Christopher's Birthday

Poor Chris, I'm over a week late on this. And I'm not adding any commentary either. But the pictures are up, so Hurrah! :)

Christopher and his "girlfriend" Ella. They're so cute together. Too bad I didn't get one of them holding hands.

Cheating just a teeny, tiny bit.

My first baby.

Chris really wanted a skateboard, so we got him one. Everyone was predicting more stitches, but no injuries so far! (Knock on wood.)

Five years old. Wow.

It was the busiest hour and a half of my life! LOL. Just kidding. It was fun.

Still to come, a blog about my California trip. If I get it up before Christmas, I'll consider that a success! :)

The Best Laid Plans...

I've given up trying to blog the way I used to. It's just not going to happen for awhile. That means the funny way I was going to reveal the mystery foot guest is going the way of all the earth. I don't have the energy to explain it on here, but if you care to ask me about it, I'll tell you what it was in person.

Meanwhile, I feel bad for leaving Marie hanging for so long. Yes, it was her foot, even though she left a comment guessing it was someone else (sneaky girl!). We were sitting at the same table during women's conference and got to talking about the quirks she had blogged about, and she demonstrated what she can do with her arms. (I'm tellin' ya Marie, you need to put a video of that on your blog!)

That's when feet came into the discussion. She said it's unusual for a person's second toe to be the longest toe. (I thought that was normal!) So we both slipped off our shoes and stuck our feet out and looked at them side by side, right under the white-tableclothed table. That's still the image I see when I think about this, even though Marie wouldn't let me take a picture of her foot then. The actual picture came about on Sunday. We went outside to the grass and tried not to feel like idiots as I took a picture of our feet. LOL.

Marie on the left, me on the right -wasn't the red polish a dead giveaway? ;)

So there you have it. One of life's great mysteries has been solved and you can all sleep at night again! Sorry to have kept you waiting! ;)

Just About the Only Thing to Make Me Wish I Had a Fireplace...

My friend Carly makes these cool pinecone firestarters every winter and sells about a million of them (or at least, it seemed that way to me when I was in her house during production one year). They smell incredible and would make a great decoration even without a fireplace. I asked if I could put a plug about it on the blog, so here it is.

They come in a cute little wooden box, and have 4 pinecones (2 red, 2 white). They're only $12.00 and she'll be taking orders through December 19th.

Here's the great email she sends out every year:

Favorite Things
Scented Pinecone Fire-Starters

Use our wonderfully scented
fire-starters to fill your home
with traditional holiday aromas.

Simply place the pinecones in your
fireplace and light with your firewood
or display them in a warm place.


Then enjoy the unforgettable
holiday fragrances of cinnamon
and vanilla!

Call Carly Griffitts to place
an order at (480) 861-3471
or Email me at Difdim@Cox.Net

Merry Christmas!!!

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.