Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning started with Ty trying to wake up at three an was quickly sent back to bed for a few hours (much easier to do this year than it was last year) The girls finally woke up at about 7:30 and the excitement started!!

Santa Came and Ty and Lucy got what they most wanted!

Ty wanted the Harry Potter 3 movie. He got an awesome box set with a bunch of extras!

Lucy got an "American Girl" doll
She thinks that any 18 inch doll is an American Girl
This helps Santa's pocket book and makes for a pretty excited little Lucy!

Miss Annie was pretty easy to please. She got and orange in her stocking and would have been completely happy the rest of the day. we convinced her to open some presents and she loves her new "D" (dolly)

We had a nice relaxing day spent in our PJ's because we had nowhere to be but with our little family.We played the Wii that Santa Got for the family we had marshmallow wars with the guns that Uncle Jared bought the kids (there's nothing better than shooting your kiddos with marshmallows Christmas morning just ask Chris and I) Then at about 5 We headed to see the Christmas light display at Longview lake (still in pj's) a tradition that has now come to an end. We then came home to make our traditional Rasmussen Steak dinner (usually on Christmas Eve but Chris was working so we tweaked things a bit)
Soon after our dinner I heard a crash and then a scream. This is what I found




Apparently, Miss Annie needed a sixth candy cane off the tree and somehow knocked it over. Luckily she was not hurt. I guess Christmas is over! The tree is down and the decorations will be put away tomorrow...and surprisingly I'm okay with that!
(I usually wait until after New Years)
On to the New year!!! We have a lot to look forward to!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve Chris had to work until midnight. Our good friends invited me and the kiddos to go caroling with a few other families at a care center. Yes Lucy is wearing her princess dress and tiara not my choice of outfit but I was not in the mood to argue after all it was Christmas! The kids enjoyed about one song then were ready to go. They lasted about half way through the caroling and soon all three kiddos were out in the foyer where I could mostly see them while we finished singing with the old folks.

Annie got a hold of my camera and they entertained themselves. These are the pictures I found



A bunch of goofy kiddos!
After the Care Center we headed back to the Truman's for treats then headed home to get ready for Santa!
We got our Christmas PJ's on, Sprinkled Christmas dust so the reindeer could find our house, set out milk and cookies for Santa, read a Christmas story and tucked into bed to dream of what Santa would bring!

(They were so excited and wound up this was the best picture I could get)

Halloween 2010

Halloween week here at the Cook house was quite eventful.
I started off the week with finishing off five Halloween costumes. Harry Potter, Belle, Minnie Mouse, Momma Mouse, and a vampire Jellybean. (I helped make one more the week before)
all without patterns baby!


We Celebrated Miss Lucy's Birthday on Wednesday
(here is the camera phone picture of Lucy and Red thanks Robyn!)


On Friday We had school parties, Parent teacher conferences (Ty is doing great!) , our good friends took Ty and Lucy out to the pumpkin patch while Chris and I went to the Conference. Then off Our ward Halloween trunk-or-treat party where Miss Lucy won the prettiest costume award, and Miss Vampire Jelly bean won the funniest costume award.

On Saturday we bought cameras with the kiddos birthday money, spent the afternoon at Cabela's spending Chris' birthday money and taking pictures with our newly bought cameras, we had some lunch at Chick-fil-a , then that night we carved our family pumpkins while listening to Halloween music.



The final products


Ty's was a scary pumpkin which said Boo!!

The girls were pretty easy to please.
Annie LOVED the pumpkins only after they had faces!

On Sunday We headed to church in the morning, we had an early dinner at "Our Truman's" where the kiddos (mom and dad) carved their pumpkins from the pumpkin patch, then home to do a little "visiting" with our neighbors on the Sabbath :)

Here are the kiddos in their costumes
Harry Potter

Miss Belle

Minnie Mouse

Group Picture

Chris took Miss Annie home after a little bit of "visiting" where she was exhausted and fell asleep in the hallway. Too Cute!!!
(once again thanks to Aunt Robyn's camera phone)


After it all I now have three HUGE cold-sores but hey, we had fun!!!

Miss 4 year old!!

Miss Lucy Turned 4 Last Wednesday. Our Computer and Camera was giving us problems so we didn't have a post until now. Here is an fairly recent picture of our little Goose. I feel this picture captures her personality perfectly. She is always smiling...okay almost always (with a little bit of goofy on the side) Lucy's day started off by heading off to school armed with mini cupcakes to share with her preschool class. Then we came home to watch princess movies and what ever Miss Lucy wanted to do for the day. When Daddy came home, we went to Red Robin for her birthday just like Ty because she wanted her very own ice cream too. When we told our server that all she wanted for her birthday was Red Robin. He thought we meant the mascot Red and so he found Red in the back of the restaurant to come say happy birthday to her. Lets just say our waiter got a good tip! Luckily Aunt Robyn's Camera phone was working so we will at least have some memories of Lucy's fourth birthday. Those pictures will come soon. When we came home we had more mini cupcakes and opened a lot of presents. We had minor melt downs by a certain big brother due to a pillow pet and a tad bit of jealousy but it has since been resolved. We will be having a little fairy tea party with her friends so those pictures will be posted next week too. Miss Lucy we love you so much goosey goose! We are so lucky to have you!

Here our four fun facts about our little four year old

1. Miss Lucy loves her Prince...aka Daddy
   
2. Miss Lucy has the sweetest voice. Everywhere we go we always get a comment of how sweet her little voice is.
3. Miss Lucy LOVES animals.
4. Lastly Lucy is all girl, but doesn't let it stop her from keeping up with the boys.
   

Happy Birthday Ty Man!!!

Ty is 6 today! I tried to snuggle with him a little bit before he got ready for school and I am realizing that he no longer fits on my lap the way he used to. My little green eyed baby is 6 and growing faster than ever, it seems to happen over night!

I had intentions to post yearly pictures but the computer is having technical difficulties. So we will just post the Birthday party pictures from Saturday.

Right now Ty LOVES Harry Potter. It only seemed fitting to have a Harry Potter Birthday Party. Ty chose 6 friends to invite to his party and I went crazy planning the party. We sent out the invitations and got busy sewing robes and making wands. I found a lot of ideas online and meshed them with my own. The party turned out so fun(even for me) afterward Ty said "That was the best party ever!" We had a Birthday Banquet equipped with pizza and pumpkin juice aka orange soda topped off with an awesome candy cake. I tried to get Ty to let me make the cake into a quidditch field but he didn't want to so I backed down. After the banquet we had potions and charms classes where we made good luck potions and made ink disappear. I had them all believing they were doing magic by the end of the party. It was a lot of work but so worth it seeing the excitement on Ty's face. Happy Birthday Buddy We love you!!

the newest bunch of wizards

Potions class wengardium leviosa

can you say spoiled?....and that was 4 days before his birthday!

Here are Six fun facts about the Birthday Boy

1. Ty loves to draw. He is always doodling on paper
2. He is very passionate....sometimes good, sometimes bad.
3. His favorite food is deer steak
4. Ty almost always includes Lucy in everything and is adored by the littlest sister. For a while Ty was the only one who could get Annie to laugh. He is a great big brother
   
5. Ty Loves his family
6. And lastly, Ty LOVES to read! He practically taught himself how to read and has always loved being read to. Right now we are reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
   

Playing Catch-up

There were a few very important people we were able to meet up with at the end of August and beginning of September.
So I am playing the backtracking game.


We had an extra ticket and I asked my most favorite little sister:) to fly out and visit us. Shal Shal came out for 5 days and we loved every minute of it! She cooked for us we stayed up and had girl talk and watched movies. It was a much needed visit on my part. I know this is a month and a half later but Thanks Shal Shal! We love you!




At the beginning of September our ward had a family ward temple trip at the Winter Quarters Temple. They worked hard and arranged for childcare and a ward picnic after sessions. It was a great turnout, in the session we only had a handful of people who were not in our ward. AWESOME!
Because the session was on Saturday We decided we needed a visit up to Iowa Friday night. We met up with our good friends Dan and Renae and their little cutie Josie. Even though it was quick it was so nice to catch up with them. The Arnold's are the kind of friends that even though we have not seen each other for about 5 years everything seems just as it did before we left Iowa. Thanks Dan and Renae it was fun to catch up!

The Mommies and Babies
(Ty and Lucy were in the car waiting to go swimming)

Don't they look like pals!
We miss you guys!

Royals Game

Like I said in the previous post Chris got 4 tickets to the Royals game last week. We were excited that we were finally going to see a game. We have lived here over three years and this is our first game...sad I know!

Our Tickets said the game started at 7 I thought that was weird because the Chiefs first home game of the Season was that night too. The morning of the game Chris luckily was listing to talk radio where he found out that the game had been changed to 2 in the afternoon! NUTS!!! Chris was able to do some juggling and cashed in on favors at work so we could make it to some of the game. We took Ty out of school 30 minutes early and headed to the game. We got to the stadium but we ended up in line with a bunch of crazy Chief tailgaters and sat in the car for forty five minutes.... talk about frustrating! When you are heading to a game and you can see the stadium while fighting traffic with the nutcases who are partying for a game that doesn't start for another 6 hours! We got to the parking gates and they tell us that our parking pass is no longer valid because it was after 3:30...it was 3:50! We don't have any cash so they tell us that they will take our Drivers License and we can go pay at the stadium to get it back. We were in such a hurry to get to the game We didn't read the paper with the instructions. ... until we drove away....

(Go to the Chiefs customer service at the end of the third quarter with your receipt to retrieve your license)

WHAT!!! We weren't even going to the freaking Chiefs game! How in the heck are we supposed to get our license back now? Finding parking was a joke. We kept getting redirected away from the Royals stadium and now it was the top of the 6th inning, we were super frustrated. Finally we pulled over to the silly people who were trying to redirect us and they told us how to get to the game. We finally got parked and headed to the game. We asked the ticket guy what we should do about our license and he was kind enough to tell us where to get it taken care of.
We decided to get to the game and worry about the license after so we could calm down a little bit.

Our tickets were on 6th row behind the visitor dugout! AWESOME!!

We told the kiddos they could get a drink so I took Lucy and got two sprites at $4 each. All while wishing we did not tell them we would get anything ....$4 really? We got back to our seats when Lucy informs me she has to pee..really Luce? You couldn't tell me this 2 minutes ago! So back up the stairs we went:) After we came back we had a good time. We were able to see the last two and a half innings and think that is all the kiddos could have handled anyway.

Our post game photo.
I think their smiles say it all!!!
WE HAD FUN!!!
(minus a few mishaps)



After the game we waited another hour to get the License back from the Chiefs people. Over all it was fun to have family time. Chris got off work early to go to a baseball game, and it didn't cost us a penny...wait ....it only cost us $8 for those stinking drinks:) robbery I tell ya ROBBERY!!!

Chiefs!!!

I downloaded these pictures with the intent to write about our adventure later. I realized that I had posted after I already had 4 comments :)

One of the Dr.'s groups has season ticket to the Chiefs and when they are unable to go, they give the lowly Resident's the tickets :)

Chris lucked out and got two tickets to one of the last pre season games against the Packers!
We were 45minutes late to the game because the freeway was closed down due to a wreck But we made it. Our seats were on the Packers side eighteenth row up from the field!
These tickets were priced at 89.00 each.... holy moly! There is no way we would have ever gone to a NFL game while here in Missouri unless it was free. Luckily it was free and we can mark that off of our list :)

See a NFL game live...Check

The next week Chris came home with four tickets to the Royals game :) more to come on our adventure at the Royals stadium!

Kindergarten

(click to read)


Today was Ty's first day of Kindergarten. I guess technically Wednesday will be the first day but Today was Kindergarten Transition day. The buses come and pick up only the kindergartners and they go for a few hours so they hopefully can adjust a little easier.

Ty waiting for the bus

The bus gets here and Ty just hops on, no hesitation whatsoever!
See ya Later Mom and Dad!

Luckily we have fabulous friends who tell us it is okay to put him on the bus, then get in the car and drive to the school to take pictures at school. So that is what we did put him on the bus and then put the girls in the car and off to Prairie View.

(here is Ty arriving at school)
while waiting for Ty's bus I started to get slightly emotional, we walk in the doors walk past another Mommy who is having a hard time...little more emotional but able to contain my emotions.

We take one last picture of Ty before he goes into his class room. Once again he goes in with no hesitation, just with excitement to finally be a Kindergartner.

The PTA did a little breakfast for the parents called the Boo-hoo, Ya-hoo breakfast where we went for Muffins and Juice. We headed down and I felt like...WOW we got through sending our baby off with out any tears. Then the PTA gave the parents a little bag with tissues and the poem at the beginning of the post. Lets just say it was a bad idea to read it. Ty has been so excited to start school and I have been so excited too. I was not expecting to feel emotional at all.....but I couldn't help it.... all of a sudden our baby is growing up and the next thing I know I am putting him on a bus and sending him off! I think Chris was even surprised at my emotions. I guess as crazy as Ty makes me sometimes, I'm still going to miss him!

We love you Buddy and hope you continue to have that drive and passion for learning!
LOVE,
MOM and DAD
(we will see how Wednesday goes)