My Christmas Favorites

THE NATIVITY


There are two reasons this is my favorite....first and most important having a nativity displayed in our home reminds us what Christmas is really about and, gives us many opportunities to teach our little ones. I love the spirit that Christmas gives off helping us to be more like our Savior.
The second reason I love my nativity is because since we have been married Chris' parents has given us one piece of the nativity each year, this year is the first year to have the complete nativity up and I love it!!!!

DECORATIONS

I love Decorating for Christmas! There have been many times Chris has mentioned that Christmas has thrown up in our house and each year it gets worse.
This year the Mantle is by far my favorite !

OUR CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENTS

Most of the ornaments on the tree are special in one way or another. There are many from Chris' Grandparents that he was given each year starting from his first Christmas. Now that tradition is slowly filling up our tree with our kiddos yearly ornaments. Other ornament on our tree are silver bells that were on my family tree when I was growing up and other home made ornaments from our first Christmas together six years ago in Iowa. They all have a memory that is special to us in some way or another. This year the temple ornament in the picture above has special meaning to me. My Grandma Cowan gave that ornament to us for our first Christmas being married because it was the temple we were married and sealed in. With her passing this summer it will forever remind me of her and how lucky we are to be an eternal family.

SPENDING TIME AS A FAMILY

(The kiddos helping make gifts for friends and making our gingerbread house for FHE)

(spending Christmas Eve with members of our ward family caroling at a care center)

What a great time to spend together as a family. Although we missed our families back in Utah We have been able to make some of our own traditions as our little family and have been taken in by some of our ward family who invited us to spend Christmas Eve with them this year.


CHRISTMAS MORNING!!!

(Ty and Lucy with their Santa gifts )

(Miss Annie loved the wrapping paper)

Who doesn't love Christmas morning? Our Christmas morning started off with Ty entering our room with excitement at 2AM telling us that Santa came! We told him that it was still too early to wake the girls up and he needed to go back to bed I could hear how excited he was and knew there was no chance he was going back to sleep now. We told Ty that he could go sleep by the Christmas tree and wait until it was time to get up. I thought that might work but I could hear him walking around so I decided to go lay on the couch with him. It took until 4am before he fell asleep again. That morning was one of those days where I was so glad I was up to see and feel the excitement of Christmas morning of our little man. And made me just as excited for him and the girls. When he finally woke up again we told him it was okay to wake Lucy up and the fun start. Ty and Lucy both got bikes but they weren't as excited as Santa thought they would be...in fact we got more of a reaction from the oranges in the stocking! If only we would have known Santa could have saved some money and bought a few more oranges. Either way we had a great morning spent together as a family reflecting on the birth of our Savior.

A week of Firsts

So last week was full of firsts for our family....

1)Ty started Tai Kwon Do. This is the first day he went and loved it. He is such a little guy, you can tell he is the youngest in his class but I think he did pretty well for his first time. He was ready to ditch the uniform as soon as class was over because he couldn't breath (the belt was too tight I guess) but of course I had to have a picture So I made him put it back on.




2) Lucy had her first dance class....Too bad I was a horrible mom and looked at the time wrong. We arrived at the very end. I think I was more devastated than she was! Lucy was sad but I asked her if she wanted to run up and dance a little in front of the mirror. She ran, did a little prance, ran back and was happy. Tonight we will go at the right time and remember to bring the camera. This picture was taken the same day as Ty's first day of TKD. All she wanted to do was go to her dance class so I let her try on her leotard. and of course because brother is having his picture taken She had to have her turn in front of the camera too.

3) Last weekend was BEAUTIFUL!!!!! the temp outside was at least 75 degrees. We played out side and got some much needed energy out and played in the leaves. Now you ask why is this a first? Because, I'm not sure why, but this was the first time Ty and Lucy really have ever played in the fall leaves. Like I said, I don't know why this is a first, maybe because last year I was prego with Annie and at the peak of morning sickness. Who knows what happened the years before. Oh well we had a great time and spent at least two hours playing to make up for it.






4) Annie finally rolled over from back to belly....The only problem is that she has forgotten how to roll back so it has been slightly frustrating for all of us. I am always amazed that a baby can do something once or even more times then decide there is no need and won't do it for months after....I sure do hope she remembers soon!

You can't see it too well but I love the little crinkled nose when she smiles.

Time with Daddy

Because Chris is working nights our time with Daddy is precious. This day Daddy woke up a little earlier than he should have, but the kids were so excited to see him he decided to watch a movie with them. Lucy climbed up on his lap and before I knew it they were both out like a light. I love this picture for many reasons but mostly I love that Lucy has her arm around Chris' arm just chillin' with Daddy... too cute!

Halloween Festivities

(this is the best picture I got without crazy faces)

The kids started their Halloween festivities on Thursday where they dressed up for a preschool party. Then on Friday We had our ward trunk-or -treat where we froze our tushes off it was so cold and windy. Seriously, I think the ward party lasted a little over an hour before everyone headed home. We ate chili that cooled off as soon as we got there and had the trunk-or-treat soon after. It was still fun and amazingly there was a pretty good turn out. After we went to the trunk-or-treat we headed home to carve our pumpkins. Ty and Lucy were grossed out by the pumpkin guts and wanted nothing to do with cleaning it out. Lucy just kept saying it's digusting! I finally got some tongs so they could work on cleaning theirs while Chris and I worked on ours. Sadly enough I didn't take pictures of the final masterpieces. But I was pretty impressed with Ty because he created a ninja turtle pumpkin. This kid is seriously artistic for a five year old.

The next night was the night of Halloween ( insert scary music here) The kids have been dying to go trick-or-treating so you can imagine the excitement when it was time to go...hence the crazy pictures. We lucked out and had wonderful weather, far better than the night before. We just needed sweatshirts and we were off. We even bundled Annie up and put her tutu on with a cute skeleton onesie over her thick warm jammies It kind of reminded Chris of a Christmas Story..."I can't put my arms down!" But never the less she looked adorable....They all looked adorable! Lucy was so excited to trick-or-treating, she literally ran to each house and actually wore Ty out. It was fun to be able to watch the kiddos from the street and not have to go up with them unless it was a scary house. We had a good night or I guess I should say weekend

we are ready to go

Miss Blue eyes herself

PUMPKIN CLEANING DUTY

Lucy is 3

On the 27th Lucy turned 3. According to a big three year old girl ,everything should be pink and princess. Our little Lucy makes us smile every day at the little things she does. She is such a girl but can keep up with her brother and the superhero stuff too. Chris is still on nights so we had to tweak our birthday celebrations again. Ty and Lucy had preschool that morning so we took them to school with birthday cupcakes to share, and sent Daddy to sleep so we could make a late birthday lunch to Culver's after preschool. Everything worked out well and Lucy was spoiled as ever. She is still telling us thank you for her presents. Man she is a thoughtful little one. Happy Birthday Goose!

(I thought her little cupcakes turned out pretty cute)

Ty turned 5

On October 19th 2004 our lives changed forever. We had a beautiful baby boy join our little family and I can't belive that baby boy just turned 5!
This year for Ty's birthday we had to celebrate a little different. Daddy started his night rotation the night before so we would have to do our birthday celebrations the morning when daddy got home. I was a little worried because we always go to dinner for his birthday and sometimes Ty doesn't do well with change. So Saturday we explained that if he wanted to go to Red Robin we would have to do it early or the next weekend or we could have a birthday breakfast. His sweet little eyes lit up and said I want to go to Neighbors cafe. He loves the cinnamon rolls there. Problem solved! We had our birthday breakfast came home opened presents, sent Daddy to bed and stayed home and watched movies (birthday boys choice) the kids were still wore out because of the fevers they were battling the few days before So it all worked out. Just before Daddy went to work we sang happy birthday and ate cupcakes. Daddy went to work and we went to dinner Ty's choice He wanted a kids meal from Wendy's. We spent the day a little different this year but I think it worked out well.
Ty was still spoiled rotten :) And we still love him more than ever! Happy Birthday Buddy!

Milk Jug Skeleton

I remember growing up my Mom and Dad made milk jug skeletons for Halloween and we used them for quite a few years. The last few weeks I have seen a couple people who had them and I thought it might be a fun thing to do with the kiddos. Although ultimately I think it was more fun for Chris than anybody. The kids were more moral support and the hand and feet models. All of the patterns we saw called for 8 or 9 milk jugs but we tweaked it and got two skeletons out of 8. I think they turned out cuter if I say so myself. And on Halloween we are going to tape a few glow sticks to its chest to make him glow. We will see how that works out.

The master at work

The kiddos playing with Mr. Skeleton (with no arms)

And the final masterpiece hanging in the tree the kiddos were so wound up and excited!


Here is a website (MELISSA) if you want to make one but like I said we tweaked it to make more than one. We took the backs off the head, chest, and hip bones, used 4 handles instead of 2 and rolled and taped up scrap pieces to make the arm and leg bones. (two of the leg bones are handles). Have fun!

GIVEAWAY WINNER!!!!!!!

So because because my lovely assistant has a little sister who also wanted to be a lovely assistant, we have two winners.

And the winners are......



Kirin and cjshaw2@yahoo.com

Congrats!
I will get in contact with you to decide if you want a tutu or a cape and which colors you want and so on :)

TUTUCUTE GIVEAWAY!!!

I enjoy making things for people and so I decided that I needed to have a giveaway. I am going to give one lucky winner a custom tutu. What am I thinking? Not all of us have girls or want a tutu so I will give you a choice between a tutu, or a super hero cape. Do you want to win? Just leave a comment on this blog or here don't forget your email address if you are not signed in. Anyone is welcome to enter even you blogstockers admit it we all do it! We will choose a winner on Sunday October 11th. I think I might be more excited about this than you are :) Good luck!!!

Annie's Tutu

I finally got Annie's tutu made and my good friend Charlene did her pictures this morning while the kiddos were at preschool. Click here for a peek. Really TUTU CUTE!!!!! Thanks Charlene I love them!

Preschool

Today was the first day of preschool for both Ty and Lucy. This has been a long time coming, every day for the last month or so they have been asking when they get to go to preschool or as Lucy says my princess school. We can't afford real preschool but the high school has a preschool lab that last for about two or three months and is free so I get a break a few days a week and the kiddos love having all the new friends and seeing all their friends from church, there are about four families from our ward. When I picked them up I asked how their day was at preschool and Lucy says " now I'm ready to go to my princess school" Poor girl I think she had this idea of what school was and preschool just didn't cut it today. She actually had fun and talked about her day. But "Preschool" was just a place mommy dropped them off and came back three hours later not a school. maybe we really should find a dance class for her and that could be her princess school.

They both looked so little with their giant backpacks heading into the school.

Camera play...

Any time I have the camera especially taking pictures of Annie (just making sure she doesn't become the younger sibling with no pictures) Ty and Lucy are always trying to poke their cute little heads in whenever possible. I thought this was pretty cute so I had to share. I love that they are all smiling, too bad it is a little fuzzy.


While I was playing with the camera I had Annie in these cute leggings doesn't she look like she's from the eighties? I guess the eighties are coming back baby!
I think I'm a fan...of the leggings not the eighties! Okay I can handle some of the eighties just lets get rid of the neon...WHAT THE HECK!!!!?


I can't believe our baby is three months I feel like we just brought her home from the hospital yesterday!!


We took this picture one Saturday night. We put the curlers in so we could have the pretty curly hair for church and I think little girls in curlers are adorable.... melts my heart!
Doesn't she look like a little ballerina?...dance class here we come!!

Ty absolutely loves his sisters! He is always telling us "I think I am the favorite"
You're right buddy you are the favorite brother and your sisters adore you!

Bug Bites!!!

These are a few reasons (more like 14) I'm not a fan of the kiddos playing outside in our yard!! Yesterday I decided that it was a nice day lets go out and play. It was only four so I didn't think we needed bug spray...We were not out there for more than five minutes and Little Lucy's arms already had two big welts and her leg had one more! The reaction to the bug bites make me so sad and they look pretty painful! Ty has the same reaction too but this day the mosquitos got the best of Lucy. Sorry for the poor picture quality I had to have the flash off to really see the bites plus an old camera with poor resolution....Sigh...someday I will have a good camera.

Mistake

As we were on our way to church this morning, Ty casually tells us...
"I think Jesus made a mistake"
We ask how did Jesus make a mistake?
"Because he made bees and we don't like bee's"
We all had a good laugh. Who am I kidding we are still having a good laugh:)

Two Months

Yesterday was Annie's two month check-up here are her stats
Height:21 1/2-15%
Weight:10lbs 12 oz-50%
Head: 39-55%

Annie is our first to be under the 80th percentile in head :) But it looks like by her height she definitely has the curse of the Cook/Cowan genes...cute little short legs!

Unexpected trip to Utah...

WARNING:this is a long post without any pictures I apologize but as this is kind of my journal, I needed to write my thoughts about my Grandmas passing. So feel free to skip this post if you want.

A couple of weeks ago I was told my Grandmother was not doing well, for days I had struggled with the decision of weather I should go out and say my goodbyes I didn't want to see her in the state she was in and I had come to terms that I would just come out for a funeral. The closer time got for her to go My thoughts kept coming back to the fact I was the only one living out of state that has not seen or talked to her face to face I worried that Grandma was holding out to say her goodbyes before she left this earth. Chris was very supportive and was with me in what ever decision I made. While my best friend Candice was here visiting I got a call and I knew I needed to be in Utah. I quickly made phone calls to Southwest hoping to be on a Sunday flight leaving close to the same time Candice would be leaving. They had nothing..the soonest they could get me out was Monday morning not arriving until 2 in the afternoon. I just prayed that it wouldn't be to late and booked the flight. Sunday after we got home from church I just had a feeling to call the airport and check on flights They had one seat leaving at 5:45 I called Chris and he made arrangements to get off work early to take us to the airport. In a whirlwind Candice and I quickly packed and within an hour we were on our way to the airport. My Dad met Annie and I at the airport where Annie gave one of her first smiles to Papou. it was very sweet. I figured that we would go home and then go to the care center first thing in the morning instead we made our way straight to the care center where many of the family was waiting. My heart was nervous for the same reasons I struggled to get to Utah in the first place, I didn't want to see Grandma this way, But I knew that I would regret it if I didn't. I walked in to a room full loving family surrounded by Grandma both happy and sad to see us walking in the door. Grandma was pretty out of it so I just sat by her side and held her hand and told her I loved her. One touching thing that happened after we arrived was Annie started to cry and My mom said to grandma "Mom, Corine brought Annie can you hear that sweet cry?" just then Grandma had a tear in her eye. I was glad she responded and hope that Annie will have that special bond to her great grandma even if she never remembers her. After visiting for a while we made our way home and I couldn't help to feel bad that I really didn't get to talk to Grandma and I was sad for my own selfish reasons. In the morning I talked to Chris on the phone and cried telling him that it was hard to see Grandma this way but how glad I was to be there. We got dressed and headed back to the care center. As we walked in to Grandmas room I looked at Grandma and she had life in her eyes I knew that Grandma knew I needed to see her eyes this way, she looked at me and said hi and told me she loved me. We showed Grandma Annie again and Grandma was able to kiss her newest great grand baby. Later that afternoon Grandma asked for a blessing not long after the beautiful blessing the life in her eyes left again and she was in that state until she passed from this earth Wednesday morning. As the family had made funeral arrangements, I again for my own selfish reasons was sad that Chris Ty and Lucy weren't going to be there with me. That night Chris called and told me he got his vacation switched around and was on their way the next morning Because He just felt that he and the kids needed to be there. If any of you know Chris and his schedule it is unheard of to be able to switch vacations and get shifts covered for a week in a matter of hours. I truly believe that our family and our needs are being looked out for. and I am so grateful for that. The next week was kind of a whirlwind, Chris' Uncle had passed away that weekend as well so on Sunday we went to his viewing, Monday we had Grandma's viewing And the the funeral on Tuesday. We had the rest of the week to fit in the things we had arranged for our week vacation in August including Annie's Blessing just hours before packing up the car to head home. We had a swim party at Chris' sister Susanne's house, Chris and Ty went fishing with Chris' Grandpa. And we were able to fit in a little time to visit with friends in between. Sad that we missed out on seeing some of our other friends. but with so little time we took what we could get. We were exhausted by the end of the week but everything seemed to work out and in all reality I felt that we had more time with our family this week than we would have when we were supposed to come in mid August. so I am glad that we had that quality family time.

Blessing

Because of our early vacation to Utah. We made some quick changes to bless Annie so we could be with family. Our nephew Daniel was born two weeks before Annie, and Adam and Ashley were waiting to bless him when we blessed Annie in August. So we made some last minute arrangements to bless these sweet babies Saturday morning before we left back home. This is one more thing that just fell into place while on this trip. It was a beautiful morning for two blessings and very hard to see my Grandpa there without Grandma next to him for this family event. As hard as it was for him, I am still glad we had him with us on this occasion.

Kansas City Star

A lady from the Kansas City Star came into the shop where I sell some of my things and she picked a few vendors to feature in her article and she picked my kid aprons. I thought it was kindof fun to see my name in the paper. Hopefully I sell some aprons out of all this.

The Talk of the Nurses Station...

So now that Miss Annie is a little over two weeks I thought it was time to tell the story of the day we added her to our family. The night before....I had an enrichment activity that I went to and was telling everyone I had just come to terms that I would have the baby sometime next week which happened to be after my due date. After enrichment, Chris was working nights that week so I needed something to keep me from being bored so I thought I needed to get the stuff to make a tutu for my friend Kendra's baby shower that was on Saturday. I finished the tutu at 11:30ish and headed to bed. All night I wasn't feeling great I just thought I had gas or something :) because remember I was having a baby next week and was to tired to pay attention to the timing of these so called gas pains. After I woke up I realized that they were pretty regular about 8 minutes apart So I waited for Chris to come home from work so he could watch the kiddos while I went to my doctors appointment at 9:30. Chris was pretty excited and we were both hoping that my Dr. would check me and just send me to the hospital. When I got to the Dr. I was still having contraction about 7 minutes apart and only dilated 1-2. Dr. Kruger says well you live here in Lees Summit, why don't you go home and come back to the hospital if your contractions get closer together or stronger. And we will go ahead and set up an induction date for next week just in case. I came home pretty disappointed with an induction date of next Thursday and contractions were now 5 minutes apart. Poor Chris was up all night working so I sent him to bed and I told him I would wake him if I needed him. He pretty much laid in bed without sleeping much because he knew I was laboring all morning. Finally He came out around lunch time and was helping me time my contractions. ....Have you had one yet? you should be due for one. (That was very helpful and by helpful not so much) Then we spent another hour with Chris deciding how in labor I really was because he sends people like us home all the time and didn't want to be sent home. unfortunately you can't tell unless the cervix is checked and we both were not ready to cross that line. Anyhoo my contractions continued to stay at five minutes getting worse so we decided that we would go to the hospital When Robyn (Chris's sister that is staying with us) came home in about an hour. A half hour later I was in quite a bit of pain and started getting everything ready to walk out the door as soon as Robyn walked in. When Robyn walked in my Contractions were three minutes and off we went. Can I tell you a fifteen minute drive with contractions every 3 minutes makes for a long drive. We finally arrived at the hospital and made our way up to the Labor and Delivery floor with only stopping three or four times to breath through contractions we finally made it. We got to my room, changed, and they Checked me...wow your dilated 7-8 sweet lets hook up the epidural. I am still feeling pretty optimistic at this time when the nurse comes in and says nicely that we are going to try really hard to get you an epidural but we have to have your labs back before anything can happen. WHAT!!! I wanted to cry still trying to be optimistic...I'm sure there is still a chance. Then I watch Chris watching my monitors and I look pathetically at him and ask him "I'm not getting an epidural am I?" Then I think I did cry I don't want to be a pioneer and all Chris could say was I'm sorry honey I'm so sorry. He did try to make things better when the Dr. came in he asked about some Litacane shot to ease the pressure. I got the shot they broke my water and after three pushes we had a beautiful little Annie. So from the time we got to the hospital We had Annie an hour and a half later Honestly It wasn't as bad as I expected I'm just glad I didn't have to push very long because I think It would have been a lot worse. So during my Hospital stay I had many comments from the nurses how my Obgyn husband better check me next time so I could have an epidural. I tried to defend him because really it was both of our decision. Anyhoo after the whirlwind of events, being curious, I asked Chris "If my water would have broke at home would I have had a baby at home or on the way?" this was his reply..."It's okay honey I have delivered a few babies" THAT'S NOT THE POINT!!! I guess I'm glad my husband was there as dad and not as Dr. I guess things could always be worse.

And Then There Were Five...

For all you blogaholics, please forgive me since this is my first time attempting to enter the blog scene. Today (June 4th) at 1756 (that's 5:56 pm for non-military and non-medical folks), Corine gave birth to our second baby girl, Annie Cook. Mom and baby are doing great! I'll let Corine give you all the juicy details, just remember when she tells it, I'm really not that bad of a guy. Have I peaked anyone's interest yet? Anywhoo, here's the stats: weight 7 lbs, 4 oz., length 19 1/2 inches, NOT A RED HEAD!

Hope you enjoy the pics and thank you all for all of your friendship!