Creative Meadow

"Look mommy! He's a tree frog! Ha ha ha!" Meadow drawing pictures of things in the yard. This particular picture was of a pointy rock.
Meadow is a very good artist! This is a smiley face she drew awhile ago.
This one was the first face she's ever drawn. It's Calvin, from the comic Calvin and Hobbs. (we have a comic book she likes to look at.) I was quite amazed! She suddenly went from random scribbles and lines to this, all by herself! This was a couple months ago.

Little Lad

Brennen is a very sweet little lad. Actually he's quite a BIG lad! He's 20lbs already, and 28" long! He'll be 7 months old next week on the 2nd. Time goes by so fast! He's really good at sitting up now without using his hands for balance, which is nice because he can finally sit and play with toys!
He loves playing outside too! He likes to feel the grass, unlike Logan who hated the feel of it last summer!

Happy Birthday Logan!

Logan is 2!

We had the grandparents over for a party last night. (Mommy was recovering from a bad case of the 24 hour flu, so we kept it simple this year.)

Logan wanted a blue cake with boats on it. He ate lots of frosting! For presents he got Legos and a track for battery operated jeeps to go on! (I think Matthew had the most fun with it, and kept playing with it after the kids went to bed!)

The life of a V.I.P.

Once again lucky Matthew won tickets to a soccer game which we got to watch from the comfort of the Alaska Airlines suite at Quest Field! It was Mexico vs. China. The stadium was almost full and all of them were for Mexico. We only saw 3 people in all the crowd with Chinese flags. We felt like we were in Mexico walking around the stadium before the game. This picture is Mexico's first attempt at a goal.
The game wasn't very exciting. Mexico won with one goal. Matthew said if he'd been watching the game on TV, he would have turned it off because they were playing rubbishly.
But we sure enjoyed sitting in the suite with only about 10 other people, (although by the end of the game the room had mysteriously filled up with Mexicans!) We had comfy chairs, our own bathrooms, and appetizers! This video clip shows it. Just don't listen to me talking. I sound like a chicken.

Such is the life of us V.I.P.'s!

More from Seattle

One of the highlights of the trip for Meadow was riding a carousel.
I decided to get a professional fix for my attempt at Logan's haircut. Flying an airplane, watching cartoons, and sucking a lollipop, was all it took to get him to sit still enough!
On Wednesday, our last full day there, Grandma Cooke came to visit, and help Auntie Christy babysit so we could go to our soccer game!
Brennen loved finally being able to play at the playground!
We stayed with Auntie Christy, but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of her this time, or of her lovely, newly decorated guest room.

From cold to warm

Last week I saw a bunch of splashing in the water in front of our house, so we went down to the beach to investigate. It was a large "raft" of sea lions! (a raft is what you call a group of sea lions in the water.)

It was also a very low tide, so Meadow & Logan had fun in the mud trying to get squirted by a clam.
As you can tell it was very cold! The wind was blowing little snowflakes around us. But it was beautiful and very Alaskan with sea lions loudly barking (more like belching) around us!

But we soon left the cold and flew to Seattle for the week where it was sunny and warm!
Good little traveler Brennen gets his turn to wear the jet bib on the jet.

First we visited Point Defiance Zoo! The Beluga whales were the highlight of the day.

Logan really liked the tiger too. It was 80 degrees that day! (a bit too hot for me.)

Old Matthew

April 10th, Matthew turned 31!

We had a party at his parents house.

Dinner for Two

Today is my birthday. I'm an aged 32 years. I took the kids to Grandma & Grandpa Cooke's house and returned to find a romantically set table for two and Chef Matthew making a delicious Chinese dinner! He made sesame beef Shanghai Dumplings (from scratch!), hot and sour soup, beef lo mien, and an Asian salad! It was very delicious! We saved the leftovers to make for friends sometime. Matthew is taking the dumplings from the steamer to the hot oil.

It was very nice! He even cleaned up afterwards!

Our Anniversary

Monday was our 7th anniversary! We celebrated by going out to dinner and spending the night in Reno! (While the kids had fun staying with grandma John.) We sure do love our personal jet service!
Let me clarify, we did not go for the gambling, it was just one of the few places we could get to in one day that had room on the flight. (yes, our personal jets fly other people too.) And it was somewhere we've never been, and hoped there would be sun. There was sun, but it was about the same temperature as home!
Our room was nice. Matthew is trying out the flat screened TV. The bathroom was nice too- all marble tile- so I had to take a picture.
It was a nice relaxing little trip. We don't see the appeal in casinos and gambling. We couldn't even figure out how to play the slot machines! We went bowling instead.
Here we are in our limo heading back to the airport! Such is the life of us celebrities! (Actually, there was a problem with the shuttle bus, so we got an upgrade!)