Potpourri Post

I'm kinda liking these catch-all posts. Here's some shots from the last few weeks...

The ever-popular blow up slide at the Fall Festival:

Asinine Product of the Week:

Give me a break people. Is it really that hard to teach your kid to use the door knob? Protecting kids from every tiny little injury is doing them more harm than good. They'll be better served if you just teach them common sense and general caution. And if they're stubborn by nature, a pinched finger will surely get the message delivered. I'm thinking they'll survive - and a little wiser at that.

Ben has a genuine love of math, something he did not inherit from me, I assure you. But his enthusiasm is pretty contagious. We had fun learning about the cool pattern the number 9 makes as you multiply it:

My mom finally taught me how to make her famous apple pie.



Check out this old flour sifter that used to belong to her mother:

Ready to go in the oven:


Once again I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. I'll try to remember when I make this for Christmas.



Travis opening his mission call:

San Jose, California, English speaking. So cool! Travis is very excited. :)

And lastly, but never leastly, Aunt Brenda came to town for a visit. It always makes us happy to see Brenda. :)

Below is a rare Cook family photo, thanks to Aunt Brenda's nudging. :)

And just like that, I'm all caught up. Woo hoo!

All Too Short...

These "catch up" pics belong in their own post. Long lost Uncle Michael (see here if you missed the story) and my cousin Michelle came to visit several weeks ago, and this time she brought her children with her. They're absolutely adorable, inside and out, and I'm so glad they made the long drive over here. Unfortunately this was another short visit. Despite original plans, it ended up that they drove over and back on the same day again. We really, really, really tried to convince Michelle to stay another night, but it just wasn't possible. *sigh*


As well as we all got along last time, we got along even better this time. Everyone was more relaxed (no anxiety about wondering how things would go) and we just eased right into the visit.

I don't think Mom was more than six feet away from Uncle Michael the entire visit.



And just as Mom tended to monopolize Uncle Michael, I tended to monopolize Michelle. Sorry! :) Talking to her is just too much fun. And not only does she write, but her daughter Jasmine likes to write as well. Oh heaven. It's amazing how much we all have in common.


We were originally supposed to get together in September, because Mom, Wendy and Michael all have birthdays in that month. After Uncle Michael was injured at work (and his leg is still recovering from that) we had to postpone it till October. Long story short, this get-together got pushed all the way to November. Along the way we "collected" Michelle's birthday in October, my birthday in November, and Michelle's daughter Zuri's birthday in November. So we were celebrating LOTS of birthdays.


Uncle Michael had to have a hat:




In the picture below, the card he's holding says "Uncle Michael" and he's saying "That's me!"

He was raised as an only child, and he is loving being a brother and uncle! :) This card was from my sister, the good neice, because I'm terrible about buying cards. ;)

Mom gave Michael this frame with family pictures in it.

From left to right, top row, is: their brother Gene, their brother Freddy, Uncle Michael, and a pic of our first reunion. Bottom row is a group shot of the siblings, grandma, mom, and great grandparents (Michael was named after his grandfather).


Mom gave Michelle framed pictures too, and in her card was this recipe, written in our grandmother's hand.


Okay, now Zuri. I just have to blog about Zuri opening her gifts from my mom. (These are Michelle's two daughters. The older one is Jasmine, and the other is Zuri.) Knowing Zuri was a "girly girl," mom got her pretty girly gifts. She was a little worried about it, hoping Zuri would like them.

I don't think she needed to worry.

First she opened her card, which sings, and which caused Zuri to giggle excitedly.

Then she pulled out the tiara. More giggling. (Notice big sister's expression, which I thought was too funny. She thought Zuri was hamming it up a bit on our behalf - which I'm sure she was - but we didn't mind.) :)

Pulling out the puppy:

More giggling:



Oh my gosh, it was too friggin cute. A little too late I realized that you don't record Zuri opening presents with a camera, you do it with a video. I tried to get her giggle on tape, but by then she was done.

Next she went around the entire room and gave everyone a hug:

Even big sis. :)

Here, Michelle is pinning on an angel pin I gave Zuri. It has the November birthstone in it, something she, I, and Grandma all share. I explained the significance of that, and the angel, but she may be too young to appreciate it. That's okay. Her sweet smile is all I needed:

I also wanted to get something for Jasmine. A few years ago now, my friend Kimmy gave me a Willow Tree figurine before she moved to Yuma, and I thought something like that might be a good idea. When I went to Hallmark to see what kind of figurines they had, this was the first one I saw:

It's called "Blessings" and as soon as I saw it, I snatched it up. I love the open arms, because it makes me think of the way we've all accepted each other with open arms. I love the name of it, because having them come into our lives has been one of the biggest blessings of my life. And I love the way the figurine looks, like a beautiful young lady, just like Jasmine.

These are just some nice pics... my sister and her husband Louie (awwwww):

My mom's best friend and long-time friend of the family, aka, "Aunt Jan."

I do seem to recall there were some boys around somewhere. In addition to my three and my sister's two, Michelle added one more to the mix. They did play outside some, but really wasted no time finding the Playstation and Grandma's computer games.

They all got along just fine! :)

Girls giggle, boys make faces. Whatever. ;)


Even though it wasn't Kumani's birthday, Mom wanted to give him a little something anyway. :)




Unfortunately, Brian missed the entire thing. Due to a screw-up by someone in corporate offices in Dallas, (long story) Brian ended up working the whole day Saturday taking care of it. Michael et al tried waiting as long as they could, but it was a loooooong drive home and eventually they simply had to go. (Brian was disappointed he missed them, and one of the first things we did when he finally arrived was to pull out my camera, look at all the pictures, and try to fill him in on what he missed.)


Before they left we took LOTS of group shots. The birthday kids:





The cousins:




As you can see, Zuri was quite upset. She knew they were leaving after the pictures were over and she did not want to go. Mom tried to comfort her:



But it didn't work:

I wasn't happy that she was so sad, but still it touched my heart. I didn't want them to leave either.

More group pics. My sister and her family:

And, of course, we had to do a "generation" picture. Now, this is something that we used to do with my grandma all the time. Grandma insisted on it. And it was always just four people: my grandma, my mom, my sister, and me. That was it.

.

We were a close-knit group, and grandma's death impacted us deeply. We haven't been very good about taking generation pictures since then (I think partly because we're still mourning the person who's missing, even nearly a decade later).

.

So, this last picture is probably my favorite, even though it's too dark, kinda blurry etc etc. This is hands down the largest generation picture I've ever been a part of.

It felt great.

Catching Up... or Trying to...

My life has been in a serious state of disarray for some time now. If you don't believe me, just take a look at the sorry state of my toenail polish a few weeks ago:





What's funny about that is my toenails ALWAYS used to look like that, until my digital camera arrived. Not sure what the connection is, but anyway.

I have managed to paint my nails since then, but only because we had family in town and pretty much the only shoes I own are sandals. I painted my nails literally less than an hour before they arrived, and only had time to do it because they arrived an hour later than I thought they would. Whew! ;) (Though, truth be told, I would've rather had one more hour with them than painted toenails, but that's another story.)


I will most definitely blog about this most recent family visit, but first I just have to get caught up on all the random stuff that probably no one cares about but me. Here are the last several weeks (sans politics) in brief:


A long time ago, Aunt Katy gave Ben this cool art board. It has a dry erase board on one side and a chalkboard on the other. We use this ALL the time, for one reason or another. Often, it's just a handy place for random drawings.

One day Chris was in the office with me as I was working on the computer. During a break, I drew the little girl in black. The next time I turned around, Chris had added the girl in green.





I know I'm the mom and totally biased, but I thought that was pretty good. He noticed that the heart didn't quite match though:

So he fixed it:

One of our frequent uses for the board is for Family Home Evenings. For the FHE before Veteran's Day, my plan was to have a "Why America is Great" themed evening. As I was looking for ideas online, however, I came across a few lessons built around Moroni's Title of Liberty and decided to go with that instead.

This turned out to be a great theme to explore, and gets at the heart of why we have veterans in the first place. What are we fighting for anyway? I noticed things in that story I never really paid attention to before. We had a great discussion about it.

Oh, and I can't fail to mention the clogged kitchen sink that (long story short) ended up as a water leak that ruined the carpet and some drywall in our bedroom.

When the water damage people came, they moved dressers, emptied the closet, etc, etc, all of which ended up crammed around and on top of our bed:

That was a lovely pile to sort out, let me tell you. But the best part was the giant dehumidifier they put in our room for five straight days:

They told us to keep it running 24/7, but there was no way we could sleep with that thing roaring at the foot of our bed. Sorry!


While the dehumidifier is finally gone, we don't have anything repaired yet. Soon I hope!



In much more exciting news, this is Nate's fiance Maryann:




Isn't she a cutie? She's a sweetheart too. But get this, we have an Ann, a Leeanne, and now a Maryann. I told Travis that leaves Betty Ann, or Annabelle, or Annie for him. Something along those lines. ;)



These pics are just general sillyness:

Chris in Ben's jammies:

He had a hard time getting up:

But he managed it:

Then John said, "Take a picture of my foot."

How weird. ;)

And lastly, a picture of me and Brian that gives me very happy memories.

I love him so much. :)

When It Rains, It Pours

It's been a helluva week. Here's the latest:

Poor little guy. Three stitches. We got to the hospital shortly before 6pm, we got home shortly after 9pm (or was it shortly before? I can't remember now). Anyway, by the time I got him fed and settled down (he had a hard time getting to sleep) it was 10:30. It's now 9 am and he's still asleep, which is just as well. I'm sure he needs it.

I don't want to blog all the details cuz my heart just isn't in the blogging these days, but I do want to record this: Chris was so brave. Before they put the stitches in, the RN came in with a loooooong white blanket and said, "We're going to make you a burrito." So he stood Chris on the bed and turned him around and around in this blanket, which Chris thought was funny. Of course, the reason they do this is to immobilize their arms.

Then they laid him on the bed. I was on one side, the doctor was on the other, and the RN was up at the top of the bed, with one hand on either side of Chris' head. Basically, we were all in position to keep Chris still so the doctor could stitch him up without him knocking her hands all around.

But we didn't need to worry. He didn't fuss or squirm or anything. He didn't whine or cry. He was amazingly cooperative. The RN said normally he'd be holding the head still and the mom would be practically laying on her child's body to keep his hips still. We were all very impressed.

That's something Chris feels proud about, the rest of us too, so I had to record it. I'm thankful to my mom for rushing over here and taking care of the rest of my children for me. I'm thankful that Chris slept through most of our time in the waiting room and then received excellent care from caring professionals. For a trip to the ER, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been.

John's Pen Pal

I still haven't had time to catch up on my blog; that's still coming. And the case of the mystery foot will be solved (I know you've all been biting your nails on that one!). But today John brought home a letter from his new pen pal and showed me the rough draft of the letter he's writing in reply. I these were too cute, so I'm sharing them here (pen pal's name has been changed).

Dear John,

Hi! I'm Hal. I'm a collector of army men. There are three boxes in my room. I have so many army men, it takes one hour to pick up. I'm also a collector of mini army men.

Your pen pal,

Hal

Dear Hal,

I am 9 years old. I like soccer as my favorite sport. What is your favorite sport? I have 2 little brothers. In my spare time I pick on them. Do you have any brothers or sisters? What do you do in your spare time? I have a friend named Brad. Who are your friends? I love to read books. Do you like to read books?

From your friend,

John