Tuesday, December 23

Merry Christmas to all my Blogging friends!!

Edited to add: I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 for all my digital scrapbooking.

Click on image for larger view. This is my digital scrapbooking page for my Christmas 2008 mini-album and my e-card/blog card to everyone. I hope that everyone has a great Christmas and I hope that we'll all remember the true meaning of Christmas and the Savior's gift to us.

Recipe: digital paper- Summer Driggs freebie, dictionary paper - can't remember, green glitter alpha - Ellie Lash

December 14-23...Behind again

Okay, first I have to post a funny exchange between Cooper and I...

Me: Cooper, tonight you're going to have a babysitter. I don't want you to cause any trouble for her. I want you to make sure that you eat all your food and don't complain.

Cooper: Okay mommy. I'll make sure I eat all the pasta and you make sure you don't make the pasta taste terrible.

Me: (rolling eyes) Cooper, the pasta will not taste terrible, I promise.

Cooper: Okay, just make sure it tastes good.

Me: thinking...man, i thought i was a pretty good cook, why in the world would he think that the pasta would be terrible, it's just spaghetti for crying out loud...

So, that's my Cooper. You just never know what will come out of that mouth of his, and where in the world he gets it from.

Back to the intended purpose of this post...

December 16th: I cut down Cooper's naptime to 1 1/2 hours. He tends to fall asleep a little more quickly at night. I had printed out some Christmas images onto watercolor paper a couple weeks ago. Cooper and Katelyn LOVE to use my watercolor pencils and color in the images then use the brush to paint it. Here's Cooper with his snowman image. He wanted the hat to be red, and the whole head ended up red. He was going to leave the rest blank, because snowmen are white, but I told him to make it a snowman clown. (I really just wanted him to finish coloring the image instead of wasting all that watercolor paper).

December 17th: It snowed. A lot. Yes, I guilt-tripped Jake into "spending time with Cooper" by having Jake take him to the parking lot so Coop could build a snowman. That kid was the happiest kid I've ever met. He LOVES the snow and he'd been begging me to build a snowman, but I kept telling him to wait until his dad got home. (I had taken the kids on a walk - Cooper biked - on Monday, December 15th, when it was snowing pretty hard. I figured it was Jake's turn to do snow duty.) So, Jake took the kids to Wal-mart, then dropped of Kate, and built this little miniature snowman with Coop. The two little rocks were suppose to be eyes, but I thought they looked like boobs. If you look really close, you can see two little sticks for arms too.

December 20th: Ward Christmas Party - Cooper and Katelyn had so much fun. Kate had a couple of the boys following her around making sure she was okay. I don't know what it is about her, but the 4-5 year old boys treat her like a princess or something, well, more like a porcelain doll. It's kind of amusing to me. Cooper was really excited to tell "Santa" what he wanted. He even told me what he told Santa. So much for telling him Santa's not real. I did have to tell him though that gifts don't come from Santa, they come from mom, dad, grandpa, grandma, aunties and uncles, etc... He understands that, so as long as the credit goes to the right people, I'll let him believe what he wants.

Same party, but Katelyn was FREAKING OUT because of "Santa." What is the deal, seriously, Coop at this age was scared of Santa too. I was even holding her and she was screaming bloody murder. Can you tell I thought it was funny? She kept screaming "no mommy, no!"

December 22nd: Cooper got this Holiday Cake Kit at his primary meet and greet activity on the 20th. His whole little bag from his future teacher was packed with awesome stuff. Anyway, he really wanted me to make this cake with him, so I thought it was a good day to do it. We were at my sister's place watching her dog, so that's why the kitchen may not look familiar to those who've been to our place. Yes, Cooper is wearing a pink bib. I didn't realize I had switched them until I looked at this picture. Cooper was mixing the cake mix and Kate was watching with envy. They both got to decorate their cakes and they definitely turned out colorful. The frosting was pretty much just powdered sugar. After the finished decorating it, I let them each eat their own cake. They only ate a little bit of it, but at least they had fun getting it decorated.

December 23rd: Jake took me to see the "O" show at the Bellagio. I've seen it once before, back when my sister got married, but we pretty much sat in the very last row at the very top. Tonight, we got to sit in section 103 row H and were pretty much front and center. It was amazing (except for the fact that we were 1 hour late, so we missed half the show...beware of the Bellagio, their parking lot was completely full and their parking attendant kept letting cars go in) and I've never had seats that good for anything. I was really impressed and awed by the talent of those performers. I don't have pictures - shoulda taken one of Jake and I in front of the theatre, but didn't think of it. They don't let you take pictures inside, so I only have words to record this day. This was also the first day that Cooper and Katelyn have been babysat by someone other than family. (Well, my friend Kim watched Cooper a couple of times when he was really little, but Jake and I consider her pretty much family).

Sooooo, tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I'll have pictures for tomorrow and for the 25th!! Stay tuned.

Tuesday, December 16

Christmas Days 6-13: Catching up....

...again. I always seem to be catching up when I finally sit down to post. Anyway, here is a little update on our Christmas happenings.

December 6th - Family pictures at the Bellagio Botanical Garden. They had just finished the display when we went on Saturday. Jake was there too - but I rarely have a good picture of the kids and I, so I thought I'd post this one. I also got to catch up a little with my friend Matt and his family. I knew them a long time ago from my ward in Cincinnati, OH. It was nice to catch up. His parents have not changed - they're still as sweet and amazing as ever.

December 7th - We took a little walk/bike ride/skate trip around the neighborhood before church. It's kind of our Sunday thing since we have 1pm church. Jake and I are working on teaching Cooper how to balance and kick on the long board, but this particular day I wanted to see if he could ride his "big boy" bike. He can - but we decided the other bike was a better size for now.
December 8th - Katelyn and Cooper wanted to spend some quality time with mommy building something with their legos. We built the police station, (you can see the model we copied on the back wall), and then the kids played with the building for a while before Katelyn decided to destroy it. That's usually how our lego sessions end.
December 9th - Another lego session. I was honored with the job of building the train tracks. Coop and Kate had a blast making themselves into human tunnels for the train. I learned that the engine goes forwards and backwards. These kids are so lucky - I NEVER had toys like this when I was little. My sister and I spent most of our childhood dancing on furniture.
December 10th: Cooper and Katelyn had playgroup and the activity was watching a Christmas movie (The Grinch Who Stole Christmas) and drinking hot chocolate.
December 11th: After naps, we had some friends come over and play for a little bit. They took out the train tracks again and had a little fun with that. My children definitely need to invite more kds over for playgroups - they're not the best at sharing their toys, but they're experts at sharing other people's toys when they visit with friends. They spent the rest of the evening with my sister while Jake and I went to an office Christmas party.
December 12th: Cooper and Kate spent the morning with their good friends (thank you soo much Rhonda), then came back for naps, then spent most of the evening being cooped up in the condo while Steph and I cut, ironed, and sewed the rest of our stuff for the craft show the next day. Thank goodness we were able to take the kids to play with their friends again for a little while. They were really getting tired of mommy NOT playing with them.

December 13th - It was Cooper's friend's birthday, so he got to go to a birthday party. Lucky for him he went to another party after that one was over. There was a neighborhood party and the kids got to pet some animals, ride the train around the park, jump and climb on some air filled thing, and eat lots of food and popcorn.

More to come tomorrow. I've still got 4 more days to catch up on. Hope the rest of you are enjoying your holiday season. Oh, and if anyone catches typos on my blog, please let me know. I have a pet peave about typos.

Sunday, December 7

Christmas Day 5


It was my sister Steph's birthday on Monday and my friend Brit's birthday on Wednesday. A bunch of us got together on Friday and had a little celebration pot-luck for them. The kids were actually playing nicely for a while and happened to all congregate around the piano when I took this picture. Each of us left with some yummy salsa that Rhonda made. It was VERY yummy. Now I need to buy some chips to eat it with. The holidays have always been about food, friends and family. Does we need anything else?

Christmas Activity Day 4

Cooper found these popsicle sticks that I bought a couple years ago. He really wanted to build a house with a fence and a backyard and decorate it with candy. I think what he had in mind was making a gingerbread house...similar to this unfinished one that we made at the end of November.
Katelyn's was made from some leftover broken pieces of graham crackers. The popsicle house and backyard didn't get very far. He finished the bottom of the house and one side before he got bored and decided to actually take a nap. Go figure. Anyway, ended up going to a friend's house after naps and the project still remains unfinished.

Christmas Day 2 and 3

I just HAD to take this picture of Kate and Kenzie on Tuesday. Steph and I had them wear matching outfits, all the way down to their matching legwarmers. I'm not sure how many of you wore legwarmers as kids, but I grew up in the 80's, so I definitely wore them. They're back in style now, but I'm just too old to pull it off. If Kate's hair was longer and thicker, I would've put her hair in a side ponytail.

Day 2:
Cooper and Katelyn wanted to make Christmas cards. Specifically, they wanted to water paint Santa. I ended up printing out a picture of Santa and a picture of a reindeer to fit on a card front. Then I used a pencil to scribble on the back so that I could transfer it to a piece of water color paper. After transferring the kids used my water color pencils to color it in, then used a brush with water to spread the color on the picture. They had so much fun doing this - and of course I forgot to take pictures.

Day 3:
We went to the Lied Children's Museum. It was our Wednesday playgroup outing. Again, no pictures. Cooper and Katelyn really enjoying playing at the pretend grocery store. It was the first area that we saw when we went in and all the kids had a blast touching all the things that they're never allowed to touch in a real store. They also had a bubble station and water area that they played in. Upstairs there was a wind display where you entered this cylinder shaped room and the wind gets up to about 78 mph. Kate loved it - the other kids were a little scared. I was happy to find that Kate's "Kisses Clippie" didn't slip off her hair at all. When it was time to leave, Cooper kept trying to block my way, saying "I don't want to go, we haven't stayed long enough, don't make me leave!" It was frustrating, but at least it made me feel like the $7 I paid to get us in was worth it.