Small World

Yesterday I mentioned that we went to the carousel with the boys. While we walked around the carousel to see all the cool horses I heard someone shout my name. I looked up and saw my friend Elizabeth who was there with her husband and daughter. We were going to catch up with each other on this trip anyways...but this was totally unplanned so I thought that was real fun.

Firebird Lanes:)

We decided to get out of the house for a while and took the kids to the carousel downtown and also to the bowling alley. The boys had never been bowling before and it had been a while since Mike and I had gone so it was lots of fun. I think they all had fun...Dallas even got a strike while Mike had 3 and a 2 spares:) Good job guys! Mike had a score of 148, I had 99, Dallas had 93, Cody had 68, my dad got 96 and Elijah had fun throwing a couple of balls.

Christmas Memories

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. The boys were all up early and very excited to see that Santa had stopped and made a visit. We had to first go and check to make sure that Santa Claus ate our cookies that we left out and got the reindeer snacks-which he did:)

The boys all had lots of fun opening presents and playing with their new found treasures.

Our Snowman

The boys had a fun day with daddy today. They decided to go out and enjoy the snow since they were feeling better. All of the boys have had some sort of a cold this past week so it was nice to see them all feeling somewhat better and out getting to enjoy the rare snowfall here. We love snowdays!

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Snow Day

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Cuddling

Mike and Brandon have sure been little cuddle buddies since his surgery on Monday. I took this picture today after they had both just awoken from their morning naps;) Isn't it precious? Time goes by way to fast....

Surgery

So Mike had his eye surgery today. The last one thank goodness-no more pterigyiums! Woohoo!!! Everything went well and he was only there for about 50 or so minutes. I dropped him off at 7:45 a.m. and we were back home by 9 a.m. We actually would've been home even sooner than that but we had to wait for a nurse to walk us out. He's resting right now on the couch (starting to feel a little pain) but all in all he's doing good. Mike said it was a lot less traumatic this time because they actually let the anesthesia work a little before putting the needle in his poor eye.

Our Tree

I was so exhausted after fluffing a 10 foot tree (I may be off a little bit with the measurements) that I decided to put up our little 3 foot tree and call it good:) The boys don't mind it and it was sooo easy. I finally got our 6th stocking finished and hung up on our stocking holder also. I can't believe how 9 years ago today Mike and I went on our first date. We went on a scavenger hunt around EOU. It was fun. Mike sang to me on our first date, "In the still of the night". And I guess you know the rest. Well anyways...it was fun when I finished Brandon's stocking because I was looking at it and I was pondering how there were just the two of our stockings our first Christmas and then after that we always had more to add- now there are 6 plus Willie and Dakota's. What a wonderful life:)

HB Tam!

Happy Happy Birthday Tammy dear...happy days will come to you all year. If I had one wish then it would be-a happy happy birthday to you from me:)

Santa

The boys were really excited to meet Mr. Santa Clause. They all sat on his lap and told him what they wanted for Christmas. Brandon was to busy eating to see Santa this time around. He saw Santa the day before at the Victorian Country Christmas that I went to with Mercedes, Lisa, mom and Brandon.

Ward Party 2008

My sister Desi came with me and the boys to our ward Christmas party last night (Mike was playing a gig in Bellevue for a Microsoft Holiday Party). We ate an interesting dinner-not quite sure what it was....a scoop of rice with some sort of chicken gravy on it, then chinese noodles on that plus they had various toppings to put on it besides that. Some of those items included tomatoes, olives, peppers, and cherries. At least the rolls were good:) After that we watched a movie about an orphan who got an orange at Christmas. I'm only mentioning that b/c the tree was decorated with slices of orange that was on the stage next to us and it was really pretty. We also had a few musical numbers and a reading of the nativity followed by a special visitor. Cody was the most excited to see Santa I think. He wasted no time getting in line to meet the big guy. I had to go with Elijah who got a little nervous but finally said bye to him as he was leaving. All in all I think the boys had a good time; as did I. Wish Mike could've been there with us but maybe next year.

Baby Kingston

Just wanted to show off my cute nephew Kingston James:) Isn't he a doll. He was blessed by Aaron when they were up for Thanksgiving. Real special....glad we made it in time:)

Lost Teeth

Well Dallas has finally lost his two front teeth. Mike and I asked Dallas if all he wanted for Christmas was his two front teeth:) but I don't think he found it to amusing. He looks really cute and was so super excited to lose them both within a 24 hour period.

Missionary Mice

I was getting ready to send off my little brothers missionary stocking and decided to take a picture of it. I found one with 2 little mice in it so I decided to cut the mice out and make them into mini missionaries. I thought they turned out pretty cute. Then I attached them back into the stocking. There is even a button to push and they sing, "We wish you a merry christmas." Well anyways...I guess it's time to get back into the swing of things after Thanksgiving. Sure was a fun holiday... now I am excited to get ready for Christmas and all the fun and warm feelings that that brings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wow...now I can sit back and relax:) Yesterday was kinda crazy with all the baking of rolls, cookies, cakes, etc....Now I can go to (the White House) Graham and just enjoy good company with my family. Aaron and Juliet are flying in today with Kingston and we'll be eating this afternoon. I was thinking on how much I am grateful for this morning while I was on my morning run (around bldg. C) and started thinking about all that has happened since last Thankgiving. We have had a baby, moved, went on vacation to Utah, saw my brother off in the MTC, had some crap to go through, became primary teachers, saw Dallas into the first grade, lost 43 lbs. so far;)watched our baby start crawling and even start to stand, saw Cody learn to use a two wheel bike, Elijah start talking non stop and very well. I am so blessed that I have healthy, smart, funny, loving sons. I'm so thankful for my wonderful husband who supports me and helps me to achieve my goals that I'm working on right now. I'm thankful for my brother who chose to serve a mission in New Mexico. I'm thankful for my sister who babysits for us every week and for Mike's family who are always taking turns watching our kids so that I can go and support my husband in his various gigs. I'm thankful for my mom and dad who raised me and instilled wonderful values in me that I can pass on to my own children. My family is wonderful. I love the family that I married into also. I couldn't have married into a more awesome family. I'm so thankful for all my girlfriends. I have never had friends like these before and I am so blessed to have sisters. I am even thankful for the many trials in my life because they have made me see what is really important and what I want out of life. I know that we are put here for a reason and I'm thankful for that knowledge. I love the gospel and am thankful that I can be a primary teacher right now and share what I feel and know about the gospel to our primary kids.
I would like to end with a quote that I like on my calenar. "Thanksgiving is a time of quiet reflection...an annual reminder that God has, again, been ever so faithful. The solid and simple things of life are brought into clear focus."

Fall Conference

We went to the school tonight for the first parent/teacher conference of the year. Ms. Ellis had a lot of good things to say about Dallas. The only thing that she said he really needed to work on was his focusing. He likes to do everything but the task at hand so we need to work with him on that. We also ran to Schucks and to Wal Mart after that because we had to pick up a few supplies:) Mike has been working on the F-250 the last couple of days trying to fix it up a bit. He ended up replacing the wiper motor so now the windshield wipers work *woohoo*! and he took down the old headliner that was falling apart and bought some new material and he glued that in. It looks ten times better. Now we just need to work on getting a new windshield and the truck will be doing much better. Always something to do!

Our week

I was just playing around with my new program and wanted to try some things out. Sorry if you've seen these photos before:)

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Soup er Saturday

We recently had our Soup er Saturday and one of the projects was making a family home evening board. I've wanted one of these for a while now so I was real excited to finally be able to make one for myself. This is how it turned out:)

Our Missionary!

My little brother Derek left for his mission to Albuquerque New Mexico in September. He has been out for 2 months now and we are so proud of him. We took the kids down to Utah when he went into the MTC and made it our family vacation for the year. We love you Elder Cooper!

Our Utah Trip

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Happy Veterans Day!

We decided to get out of town for the day since the business was closed today for Veteran's Day and Dallas was out of school. We invited Lisa and her kids and Tam to come and join us for a fun day at the Seattle Aquarium. We'd never been there before so thought it would be something fun that we all could enjoy. It was pretty chilly and windy when we got there but by the time we left it was a lot calmer. The kids had fun touching all the starfish and all the sealife. Elijah especially enjoyed seeing Dory and Nemo (although he thought most of the orange looking fish were Nemo). After the aquarium we all took a walk down to Ivar's -if you've never been I would highly recommend it...very yummy. We had a great view in the restaurant too-a fire rescue boat was right out the window from us and we got to see the ferry coming and going with all its passengers and vehicles. Lots of fun but now we're all pretty tired.