00

This past weekend Matthew & I went to Seattle yet again, where Matthew had the privilege of performing a wedding for the first time! It was for Brendon and Lynette Mix. Brendon and Matthew became friends while working together for several years at Alaska Airlines, before Brendon moved down to the Seattle area. After moving there, he asked Matthew what church he should go to, and when he went there, he ended up meeting Lynette, who just happened to be visiting the church that Sunday! When they got engaged, he asked Matthew to marry them because he was someone Brendon looked up to as a good Christian example, and because he played a big part in them meeting in the first place! Matthew said he would, but only if he could do their pre-marriage counseling. He wanted to be sure that they were right for each other, and they were going about it in the right way. He certainly doesn't want the first couple he married to end up divorcing. So, over the past 2 or 3 months, we met with them once a week on skype, and went through a book on preparing for marriage. We really enjoyed doing it, and are confident that they are in it for the long haul, and want what God wants for their marriage. Here is Matthew and the groom just before the wedding...both a little nervous!

It was a beautiful, happy wedding! Matthew did an excellent job, and gave a good short sermon during the ceremony. Some of the family said it was one of the best they've heard at a wedding.

This was having Brendon say the vows.

Official license signing The weather was warm and sunny. They had an outdoor reception on this grassy field. I just had to make Matthew pose in his suit and tie with our rental Mustang (they upgraded us for free) with Mt. Rainer poking up in the background. Probably not a scene we will see again! :)

Go Bumpkins!

2011-08-26T00:42:00.002-08:00

Logan had his first soccer game today! His team is called the Bumpkins. (Logan is the one in blue shorts, in case you couldn't tell). They were cute. They basically ran in a pack chasing the ball, all around the field including behind the goals, and through the crowd of families watching the game. Brennen got upset because they all ran through the volcano he was making in the dirt! Logan kicked the ball a few times but mostly just followed the crowd around, and tried to get his friend on the opposite team to pass him the ball! He had fun once he got into it. They all did pretty well for only having one previous practice! They don't keep score or anything at this level so I have no idea who "won".

Sunny In Seattle

2011-08-25T23:50:00.004-08:00

Last week, we finally gave up on seeing summer time sun and warmth here in Ketchikan, so our family and my parents came out from under the clouds to warm, sunny Seattle for a couple days. We just wanted to have a bit of nice family time before school starts. We all invaded "the Chrusty Hotel" (Christy's house) and had fun visiting the usual playgrounds and mall with the carousal. The next day we went to Alki beach. It's a nice area to visit, and the kids loved watching jets taking off overhead and ferries going by. They spent hours digging in the sand. I already put this picture on facebook, but I like this one of the boys.

Each one wanted to be buried in the sand!

Then were quite covered when they got up!

We ended our lovely day with a stop for ice cream at Baskin Robins, then headed off to the airport to come back to the clouds and rain. Meadow got her lovely golden locks cut while we were there. Her hair was always getting in a huge knot, so we decided it was time. Here's the before and after! She's lovely with the shorter hair too, and she likes it because she can brush it herself instead of mommy's painful brushing!

Finally Some Summer!

2011-08-06T16:06:00.004-08:00

After a very wet, cold summer, we finally have some sunny days! On one day we went with my parents on a beautiful hike on Connell Lake trail. The kids are excellent hikers, and ran most of the way, even Ashlen, who also makes so much noise she scares away all the bears for miles around!
Meadow was calling herself a nature girl and posing for forest pictures along the way. She also said she's going to name her kids Shore and Berry Bush!

I love being deep in the forest! It's so beautiful.

Today was the Blueberry Festival! The kids liked this fish fling game. See the (rubber) fish almost going in the hole? Meadow also participated in a spelling bee. She did well sounding out the words which were hard for a 6 year old. She didn't quite win though.

Krista met up with us, and shared her blueberry popcorn!

4th of July

2011-07-04T22:36:00.003-08:00

We had a lovely cold, very rainy, windy 4th of July! But that doesn't stop Kechikanians, as you can see the usual crowd came out to watch the parade. I'm just glad we have a parade, as many places don't, I guess. It was a rather strange one though, with the "tattoo float" which had half naked people creepily standing on the back of the truck showing off their tattoos...and accompanying rolls and flab...as you can imagine, it was quite a sight, along with the person dressed up in the sasquatch costume...??? Hmmm. The old lady driving her power chair with a roof over it and holding her little fluffy white dog on her lap was pretty dynamic.. and the senior class of 2012 who were dressed as cave men, had one brave (and shivering) lad wearing, um, nothing but a little flap in front and in the back, true cave man style, if you know what I mean..! Not smart on a windy day! Haha, (he did have skin colored sort of tights on, but still...really??)

There was plenty of yummy candy to pull out of the mud puddles!
Poor Ashlen didn't seem too impressed, but she didn't complain either.

Meadow and best friend Jenna, soaking wet and shivering at the end of the parade, but they had a great time! We had friends over for a barbecue, and the kids spent more time running around out in the rain, then Matthew set off a few firecrackers on the deck for Meadow to watch. (The boys were sound asleep and could not be woken up) It was a good day!

Tooth Out!

2011-05-05T13:24:00.002-08:00

Last week Meadow lost a front tooth! Her 2 front teeth have been loose for a while, so she just pulled it out herself at school, during Bible time! Tooth losses for her have been easy. She loves to pull them out! This is her 3rd.

April Birthdays bring May...um.. I don't know

2011-04-21T10:46:00.005-08:00

April in our family is a busy birthday month, with 4 of us having birthdays! Mine (Caren) is first on the 7th. It was a great day, even though I'm in shock at how old I am! I just like to think of myself as 28. I plan on being 28 for the rest of my life! The day started with going out to coffee and then an art show (that I had tried to enter but didn't finish the painting in time) with a friend, who didn't even know it was my birthday! Then Matthew took me out to lunch at Ocean View, then we went on a wonderful hike up Perseverance trail! Here's a picture at "the rock".

Next comes Matthew and Ashlen's birthdays on the 10th. We had a little celebration at my parents house after church. Meadow played Happy Birthday on the harmonica. Then we had another party at our house that evening after community group. Ashlen is 2! Can you tell? :)

And finally Logan had his 5th birthday on the 20th! He had 2 friends over for a space party after school. One of the games we played was "shoot the asteroid" with his suction cup Nerf gun. We also played "pin the astronaut on the Space Station", but mostly the boys just wanted to play with Logan's new Lego's.

Here's Logan and his best buddy Kegan and his Space shuttle cake with planets around it.

10th Anniversary!

2011-04-05T12:27:00.004-08:00

On March 31, we celebrated our 10th anniversary with a quick trip to Seattle! We stayed in a fancy hotel in downtown, and went to dinner at The Melting Pot, which is a fondue restaurant. (We went to the one in Bellevue, since we heard it's better than Seattle).

This cake was there in our room when we arrived! Unfortunately we didn't eat it right away and when I did eat some, about 8 hours later, it gave me food poisoning and I threw up! ~how romantic! This shows part of the beautiful room. The fancy part was this big tub that fills from the ceiling! See the water coming down? Here's a lovely picture of raw meat. We started with a cheese fondue with bread and veg, then a broth for the main course, which was a variety of meats, then had yummy dark and white chocolate fondue for dessert! It was all very yummy! They gave us complimentary sparkling cider since it was our anniversary!

Yummm! This chocolate one was called the Yin and Yang. We had a really nice time, minus the sick part! It's been a great 10 years! Now on to an even better next 10! (Kind of a scary thought, realizing that we will be in our mid 40's, and kids will all be teenagers! Well, Ashlen will be 12, but still, yikes!)

Community Groups

2011-03-13T15:19:00.003-08:00

For those of you who have moved away from here, I'll update you on a change we have made in our church. For quite a while, our Sunday evening service has not been very well attended, averaging about 20 people. Our pastor noticed that the once a month Sunday FOLD groups were getting about that many people in each one, and thought it would be a better use of time and would reach more people if we just made every Sunday evening a FOLD night. It was a hard decision to stop the evening service, but the church elders agreed to try it for a while. We started doing this in January, and all groups are watching a DVD series called The Truth Project, which is put together by Focus on the Family, and teaches on having a Biblical worldview. There are 12 different sessions, covering topics like what is truth? Who is man? Who is God, science, history, sociology, etc. (that's as far as we've gone, so I don't remember the rest). They are well done and a lot of information is covered in each one. Afterward we have a time of discussion. Our group has really enjoyed it, and there are people from Matthew's work who are watching it.
Our pastor also wanted to change the name of our groups from F.O.L.D. (Fellowship Of Local Disciples, which is where the church breaks into smaller groups and meets in homes) to something that would be a little more recognisable to new people joining our church. He said for a long time he didn't know what FOLD meant, until someone explained it. So they came up with Community Groups as the new name, since many churches in other places use the name community group or small group for their Sunday night home meetings.
I think it's been an ok change, especially for families with young children to be involved. I think what people miss is the testimony time. It can happen in the groups, but then you don't get to hear from other people in the church, only those in your group.

Clean Sweep!

2011-02-14T13:37:00.004-09:00

Well, this post is not in chronological order, but I had to put it in. Have you ever seen the TV show "Clean Sweep"? It's where organizers go in to someone's home and help them clean and sort an out of control room. Well, this weekend I was clean swept!! (By friends, not the TV show, in case you were wondering!) There is a large extra room downstairs that we haven't been ready to use yet, so over the 4 years that we've lived in this house, stuff has been accumulating, and I had become so overwhelmed by it, that I couldn't even go in there! Realizing that it's more fun to clean someone else's house, some wonderful friends came up with a great idea. We would all go to each others houses to help with whatever big cleaning project was needing to get done! We are needing an extra bedroom now, so we started with my house, while my mom watched all our kids!

And here is the dreary mess! This room has become known as "the messy room"...as you can see! Here's the mighty Laura, lifting bags of stuff while carrying her baby! And Kristi and Robin, who helped immensely by sorting the whole room and deciding what to get rid of, which is very hard for me! One of them commented that this was the biggest pile of randomness they had ever seen.I don't yet have a good "after" picture, because I'm still sorting a few things, but I gave away a van load, and took a whole truck load to the dump!

Kristi got so into cleaning, that once we came to a stopping point with the room, she stayed and cleaned out my pantry! As you can see, I am a major stasher...The closet was overrun by plastic bags. I had no idea there were so many in there! She filled a giant garbage bag with them! Fortunately there's a place to recycle here.

Finished! It's so refreshing to open it now! Kristi went on to clean off the top of my fridge, and a messy cabinet full of old magazines. She's going to inspect my pantry every time she comes over to make sure I'm not hoarding plastic bags again! I'm going to start using the re-usable shopping bags now.I now have a better idea of what things I need to make a place for, and what things I just don't need to keep. Hopefully these pile-ups won't happen again!

catch-up time!

2011-02-07T00:12:00.000-09:00

Hello blog readers who have probably almost given up on my blog! For some reason I just didn't feel up to updating for a while, but now I will start! I'll do a few posts a day to catch you up on our existence since the last post 4 months ago!

Meadow's 6th Birthday

2011-02-07T00:10:00.001-09:00

December 10th was Meadow's 6th birthday! It's rather shocking to think I already have a 6 year old...that happened awfully fast! Her birthday fell on a Friday, which means there is always a Singing Christmas Tree concert that weekend, so we had a family party at Grandma & Grandpa Cooke's house, then went over to the church for the performance. The next day she had a girl party, and went to the Rec. Center to play, then McDonalds for lunch. The girls all had a good time together. It was funny though, at different times during their conversations, I overheard each of them state, "I know everything"! It must be great to be a wise 6 year old!

Genesis, Aurora, Meadow, & Jenna Candle in an ice cream cone

This is the cake I made for the family party. She requested a seahorse!

Decorating for Christmas

2011-02-06T23:59:00.003-09:00

The kids are showing off their stockings:

Meadow...with Sluggy the slug peeking out Logan

Brennen...with mom and dad's stockings on his feet Ashlen putting hers on

Then my octopus of children "helped" with decorating the tree. I call them my octopus because there were 8 eager arms reaching and grabbing and throwing things in all directions! It was all rather crazy for a while, but we got the job done, and only broke about 5 glass balls. Trying to settle everyone down, I had them do nice calming waterpaints while I finished cleaning up. A few minutes later I found Meadow putting on "make up" and of course all the others copying her. Then just as I was about to have them all clean up, daddy came home and let them paint his bald head!

And Back to Seattle Again!

2011-02-06T23:21:00.004-09:00

In November, Matthew and the worship team for our church went to Seattle for the annual worship conference at Overlake. On the last day, I came down with the kids, left them with Christy, and joined them for the final concert! It was Gungor (pictured singing Beautiful Things) and then New World Son. Gungor is one of our new favorite bands. It was a wonderful concert, and fun to hang out with everyone in a different place.They all enjoyed the conference, but for this year Matthew has decided it would be better for the group to go and serve, so in the fall we are planning a trip to Mexico to purchase and set up a sound system for Katie and William's church in San Marcos, and also to do concert outreach events.

This is the amazing, crazy drummer for New World Son. Matthew showed him a video on his phone of Brennen drumming, then got his autograph. He said Brennen sounded pretty good, and wrote, "to Brennen, keep on drumming" and drew a little picture of a drum. That may be worth something when Brennen is a famous drummer someday. :)
Krista was very excited to have all the New World Son guys sign the back of her phone.

Meanwhile, the kids all had a wonderful time with Auntie Christy! We stayed a few extra days in Seattle for a vacation. We let the kids each choose a toy while we were shopping, and they all wanted snakes! So each night they slept snuggled with their snakes, of all things! Another fun activity was visiting Woodland Park Zoo. Here, Meadow and Logan are trying to cheer up the tapir by talking to it and petting it (there was glass in front of course) because they thought it was crying. As we were leaving the zoo, we let the kids pick a small toy from the gift shop, and guess what they all picked...snakes! It was the trip of snakes I guess.

We sure love our trips to Seattle! It will be sad if we ever loose our flight benefits.

Lovely Fall Storms

2010-10-24T00:05:00.003-08:00

The month of October has been quite stormy, with high winds causing power outages about every other day! We celebrated 10/10/10 with a particularly bad storm, with sustained winds of around 80 mph. and gusts over 100 mph.! Anywhere else I think that would be considered a hurricane, but here it's just a fall storm, sightly windier than usual. Well, it caused lots of damage! Here are some bad pictures taken on the move:

A telephone pole that broke in half

One of the wire holding things that broke off a pole

and a landslide. Trees and wires were down everywhere, and a huge fish processing boat tore away from it's dock and ran aground. Our power was out for 21 hours. That wasn't bad considering they were saying it could be 2 or 3 days! We were warm and cozy and able to cook on our woodstove, so it was kind of fun! Our friends came over to get warm, and stayed the night, and we played a game of Catan by candlelight. The kids were quite used to the power being out by now, so they didn't really care.

Sunny Seattle

2010-10-23T23:53:00.002-08:00

Matthew had a bit of time between building jobs, so we decided to come out from under the clouds, and go to Seattle for a few days of fun in the SUN! Of course, just as we were getting ready to board our jet, the power went off again in during another storm! And yes, it was a rather scary, bumpy ride!

We visited auntie Christy and my long lost parents who are also visiting there. Our first day we went up the Space Needle, which is something Logan has wanted to do for a while. I think the kids were a little dissapointed that it didn't actually go to space.

Beautiful Meadow! (I was having fun with a special effects photo app on my iphone, as you can see.)

City view from the top.

More....

2010-10-23T23:22:00.004-08:00

Next we rode the monorail into downtown and back.

Pretty picture of Ashlen running next to the Space Needle. She's such a happy girl!

This is a labyrinth painted on the ground just below the Space Needle. The kids all did it and loved running the path. I need one for my yard! When they're getting too wild I can say, "Go run the labyrinth 3 times!" It's surprising how long it actually is. That's the "Experience Music Project" (EMP) in the background.

Barefoot Boy of course had to take his shoes off on the sidewalk in downtown Seattle, near a man who was screaming unintelligible things about whiskey bottles!

From City to Farm

2010-10-23T10:53:00.003-08:00

The next day we visited a farm with a pumpkin patch and a corn maze! It was beautiful, and our first time seeing either of those. The maze was fun. They gave us a map, and we had to find numbered posts with a hole punch attached to punch the numbers on our map to show that we found all of them. We didn't think it would be all that hard, so we started out letting Ashlen lead the way, which she did with great noise and excitement, only to realize later that we hadn't seen any # posts, and had no idea where we were! But I figured it out and saved the day. I'm a hero.

In the background are the entrances to the 2 mazes. We did the castle one, not the vampire, in case you were concerned!

Ashlen was on overload, saying, "Ball! Ball!" everywhere, and trying to pick up the biggest ones! She was so cute.

This was at the Auburn Supermall. I thought it was cute. Logan and grandpa had lunch together.
We came home the next day to slightly nicer weather. It was a fun trip! Yay for flight benefits!

Birthday Boys

2010-10-06T00:31:00.002-08:00

October 2, Brennen turned 3, and Grandpa John turned...59! They had a yellowcopter applesauce cake. Here's a slightly better pic of the cake. It was slowly falling apart (and ending up with mysterious chunks out of it!) It didn't turn out as good as I had hoped, but it was the best I could do while feeling sick. Brennen loved it though, and it was yummy!

Because I've been sick, we just had a family party, (with Krista too!). We had spaghetti for dinner, then opened presents. Brennen was so excited about each new thing! (grandpa too!)

September things

2010-10-05T23:49:00.003-08:00

In September more friends moved away. Ryan and Stephanie went to Destin, FL for a new Coast Guard post, and Carla and Steve transferred to Oregon for the Forest Service. Sad for us, but good for them!

Logan misses his buddy Gavin. Throughout the month, the kids played lots of games of "The Movers Are Coming". Saying goodbye to friends seems to be a way of life around here.

Matthew finished the main part of our new deck! It is beautiful! It has glass for the railing across the front. Logan was a faithful helper!
My dad had his last ride in the yellow helicopter, and is now retired from the Forest Service! (but I guess not officially till the end of the year.) So now he will have lots of babysitting opportunities! The kids went to say goodbye to their precious Yellowcopter before it headed back to Juneau. Watching that helicopter slinging things was the highlight (ha ha!) of their summer!

School kids

2010-09-04T00:31:00.004-08:00

School started this week for Meadow and Logan! Here are their first day pics.

They are going to Clover Pass. We have a great new principal this year. She has about 30 years of experience in Christian schools, and is making a few good changes. She is re organising the classes a little. Meadow and Logan are together in a Kindergarten class. Instead of pre-kindergarten there will be K4 and K5. They both will go for a half day, 5 days a week. They will be taught together but the K4's will have a little simpler curriculum. We're told they should all be reading by Christmas time! Meadow is already learning on her own to read, so I think she's going to catch on fast. Logan really enjoys math, and is very good at adding up numbers. It should be a good year!

The rest of our summer

2010-09-03T23:26:00.003-08:00

This past month we had a visit from a friend who I hadn't seen in 18 years! Jenny Tennant and her daughter Ocean visited for a few days. It was good to see her again, and Meadow and Ocean had a great time playing together. Meadow made friends with this deer! She held out a leaf and slowly walked up to it. It actually came toward her a little, then just stayed there eating leaves while Meadow quietly watched. And of course the kids entered the slug race at the Blueberry Festival. Their slugs are the brown ones that just sat in a pile. Next year they plan to bring a trained white slug!Meadow retrieving her sleepy slug.

So we all drowned our sorrows in lots of blue cotton candy!

New stuff

2010-08-02T21:02:00.004-08:00

A few nights ago, Logan accepted Jesus into his heart! At bedtime I was reading a story that mentioned sinners going into eternity. I know, it doesn't really sound like a bedtime story, and I was even thinking it was a bit above him, but as I explained what that meant, he started asking questions about Heaven, which led to him wanting to ask Jesus to come into his heart. (That's the short version anyway.) This picture is just after. He was excited. One morning recently, I was awakened by Meadow saying, "Mommy, I need help. Ashlen's milk is exploding everywhere." As I sleepily tried to figure out what she was talking about, I suddenly realized she meant "in the microwave!" I ran upstairs and sure enough, there in the microwave, with a time of 12 minutes remaining, was a burned and melting mess! I forgave her though. Sweetly, she had decided to try to make breakfast, and had poured herself some milk, and tried to warm some up for Ashlen. :)

We just had a fun week with Auntie Christy here for a visit! She has her own lights that she balances on her head. It's the new fashion in Seattle. And we are about to repaint our peeling house. These are the new colors we tested out tonight. Pear Green with Espresso trim! Or we could stick with white trim. Do you like it? Which looks better? (pretty sure we're going with brown.)

Seattle Again

2010-07-28T10:34:00.002-08:00

On Sunday I (Caren) took Meadow and Logan for a special trip to Seattle, and to pick up auntie Christy and bring her home with us! We had big plans to go up the Space needle and a few other things. When we arrived, we went for dinner to Chuck E Cheese's. Here the kids are riding a video roller coaster, and you can see their faces on the screen.

Unfortunately, the next day I woke up very sick, and spent the day vomiting. (I'm sure you all wanted to know that.) So Christy took the kids to playgrounds and other fun things that they wanted to see, but not the Space Needle. We flew home the next day when I was finally feeling better. The kids took turns sitting by Christy on the plane.

Logan found lots of coins on the trip, and saved them up so he could buy a gumball! So here they're showing their gumballs in front of our jet "Tinkerbell" who flew us home. When we touched down on the runway, Logan patted the wall and said, "Good job Tinkerbell!" I thought that was cute.

The model on the ferry across to town.

That's about all the pictures I took. It was a nice little trip anyway.

A very technological evening

2010-07-22T21:28:00.004-08:00

Tonight we made good use of modern technology. We were on speaker-phone on our home phone with my dad, who was on skype with Katie and William with his phone on speaker-phone, and we had Christy on speaker-phone on my new iPhone, and we were texting each other from Matthew's iPhone to Katie's cell phone and Williams cell phone, and talking about it. Then Matthew took a picture with his phone and sent it to my dad's blackberry. Unfortunately he didn't receive the picture in time to show it to Katie on skype, which was our hope, so here's the picture. Also, he and Christy were both watching a Mariners baseball game, and "ohh-ing" and "aahh!!-ing" at things at the same time.

Does this make sense? I suppose we could have all just written each other a letter and sent it in the mail!

Our Trip

2010-07-06T22:21:00.002-08:00

Well, I had hoped this next post would be pictures of Barrow and me swimming in the Arctic Ocean, but alas, our flight to Fairbanks was full so we could not get on. We almost made it but the last 3 people booked on the flight came running to the gate at the last minute. It was a disappointment, but we decided to spend some time in Seattle instead. So, we took the new Light Rail to downtown Seattle. We shopped at Old Navy and Nike, then walked down to Pikes Place Market, which we didn't like much. Then we found the "gum wall". It's a wall along an alley that is covered with chewed gum! We weren't chewing any gum at the time, so we didn't add to it. Isn't it lovely? We decided we'd better not take the kids to see it because Brennen would surely pick some off and chew it!

Then we walked all the way to House of Hong in Chinatown, were we met up with Christy and her man Chris, and our friends Trista and John, for a huge, delicious dinner.We overnighted at Christy's, then returned home today. It was a nice little trip, kid free, but I missed the kids. I think Seattle is more fun with them. We will try for Barrow again at the end of the month hopefully!

4th of July

2010-07-05T00:42:00.002-08:00

We had a fun day beginning with breakfast and an early service at church, then the parade and festivities in town! It was supposed to be really rainy today, but the sun came out instead!

Ashlen loved watching the parade.
The main highlight for the kids was all the candy they got from the parade, and afterward they had their first cotton candy too.
By the time we arrived at my parents house to spend the afternoon, they looked like this:

Sugar low, I guess!

Another special event happened today, Meadow lost her first tooth! (we think she must have swallowed it.) She was quite excited about it! This is a flag 'fruit pizza' we made.

After a nice dinner cooked by Matthew and fun visiting with friends, we went to see the fireworks. Logan only lasted a few minutes. This is on the drive home. Everyone fell asleep. (all the kids, that is!)
In the morning, Matthew and I are going to try to fly up to Barrow!!!!!!! I hope to finally swim in the Arctic ocean, and see the midnight sun! It will depend on space on the plane. One of the segments is full. We're just hoping a couple people don't show up for the flight so there's room for us, since we fly stand-by for freeeeee!

Old Yellercopter

2010-07-02T20:45:00.006-08:00

Today we got to get up close to Grandpa John's big yellow helicopter. Well, the one he's using for the summer for Forest Service work. Brennen was happy that his Crocs matched it.

They even got to sit inside!

Ashlen enjoyed it too! Then away it went, off to Juneau for the weekend. Even from way back here the wind was strong, as you can see from Meadow's face!

Since last months post....

2010-06-30T00:36:00.003-08:00

I seem to be very bad at updating lately! Time just speeds by for me these days. Life has been pretty regular, but here are some cute kid pictures.

I like this one with them all lined up in order of age.

Beautiful Meadow, who dressed up her dolphin, and was so excited that her shirt fit him.

Logan being silly, with his collection of puffins, which are his favorite animal.

Sweet Brennen, probably the only kid who sleeps with an eagle. Funny Ashlen, and her first encounter with starfish. :)

World Cup Watching

2010-06-30T00:17:00.004-08:00

Matthew set it up so we could watch the England vs. US soccer game on the big screen at the church with friends. We were the England supporters, as you can see. The kids kind of like soccer; I think Ashlen and Brennen have the most potential. Logan will need to figure out how to put his pants on the right way around first!
She looks like a pro! But Matthew says the Winnie the Pooh shoes just won't do!

Recently...

2010-05-22T22:56:00.002-08:00

Hello faithful blog checkers, sorry for the long delay in updates! I'm a busy mama! Anyway, here are some pictures over the last month. We've had lots of beautiful weather as you can see!

Low tide on a misty morning,

Lots of playground time,
Many trips to Temsco to watch helicopters come and go, and sling radio buildings to mountain tops,

A wonderful mother's day cruise around Guard Island for the mothers in our church,

And my wonderful builder husband building us a beautiful, huge, new deck!

Logan's B-day!

2010-05-22T21:09:00.004-08:00

Logan turned 4 on April 20! And he's very proud of it! We had a family party a few days before, where we gave him a bike! He loves it, but finds it hard to push the petals. He'll hopefully get lots of practice this summer! On his actual birthday he had a kid party after school. He wants to be an astronaut and fly a space shuttle when he grows up, so we gave him an astronaut party, with a shuttle cake, and space ice cream (which is freeze dried). He wanted me to save the last little pieces of the ice cream so he could take it on the space shuttle when he goes to space! :) Here are some of his friends and their moms having lunch.

Singing Happy Birthday. The candles were the fire in the engines. The cake. It was my first time using fondant icing. It actually turned out better than I had expected!

Birthday Boy & Girl

2010-04-10T23:26:00.002-08:00

Yesterday we celebrated Matthew and Ashlen's birthdays! I'm afraid Matthew's birthday will never be the same since Ashlen has taken over! This time he had to share his nice pink butterfly cake with her. It had a candle antenna for each of them. Ashlen just tried to grab the flame. Ashlen is showing off her frosting. She loved her cherry cake, and kept looking at me like she couldn't believe it was really for her! The four little goofballs She also just learned how to walk! She still mostly crawls, but can walk very well when it's convenient for her!
Here are the little 1 year old friends (and mommies and Krista) who came to the party-
Haddy, Levi, and Piper

It was a fun time. Ashlen was such a happy girl through the whole thing!

More Colorful Church Foyer

2010-04-03T11:26:00.003-08:00

Our church foyer was recently redone, and I thought all you mover-awayers would like too see it. The main wall is a lovely green, with a beautiful cross made by Bud Schultz (I think). Mischa painted the words.
Here's where the bulletin boards used to be. Each of these frames has a missionary family's info on it, with their newsletters hanging down below. It looks really nice! The Pattisons made beautiful new trim around all the doors and floor. The old bulletin board is now in the sanctuary on the wall between the classrooms. It looks good there. What do you think of the changes? I also have plans to remodel the nursery. Hopefully that will happen soon!

WHAT??!!!

2010-03-29T19:35:00.004-08:00

This is a Godin Montreal hybrid guitar. It can do regular acoustic guitar sound, or electric. Matthew has been wanting to get this particular one for a long time. Today he got a call from McPherson's Music store, telling him they had one come in that he could look at and try playing. So of course he went to town to see it. When he was done playing, they asked him what he thought of it. He said it was awesome, and he definitely wanted to buy one when he had the money. "Well, it's yours!" they said! "We can't tell you who bought it, but they just wanted to say they love you and appreciate what you are doing out there." (meaning leading worship at church)

So as you can see he is very happy, still in shock, but very grateful and humbled that someone would do this for him!!

Whoever you are, if you're reading this,

THANK YOU!

Kids Say the Funniest Things

2010-03-19T22:25:00.003-08:00

Tonight our church had a fun catered dinner with entertainment. Each of the fold groups did something. There were skits and a few song and dances. They were pretty funny! Here's what our family fold did...

F.F.F.F.F.F.

2010-03-08T20:23:00.004-09:00

Wondering what the title stands for? Fabulous Family Fold Fondue Fellowship Fun! Sunday night our FOLD group met for dinner. Each time we get together, we have a different meal theme that everyone contributes to. This time was Fondue! We had an oil one for meats, some yummy cheese ones, and some dessert ones- notice the chocolate fountain! I like this picture with the two bald guys of our group, Steve and Matthew. Stephanie, Carla, Krista What makes this a Blog-worthy event is the fact that we had 40 people at our house! 21 adults and 19 kids- who all but 4 of them are under age 4! In this picture there are 19 people. Here are some of the kids.

I like this happy action shot! This was running with a purpose, they weren't just running wild. All the kids played very nicely together. We were actually shocked afterward when we counted up how many kids there were, because it didn't seem all that crazy!

Some things

2010-03-02T13:00:00.003-09:00

Matthew and his little building crew are building us a NEW DECK!! I'm excited! It will be bigger and less moldy than the one we have now, and there will be stairs (and I'm hoping for a slide) down to the yard! Here the workers are mixing cement for the footings. Brennen was fired after only about 2 minutes for throwing sawdust into the mix! Logan just stood by, overseeing the operation.Then they made hand print signatures to show that they helped.
This past month we have had wonderful, sunny, springlike weather! Here are some pictures from playtime on our friend Kristi's beach.
Ashlen thought the sand was delicious, and had a feast!
Then she tried to go for a swim! Mommy friends-Laura, Robin, and Kristi. Happy 3/2/10!

Oops, it's been a while...

2010-02-14T21:35:00.003-09:00

Well, Matthew & I took a quick trip with Ashlen to Seattle. We were choosing cabinets from IKEA for a kitchen job for some friends. Ashlen was excited to see the jet. She was wonderful to travel with!
Ashlen having lunch in IKEA.

Ashlen in Home Depot. We stayed overnight with Christy, and got to go out for dinner and a movie while she watched Ashlen. I didn't take any more pictures though.

My dad helped in the nursery at church today! It was a momentous occasion so I took a picture. There were 9 kids. He said he enjoyed it and will do it again!

Sorry, not much to report.

New Look

2010-01-18T22:51:00.003-09:00

Does this look different?

In an attempt to make the sound better, Matthew is trying a new set up at church, facing the corner with the screen as the back drop/sound shield. I think it looks great, you could fit in twice as many chairs, and it does seem to help the sound in our square, echo-y building! This is the view from the center door in the foyer.

And the overall view from the back corner. Next week we will also have a new stage! This is during an evening service, which has far fewer people than the morning. (The words on the screen look funny because it was in the process of changing when I snapped the picture) Mischa (McClennan), our new church secretary, also changed the design on the front of the bullitin. It's a little more modern looking. Lots of changes for one day!

The boys...

2010-01-15T23:41:00.003-09:00

These are some nice wintery pictures I took of the kids recently. They are all wearing their new sweaters made by Matthew's auntie Pam, who lives in England.

Cuties Brennen and Logan

They have since had much needed haircuts! He's all boy, snot and all!

...and girls

2010-01-15T21:51:00.003-09:00

Beautiful Meadow and Ashlen

Meadow sat down on this beaver log and said, "It's been nice gnawing you!" She's so funny!

Deets!

2010-01-01T22:47:00.005-09:00

Here's drummer boy Brennen Christmas morning on his "new bue deets" as he calls them! All those drums, and he has to play the wall?

Our house just became a little noisier, but I don't mind when he's actually playing his rhythms. He can't quite reach the bass drum pedal from the stool, but he tries it standing up. We are excited to watch him learn more and improve his skills! We cover them with a sheet and put them to sleep when it's time to be quiet. He tells them good night and even covers them himself sometimes when he's done!

Christmas!

2010-01-01T17:05:00.002-09:00

We had a wonderful Christmas! The kids came upstairs in the morning to find the door to the playroom wrapped like a present. They stopped and stared for a while, not sure what to think of it. Wise old Meadow is saying in this picture (which is an image from a video), "I think it's a door." Finally they peeled back the paper and ran inside to find their main gifts from us! Brennen got a real child sized drum set, Logan a firetruck, and Meadow a mermaid castle for the bath. Meadow and Logan acted very excited, but Brennen casually went up to the drums and started drumming like it was just normal to have a drum set! It was Ashlen's first Christmas. She just got good at crawling a few days before, so she had fun joining in with whatever the big kids were doing.

Meadow was so happy to find this winged horse in her stocking! She had quite a reaction! :) Logan was happy to have a new hat and matching sweater knitted by Matthew's aunt. He loves wearing hats and sweaters! After present opening, the grandparents arrived with their presents. Then we all had a yummy breakfast made by Matthew! Later on they came back for dinner.

Gingerbread Houses

2009-12-19T15:59:00.007-09:00

Yesterday, Dave and Bonnie Hunter (our new pastor & wife) had us (without kids!) and others over to make gingerbread houses. Bonnie cut out and baked all the pieces herself. The table was covered with lots of different candies and pretzels! It was quite yummy, and so was the frosting!Here they are, along with Pam Holsten. Mike got architectural and added a little roof... Here's their finished house. It turned out good! It even has a satellite dish.

Finished house

2009-12-19T15:40:00.004-09:00

And this is ours! It was a lot of fun! See the kids looking out the window? Here's what's on the inside before I added the kids. Matthew made the rocking chair that actually rocks, and even sheet rocked the walls! I made Bingo lying there with a bone. Such a cozy little cabin. The backyard, complete with an igloo and an outhouse! The front Meadow, Logan, and Brennen looking out the window. Ashlen is on the floor next to Bingo, but you can't really see her. (her head is the orange dot in the corner of the window) Now we'll see if the kids can keep from eating it until Christmas!

Singing Christmas Tree '09

2009-12-13T19:06:00.006-09:00

We just finished our Singing Tree performances. As you can see we had a nice big choir this year, and it sounded really good! This is the first time I've been a part of it since having kids. My mom offered to babysit so I could do it!
Brennen had his first drumming performance (at age 2)! He went up front to play his drum while the choir sang Drummer Boy. He only actually drummed a little each time. I think he got shy, but he was so cute running up there when it was his turn, and he sat there very nicely holding his sticks, and when he did drum, it was mostly in time with the music! He's a natural! In the first performance, when the audience clapped he stood up there happily clapping too! Everyone thought he was so cute! :)
Pastors in costume! Ha Ha!
One of the new things Pastor Dave did this year was have comment cards at each audience member's place, where they could comment or suggest improvements. He also led everyone in a prayer to accept Jesus, and had a box they could check and leave their contact information if they had said the prayer, or just wanted to learn more. As far as I know at least 4 people said the prayer!

Here is a short clip of one our songs- The Night That Christ Was Born. It's the only one Matthew was able to film, since he had Brennen with him.

Here's part of a solo by Kayla L. on the same song.

Meadow's Party

2009-12-12T22:45:00.003-09:00

Here are some pics of Meadow's party on Saturday. It was just a girls party, no boys were allowed, so the brothers went to grandma's. Krista, Genesis, and Jenna came. It was a nice, very mellow time. What a difference boys make! Birthday girl requested a "horsey" cake.

We played a game of pin the tail on the mermaid.

And opened presents of course. Ashlen loved joining in with the girls, and determined that the wrapping paper tasted quite good!

Meadow loved the pillow Krista made her!

Insider's View

2009-12-11T23:05:00.004-09:00

I decided to capture a different view of the Singing Christmas Tree- from inside it! I took these exquisite photographs at last night's dress rehearsal.

Here's an artistic scene. I call it "Music and Mesh".
The very cute kids choir. Meadow looks a bit lost! I especially like the giant sheep on top of the life sized buildings off in the distance.
Some lovely ladies in my row watching the kids sing.
(Laura, Jenelle, Kelly, Krista)

A view up the tree

And director Rob making our music glow!

Meadow's Birthday

2009-12-11T18:03:00.002-09:00

Yesterday Meadow turned 5! When she woke up in the morning she said, "I don't like 4 anymore, 'cuz now I'm 5!" And this is what she decided to wear for the occasion: a ballet tutu, fairy skirt and wings, 2 other skirts, and velour pants. Very Meadow indeed!
Since her kid party isn't till tomorrow, one of the special things we did was paint each other's nails! (Can you believe how girly I'm getting?!) They're a mixture of 3 different colors of course.

Later on, we had a family party at the Cooke's house, because there was Singing Tree rehearsal that night. Meadow has been hoping for (and thoroughly expecting) a mermaid for her birthday, and was very excited when she opened one!It was a fun day! I can't believe how fast 5 years went, and life shows no signs of slowing down any time soon! Yikes!

Oh, how very British

2009-12-05T17:02:00.004-09:00

Today Meadow, Logan and I went to a lovely Cream Tea in the Little Red Church. We were served yummy scones with cream and jelly, and several delicious cups of tea in china tea cups!
Proper British children drinking their tea. They loved going to a tea party!

And here's Grandma Cooke, who put this all together! It was done as a donation fund raiser for the school. She and Marge Fowler painted lots of ornaments which they had for sale for the school too. The whole thing was very well done, and lots of people came!

Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T09:48:00.004-09:00

This year we had Pilgrims and Indians join us for Thanksgiving dinner! We wanted to teach the kids about the first Thanksgiving, so they helped make the feather head bands, and I made the (extremely authentic, as you can see) costumes! It was a lot of fun!

So cute!! Ma and Pa PilgrimOther Ma Pilgrim and Chief Cooookee

Thanksgiving Eve

2009-11-26T11:24:00.002-09:00

Auntie Christy has come for the week! The kids are enjoying their special days with her-each kid gets a day and night with her by themselves (except for Ashlen). In this picture we went for a walk on the breakwater at Thomas Basin, which the kids call the "otter walk" because sometimes we see otters and otter poop! It was very cold and windy!
The preschool classes and parents were invited to join the rest of the school for their annual Thanksgiving Lunch.

The kids each made a hand print turkey for our banner which we add to every year.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Worship Conference

2009-11-23T20:36:00.005-09:00

Matthew and other members of the worship team recently attended the Overlake Christian Music Summit in Seattle. It was 2 full days which started out with a worship time led by different Christian artists and song writers, then lots of classes and workshops to choose from. Everyone went to different classes for their instruments, vocal classes, sound system classes, and also ones about playing as a team. Everything was very practical, and everyone learned some new things, but the overall focus of everything was worshiping God. Matthew said he learned the most from a vocal class. Everyone especially enjoyed the worship times. There were 2300 people attending, all great singers and musicians, singing, harmonizing, and really worshiping the Lord together! It sounded amazing, and they all felt like they got a small taste of what Heaven will be like!Here is a picture of some of the group with Paul Baloche. (Krista, Rick, Paul, Matthew, Tiffany, & Carla) Another fun part of it all was hearing and meeting some of the current song writers and musicians such as Paul Baloche (Open the Eyes of my Heart, Above All), Brenton Brown (Hallelujah-Your Love is Amazing, Lord Reign in Me), Brian Doerksen (Come Now is the Time To Worship, Refiner's Fire), Matt Redman (Better is One Day, Blessed Be Your Name), Laura Story (Indescribable), and others. The group was very impressed to find that most of them were very sincere, humble fellow Christians, and it was nice to learn about their lives and families, and the stories behind the songs. Paul Baloche has been one of Matthew's favorites, and many of the new songs we have been singing in church are by him, so Matthew was excited to get to meet him, and invited him to Ketchikan. He said Alaska is the only state he's never been to, so we'll see! Each night ended with a concert with several different groups performing: some of the ones already mentioned, the great guitarist Doyle Dykes, New World Son (which was really fun to watch) and a few others that I've never heard of, but all very good!

Everyone came back very encouraged and excited, and can't wait to go again next year (hopefully)!

Logan and Daddy

2009-11-18T11:38:00.005-09:00

We are all happy to have Matthew back after being gone for several days! He went to Seattle over the weekend to attend a worship conference with 10 others from our church. They had a wonderful time, learned a lot, got to meet some of the singers/song writers who have written many of the well known worship songs we sing, and attended some great concerts each night! I'll post more on that later when we get some pictures from other people. He didn't bring a camera. Then he was home one day before leaving again to Metlakatla to finish a tiling job with his dad! They didn't finish in time to get the last flight home, so they had to stay overnight. Thankfully they made it home this morning in between snow squalls!

Logan has been having a hard time with daddy being gone, so today they worked on a project together, putting down non skid stuff on our stairs. Logan really loves helping daddy, and often talks about the things they've done together. Of course he's very happy about the snow too! (Even though it's wet and slushy!)

Gingerbread

2009-11-11T18:09:00.002-09:00

Today we made gingerbread men and ducks. It was fun. The kids ended up eating most of their frosting and sprinkles, of course!

I was having them say "frosting" for the picture, but Meadow said "raisin" instead. As you can see, that doesn't make the right kind of smile!

Here are mine! They had yummy cinnamon icing.

Oh so very 2!

2009-11-09T17:16:00.004-09:00

Ever since sweet little Brennen turned 2, he has made sure he fulfills his obligation to be "terrible"! I can't look away for even 3 seconds without him getting into some kind of mischief! Pouring water everywhere, drinking soap, splashing in the toilet, and coloring himself and furniture with markers (which he always finds when I think they're put away) are some of his daily rituals. Somebody please help me! Well, here's what he did today: he tried to feed the fish all by himself, and dumped the entire can of fish food into the aquarium! I found him by a very red tank saying "too much!"

I took a picture thinking maybe someday I will see it as funny. Not today. Then, after I got the fish out and started siphoning out the water, he was trying to grab the bowl the fish were in and almost pulled it off the counter!

Now here's a funny picture! I know, I'm a bad mom to let my little guy out in the wet and cold with no pants on, but he got himself all ready to go out with Meadow and Logan. He just forgot one little detail! It was cute. He's in his new "choo choo" underwear!
Then we had a nice little picnic in the rain. (with pants on!)

Mommy's Slaves -just kidding

2009-10-31T00:55:00.003-08:00

This week I made a chore chart, and put these kids to work! So far, it works well and they're excited to do their jobs and get a sticker toward a prize! The jobs on the chart are get dressed (by themselves), jobs on their job wheel (below), Quick Clean- clean up as much as you can in one room while a song plays, and make bed.

These are the job wheels. Each day they have 2 jobs. They turn their wheel to the next pictures, which I will trade around between kids each week. Some of the jobs look hard, but I just want them to do a little, to learn how, and get used to doing chores! We'll see how long it lasts! Hopefully this will keep working well!

Today our church is having a Harvest Party! I made a Tweety Bird cake for the cake walk. Meadow chose this one from a cake decorating catalog. I'm glad she chose this instead of one of the wedding cakes! It didn't turn out too professional looking, but it was fun. I've really had the urge to decorate cakes lately, for some reason.

I had to include Ashlen here, who loudly screeched like a pterodactyl throughout the cake decorating process! She is growing up so fast! She sits up really well now, can feed herself cracker pieces, and is almost crawling. She slides herself all over! She's a sweety, but also can out-scream and out-cry anyone! She's SO LOUD, especially when I'm getting dinner ready and at night!

Little Musicians

2009-10-19T20:03:00.005-08:00

Yesterday at church we had a wonderful, unexpected surprise! A lady asked if we needed a piano, and GAVE us this full size electric piano! She's had it stored in her garage for 5 years, and nobody has wanted it. This is something we have been really wanting for the kids, (and me!) and we have been looking into them, but they were way more than we could afford. Meadow is interested in learning music, and wants to play piano (pianyo, as she calls it) so I am excited to start teaching her! We are thankful for how God provides!! Today we got a pretty lamp to go on it! Meadow and Logan are playing a duet.

Today some sample pieces of the new platform for the church came in. (It's finally getting replaced after many years of good use!) Matthew brought them home to test them out before taking them to the church. Here's some future worship band members- Brennen on drums, Logan on guitar and lead vocals, (he was singing a very sweet song: "Jesus is in Hea-ven, Jesus is in Hea-ven...") and Meadow doing a mixture of sign language, singing, and dancing! It was lovely! Ashlen was joining in too with shrieks, AHHAAHHs, and cries. She's laying on the floor in the background. I don't quite know what part of the worship team she is!

Anyway, they determined the stage worked quite well!

Big Boy Brennen

2009-10-15T21:17:00.003-08:00

Now that he's two, Brennen has been really trying to be a big boy. Yesterday when we were leaving, he climbed into the van and closed the door. I found him sitting in one of the older kids booster seats with the seat belt across him (not buckled) and a big, proud smile on his face! He tries to use the bathroom by himself too, and does pretty well...except for one gross little incident...but I'll spare you from the details. Also, every night he climbs into Logan or Meadow's bed, really wanting a "big boy bed", so we took the side off his crib. He's very happy about it, but is learning the difficult lesson of staying in bed!Here's the newest member of our family, Ovino, the albino plecostomus (a sucker fish that eats algae off the sides of the aquarium). Our tank was completely green, so he was very needed! In the background you can see one of Meadow's jellyfish. We got those at the same time. They float around in the current. She thinks they are real, but kind of knows they're not. Her eyes welled up with tears as she asked, "Are they just toys? Are they not real?" It was very sad! I couldn't tell her they weren't alive. I just said they were just like real ones, but they don't eat. Logan says, "They're just pretend."

New Fold Meeting

2009-10-12T23:44:00.004-08:00

We will be starting a new Fold group next week at our house for families with young kids! Pastor Dave has asked Matthew to lead it. (Fold meetings are small group meetings that our church does that meet in homes.) We will meet early for dinner, then the kids will go next door to Krista and Stephanie's house! Our first meeting will be on Oct.22nd, a Thursday, which would also make it easier (than a Sunday) to get babysitters if parents prefer that. Matthew has started a blog "Family Fold" about it for people to check for information and updates. Here is the link, which is also in the sidebar: http://www.familyfold.blogspot.com/

***

I just added a little more info to the family fold blog.

Big Boys

2009-10-01T21:02:00.004-08:00

Today we celebrated Brennen and his grandpa John's birthdays! Their real birthdays are tomorrow. We had a yummy spaghetti dinner and applesauce cake. Brennen is a big 2 year old! He was excited about his birthday. Grandpa is a big 85..I mean 58 year old!

I gave him a lovely crab mug. The crab tradition started long ago. We gave Brennen, our incredible drummer boy, a set of bongos! I wish we could get video of him drumming. He does several rhythms, and keeps a pretty steady beat. He drums all day long, and really is amazing for his age! The kids all helped decorate these beautiful cupcakes.

Daddy Time

2009-09-21T10:03:00.002-08:00

The boys love to help daddy with fire wood. Although, Logan prefers to give the instructions rather than do the work! Today I guess they weren't feeling very strong.

Ashlen is getting a building lesson during her first trip to the garage.

Dinner on a Cruise Ship

2009-09-11T22:47:00.005-08:00

Tonight we were invited on board the Statendam to have dinner with our friend Raymond, who is a crew member, and friend of Matthew's dad. The kids were very excited, because they remembered going on a ship for lunch last summer. As we walked up to the ship, Brennen kept excitedly shouting, "Daddy! I see doot! (boat)"

Raymond enjoyed meeting Ashlen.

This is a rather rubbish photo, but I kind of like it anyway! At least it shows us eating dinner.

The kids had fun standing in this window that sticks out from the ship.

And Raymond took them all to get big strawberry ice cream cones!

Exploring the Ship

2009-09-11T21:51:00.009-08:00

After dinner we went outside to explore the decks. The kids were really excited to go to the "area with the grass". The tropical zone... with Deer Mountain in the background!

Ashlen overlooking Ketchikan praying, "Greater things are yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city_y yyy...When glory shines through hearts alive with praise for you, and love for you in this city_y yyy..."

(it's a song)

She likes cruising. And, of course, finding the pools is fun too!
As we were getting ready to disembark, Raymond bestowed many gifts upon the children, as usual!
Within seconds of snuggling with her new soft doggy, Ashlen fell sound asleep!

Happy 09/09/09

2009-09-09T21:51:00.000-08:00

Fun Pics

2009-09-08T16:36:00.004-08:00

Here's our picture from Splash Mountain at Disney World. This and Pirates of the Caribbean were the only "big kid" rides we went on. We waited 75 minutes in line for it! Meadow was very brave to go on this one, but when we went down the big water fall she hid! Christy is trying to hold her up. Afterward she said it was fun and wanted to go again! That's William and David in front, Christy and Meadow, Matthew making a silly face for the camera, and me. (We don't know the people in the back.)

This picture is from a "sketching" machine at Chuck E. Cheese's. We had fun with it. I thought this picture was cute! I just wish the rest of Logan's face was there. Meadow looks so beautiful!

Sweeties

2009-09-01T14:20:00.002-08:00

Today Logan got to ride to school in daddy's big step van! Ashlen getting some quality brother time! They love their little sister! She loves them too!

School Kids!

2009-08-28T13:55:00.002-08:00

Yesterday was Logan's first day of preschool! He was excited to go and wear his backpack. When we arrived he was a little shy about going in, but once he found the toys he was happy! There are 7 kids in his class. It's nice that his 2 buddies Kegan and Gavin are there too! Afterward, all he told us about his day was they went on a tour, and he did nothing! I think he had fun though, and is excited to go again! Today Meadow started Pre-Kindergarten. She loves school and was glad to go again. There are only 5 in her class. All we learned about her day was she "didn't learn letters."

Various Happenings

2009-08-28T09:07:00.004-08:00

Ashlen loved her first bites of real food! Yummy runny oatmeal! Her arms shook with excitement and anticipation as I brought the spoon toward her mouth, then she grabbed it and shoved it in! Yup, another Cooke kid who loves to eat!
Then she decided she needed some vegetables. She had fun licking the grass and clover on a nice sunny day.

One evening we had a picnic dinner with my parents at the lake. It was buggy, but beautiful! The kids of course couldn't stay out of the water, and had a great time splashing around. Brennen ended up falling in, and cried and cried. Big sister Meadow rescued him and brought him to shore, where he immediately stopped crying, and went straight back in, only to fall again! Meadow rescued him a second time. After that he stayed out!

The other night our nice new neighbors bravely invited us all over for root beer floats! Anyone recognize their lovely house? Krista and Stephanie are renting our apartment now!

rest of our trip

2009-08-16T22:13:00.005-08:00

Sorry all you blog checkers, It's been a while! We've been home nearly 2 weeks now, but here are a few more pics from our trip:

The seven grandkids

The grandparents, William, and David spent a day at the Kennedy Space Center. It just happened to be the day the space shuttle Endeavour was landing there after 16 days in space! They heard the very loud sonic boom as it came in, then on a tour to view the launch pad, they past it being towed in after landing!

The second Sunday there, everyone except for our family drove down to Naples to attend Pastor Kevin's church. William preached and introduced them to their ministry in Mexico. After that service, he and Katie spoke at a Hispanic church as well. We decided not to go because it was a three hour drive one way. That would have been hard on the kids, especially with Ashlen who screams on long drives! This next picture is not real good, (that's a spot on the lens covering Pastor Kevin's face) but it shows the whole group, who had lunch together, and then went to a nice beach. Jasen Wickert was also there visiting.

Our family attended a nice Assembly of God church nearby, then spent the day around the pool. It was really nice to have a whole day just as a family- something that rarely happens! toward the end of the trip the kids became much more brave in the water. Even Logan and Brennen, who wouldn't go in for a long time, were jumping in (with someone to catch them)!
We had a nice but long flight back, and Ashlen didn't scream this time! All the kids did very well. It was a wonderful trip!

Sea World!

2009-07-30T14:46:00.006-08:00

We had a fun day at Sea World yesterday! Here are some pictures.The kids were trying to get a dolphin to come to them, so they could throw the ball.

Logan was really happy to see puffins! It seems kind of random, but he loves puffins!
We went to three shows- Shamu the killer whale, dolphins, and Clyde the sea lion. Ashlen loved them! She smiled and laughed through each of them! It was probably just the loud music and bright colors that she liked, but she was awfully cute! Here's Shamu posing for a picture. The shows are fun to watch! In the evening, to cool off, some of us went on the Atlantis water ride/roller coaster, which has a 50' plunge that completely soaks you at the bottom. By the time we got off, the weather had changed to a thunder storm! We got our ride just in time- after waiting over an hour in line, our boat was one of the last ones that went before they closed all rides. The storm was right above us and the thunder was so loud we thought a firework had gone off close by in the park! We cooled off alright!

All the electricity in the air has made Matthew's hair grow long! Black, and in braids too! How amazing!

A Visit to the Goulds!

2009-07-28T07:01:00.003-08:00

Yesterday we drove to Sebring to visit Pastor Kevin and Sheila! They have a beautiful place and it was really good to see them again, and introduce them to Ashlen! The kids all got to experience Pastor Kevin's wild roller coaster golf cart ride. They loved it!
They even rented a bouncy house for the kids!

Eileen, Susan & Alan, and kids were visiting from England. They always enjoy seeing Christy.

Matt, Allison Maloney and Laura playing with Ashlen. We didn't know Alli was going to be there! She met Katie & William's kids for the first time!

We had a delicious dinner and dessert, and a very nice visit!

Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of Sheila. We might be going to their church in Naples on Sunday. If so, I'll take one then!

The Beautiful Beach

2009-07-28T05:55:00.003-08:00

Well, this isn't the beautiful beach, but this is to show what we drove through to get there! The whole way we drove in blinding, pouring rain with thunder and lightning right above us.
We finally arrived at Clearwater Beach with fine white sand and 89 degree water!! This was the warmest ocean water I've ever been in! The kids loved it and enjoyed jumping in the waves. Brennen thought the sand was yummy.

Ashlen had a milk picnic, and tried not to get a tan.
Ashlen stepping in the Atlantic Ocean! The sun was too intense so I didn't want to take her swimming.

My handsome surfer dude and David. The storm followed us. See it approaching?

Oops! A blurry picture. The kids all loved taking turns going out into the waves with Auntie Christy!

Disney World!

2009-07-26T21:03:00.003-08:00

Our adventures continue! On Friday we spent the day (13 hours!) at Disney World! The kids really enjoyed it, even though we picked one of the hottest days of the month to go! This is my mom and Brennen on the Peter Pan ride. He loved it!
Meadow enjoying the spinning tea cups! We discovered she likes rollercoasters, and even went on Splash Mountain! She said that was the "most funnest" ride!

Meadow's big hope was to see REAL princesses. We went to "Story Time with Belle" (Beauty and the Beast), and she was one of the girls chosen to act out the story as a teacup!

And guess who they picked to be the Beast....William! Ha Ha!
We had a great day, and were so proud of the kids, who were still happy as we left the park at around 11 PM! Logan loved the lights parade, and enjoyed shining his light up toys.

Well, this isn't Disney World, but I had to throw in a picture of Ashlen's first swim! She liked being held upright in the water, but didn't enjoy the "swimming" very much! Today we went to Clearwater Beach on the gulf side, and Ashlen had her first dip in the Atlantic Ocean! Now I really need to take her to the Arctic this summer...three oceans in her first 4 months would be pretty amazing! Although, she wins the award for the WORST traveler of our family! She screams pretty much the whole time we're driving! I'll post about our beach adventure tomorrow.

Florida!

2009-07-22T17:41:00.003-08:00

We are here in Florida thanks to Matthew's parents who are celebrating their 40th anniversary, and decided to take us all on vacation with them! Katie and William and kids are here, and my mom and Christy joined us yesterday, and my dad will be here tomorrow. The temperature has been around 90 and it's fairly humid. Here's Katie trying to read a story to the kids. The cousins were all very excited to see each other! Meadow and Lane are good friends.

For today's adventure we visited a petting farm. It was a pretty big place with all kinds of animals to feed and pet. The kids even got to ride a pony and milk a cow! I didn't get pictures of those unfortunately. Logan didn't want to touch any of the animals, but Brennen did everything! Here we were holding ducklings.

Brennen grabbed the poor thing by the neck!

Our swimming pool

2009-07-22T17:24:00.002-08:00

This is the villa we are staying in. It's very nice! It has 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. There will be 16 of us staying here once my dad comes tomorrow.
In the backyard we have our own private pool in a screened in patio, with floats and pool toys! Here's David in mid jump. He loves to jump in and splash everyone. He also just learned how to swim!
Emily

Meadow floats around with her favorite floats.

Grandma Cooke and Lane

Goin' on Vacation

2009-07-21T12:39:00.002-08:00

We left on Friday for a couple days in Seattle, then on to Orlando for 2 weeks!

Meadow had a whole row to herself on the plane. She made sure Giraffe was buckled in too!
The flight attendants gave the kids lots of special attention because they were such good travelers.

Ashlen was very happy on this flight, but on our overnight flight to Florida, she SCREAMED and only wanted to be held standing up! I thought she would never stop! Finally a flight attendant offered to take her for a bit so I (and the poor people around me) could get some much needed sleep!
The boys got their hair cut at Kids Cuts. It's something Logan likes to do in Seattle.

Brennen was very good for his first haircut!

We're in Florida now, and I will keep updating with pictures of our adventures. So, check our blog often and leave a comment so I know who's looking!

4th continued...

2009-07-08T21:35:00.004-08:00

I meant to include this picture too! Auntie Christy also came to visit this weekend! It was her 10 year reunion so she rode in the parade. That's her in the blue shirt. My camera took forever to turn on, so I didn't get a very good shot.

Here are the friends we watched the parade with- Kristina, Jennifer, and kids. And my parents too. The Cookes were in the parade in the school bus.

Fourth of July

2009-07-08T20:12:00.005-08:00

We had a glorious sunny day! At the parade Meadow waved her Canadian flag instead! Perhaps she needs a history lesson.

Our friends Josh and Melanie Drenkpohl from Seattle spent the weekend with us. We enjoyed visiting with them, and playing cards and going to the beach. Ashlen patriotically held her flag at the parade. Here she's saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I think she enjoyed her first 4th of July! I wasn't even pregnant yet a year ago. The Clover Pass school bus was in the parade! Pastor Dave walked along side and handed out information.
The kids each got a nice pile of candy!

It was a fun day. We even stayed up for fireworks, which ended up looking like colored light flashing behind a big cloud of smoke and fog! We got an occasional glimpse of the bottom half of a lower firework. The kids enjoyed it anyway!

Smarty Pants

2009-06-21T17:19:00.002-08:00

Today in the middle of praying for lunch, Meadow stopped and asked, "Can I just pray for all the food in the refrigerator and cupboards so it will be blessed, and then we never have to pray again?" :)

4 Little Cuties

2009-06-19T14:35:00.003-08:00

Here's a quick update...

Meadow is posing for the camera. :) She loves going in the water at the beach and pretends to be a mermaid. Only Logan (and his uncle William) would wear long sleeves, long shorts, and rubber boots (of which I didn't get a picture) on an 80 degree day! He wore boots so his feet wouldn't get wet!I think Brennen needs some batting lessons!
And last but not least, here's adorable Ashlen Rain, who has become a happy little smiler and cries much less now, thankfully!

Some days are good, others I feel like I spend the whole day correcting and disciplining, and trying to stay sane! Matthew is staying very busy with building jobs, Alaska Airlines, and church activities.

Meadow's Graduation

2009-05-30T10:47:00.005-08:00

On Thursday Meadow graduated from preschool! Miss Mandy said Meadow was one of her most creative students who loves to draw and imitate animals. Meadow was so excited about awards night, and she loved being up on the stage! She has really enjoyed preschool, and knows all the letters and most of their sounds. I'm hoping to teach her to read this summer. I think she's ready for it!

Seattle

2009-05-30T10:09:00.005-08:00

Last weekend Matthew and I took Brennen and Ashlen on a trip to Seattle. Downtown Ketchikan to downtown Seattle

Ashlen did very well on her first flight! She fussed at first, then fell asleep for the rest of it.

Auntie Christy met us at the airport

The weather was sunny and warm, but Matthew mostly enjoyed the uninterrupted time to read. Here he is at the beach on Whitby Island.

The Road Trip

2009-05-30T09:54:00.002-08:00

Our trip involved a little shopping of course, then we joined Christy on a road trip to Port Townsend where she had to visit a patient for work. It was a three hour drive, but the scenery was pretty and the kids did quite well! On the way back we took a ferry to Whitby Island, where we stopped at a lovely sandy beach. Ashlen got to dip her toes in the ocean for the first time. She didn't mind at all! Maybe she'll join me in the Arctic ocean someday! Brennen loved playing in the sand!
Next we took another ferry from Clinton to Mukilteo. Brennen enjoyed looking out the window at the water. The wind was too cold to be outside.

This was at the end of a long day on the way back to Auntie Christy's house. Brennen was a tired but happy boy covered in spilled juice and sand which was stuck to the juice, then in a nice dousing of chocolate milk! He didn't mind a bit! He just happily sang and drummed with straws all the way home! We've found all it takes to keep him entertained is anything that resembles drum sticks!

Ashlen was a little less thrilled! She serenaded us with screaming throughout the trip!

Pics from San Marcos

2009-05-15T22:45:00.003-08:00

My parents just returned from a visit to Mexico, so I decided to post some of their pictures.
Here's David with some friends. He will be 10 in September! My, how time flies!

Emily
Lane

Here is the church. Looks nice!

And the Children's Home all finished! They even have their first kid, although he will be temporary. None of this was here when we last visited 2 years ago!

And Katie and William of course! Not the best picture, but it was the only one with them together.

Matthew at work

2009-05-13T16:50:00.006-08:00

Can you find Matthew in this picture?
This plane has the latest special paint scheme, "Spirit of Alaska Statehood". They had a paint the plane contest for school kids, and the winner who designed this one was a 16 year old from Sitka. Unfortunately Meadow was too young to enter. (And I was too old!)

New Pets

2009-05-13T16:27:00.004-08:00

We have a few new family members! Meadow takes good care of them. She plays them a lullaby from this music box each night before bed! We each chose a fish. Logan's is the grey one named Thunder And Lightning, Ashlen's is the white and yellow guppy named Lemon, Brennen and & each chose Neons named Flash and Flashy, Meadow's was the orange swordtail named Swimmy, and Matthew's is a Gourami down in the right corner named Daddy. Unfortunately Swimmy and one of the neons have since passed away. We plan to get new ones sometime. I like having fish again!

Ashlen Events

2009-04-20T17:35:00.003-08:00

Ashlen and I had a surprise visit from Auntie Christy! Matthew gave her a pass to come for the weekend!
On Saturday Rosie hosted a very nice baby shower for us! Meadow helped open the presents.

Even Helen and Jenn took part by making a DVD about life with 4 kids. Thanks you guys! It was good to hear from you! I'm glad you could join us from afar!

Ashlen enjoyed all the holding by the ladies!

Then on Sunday we dedicated her to God, showing that we put her in God's hands and will teach her to know and honor Him. Of course she will have to choose to follow him when she is old enough. (In case someone reading this doesn't know what this dedication means.) Grandpa Cooke was glad to do the dedication for the first time with one of his grandchildren!

Sisters & Brothers

2009-04-20T17:13:00.002-08:00

Meadow is a very good big sister! She wants me to have 20 babies!

Another attempt at a picture of all 4 kids. Oh well, maybe we'll manage to get one by the time they're in high school!..Or will someone still be fussing?

The family

2009-04-13T22:29:00.002-08:00

Here are some family pictures. Sisters!

Grandma and Grandpa Cooke

Grandma and Grandpa John

Our attempt at a family photo. Brennen just wanted out of there!

The kids are all warming up to their new sister now, but at first they wouldn't go near her. Logan shows the most interest, and likes giving her kisses. They still like to call her Cookie Doh! Tonight is our first night with all the kids home. The grandparents have had them for the last few days so I could recover in peace and quiet! Matthew will be off work for 2 more days. It has been very relaxing. She's a pretty good baby, but likes to be held all the time, and wants to feed about every hour! She sleeps for 2-3 hours at a time at night. I know that will get better soon!

The Arrival of Cookie Doh

2009-04-13T15:59:00.005-08:00

Amazing! Beautiful Ashlen Rain was born naturally (not induced like all the others!) on her due date, April 10th, which was Matthew's birthday! She weighed 7# 9oz and was 20" long. I couldn't ask for anything more perfect, except I should have known better when to leave for the hospital! After having regular contractions all day, I spent the evening at my parents house which is closer to the hospital in case I needed to go in. Fortunately the kids spent the night there. Around midnight my contractions were 8-12 minutes apart, but didn't seem all that strong, so I called the hospital to see if I should come in, and the nurse told me to wait till they were 5-2 minutes apart! (Very bad advice for a 4th baby on someone with fast labors!) So we went home to sleep, which I didn't much. At around 5:10 AM I got up to use the bathroom and suddenly my 10 minute not so bad contractions got very strong and came every 3 minutes! By the time I got back to bed, I was feeling the need to push! We got out the door as fast as we could, and Matthew sped to the hospital. It was scary thinking the baby might really be born in the car, and then in the elevator as Matthew pushed me in a wheelchair up to OB. It still makes me shudder to think about it! We made it to the room, and that same nurse kept telling me not to push because the midwife wasn't there yet. "Just breathe through it." I hate that! I'd been "breathing through it" for the last half hour! Then a nurse with many years of experience came in and told me to go ahead. After 1 big push Ashlen was born at 5:46 AM less than 10 minutes after arriving to the hospital! The midwife arrived a few minutes later. Oops!

Anyway, enough of the details... here she is about a half hour old! We were very happy to have another girl!

First bath. She hated it!

One of the few times she opened her eyes.

Good daddy changing the first diapers.