Upside down

I'm never surprised to find the living room turned upside down. I was shocked though to come to an upside down couch!

Apparently our couch was starting to give out so james patched it up for now.... let's hope it holds out. It took us a long time to pick this one out and I'm not ready to go through that again!

We made it to January 23rd...

After the numerous visits to the emergency room in 2008, we had a mantra for 2009 - "No emergency rooms in 2009". Amazingly, we made it through the year without a single visit to the ER.

Right on time then for the new year, Devlin broke his hand at a motocross race. He is handling it very well and he only has to wear the cast for a short time. It's a very small cast too and isn't slowing him down much. We have "outlawed" anything with wheels though until the cast comes off.

And yes, the cast is Kawasaki Green. :)

Aidan the "observant" one

A little backstory first…aidan can’t wait for the day that his hair gets darker like B and D’s.

So, the other day Aidan asked James if his hair is going to get darker…. Like Mommy’s roots. Nice. Must mean it’s time to touch up the highlights J

Ta-da I'm wearing heelies!

Clara found Aidan's heelies laying around the house and decided to take them for a spin. She did try to "heelie" with them but ended up on her butt :)

Sock- a- palooza.

James has (lovingly) decided to start doing more laundry. I think he just got sick of digging socks out of the basket.. he and the boys tackled this task last night. He had quite an interesting approach to sorting through them. He was holding up each sock and asking the boys to claim it... it was pretty hilarious to watch. I'm not sure what the pile in the middle is for but I knew better than to ask questions. I just watched and took pictures.

Christmas 2009

A little out of order, but better late than never.

Here are some pictures of Christmas with the Cooks.

Aidan and Brandon sneaking cookies...they were hiding under the eave of the island and eating them :)

Clara with her new "house" in the background. It's a Disney Princess kitchen but she calls it her house.

Clara with her camera

I bought Clara a toy camera. She's having a blast with it and makes the funniest faces when she "takes a picture" of someone.

Here's a little video from the weekend.

Who could say no?

Just a cute picture of clara...

Claras gonna kick your butt.

Last night Devlin was playing with Aidan and Clara by pretending to
swing something at them. Aidan warned Devlin:

Aidan: You'd better stop or Clara's gonna kick your butt.
Devlin: Oh yeah, how's she gonna do that?
Aidan: Because boys can't hit girls!

Football!

Here are some pictures of Brandon's
first football game of the winter season...finally. The league has
delayed games for two weekends already.

Brandon did great. Thank goodness he wore his blue socks - we were
easily able to find him in the crowd of kids :) We might have to get
him some new ones though before next game that actually come up to his
knee.

The team did great. We got beat but the kids had fun and learned a lot
about how the game is played. It's a lot different than practice !

Football Madness - in the stands

A group was selling candy, drinks and snacks at the football game as a fundraiser. The kids had already dragged us (me, james, grandparents) to the table numerous times. I finally broke down and bought cinnamon rolls for Aidan and Clara. Later that game, Clara took Nana to the table and wanted to get some candy. Nana told her that she didn’t have any money and that she needed to ask momma. (thanks mom).

Clara came to me in the stands, held out her hand and said “I need money.” James immediately reached in his pocket and handed her all the cash he had on him - $53!

Somehow I don’t think that’ll be the last time I hear that and we definitely have to start working on James’ self control.

Some pictures of the kids from the stands:

Miss Independent

Clara continues to develop into an extremely independent little girl. She has mastered the use of the words stop, no, and go ‘way as well as the proper use of the hands to make a “stop” motion with one or both hands.

She doesn’t mean anything personal by it… she still loves you, even when she tells you to go away. J

And it’s all worth it to see her face when she says “I did it!”

aidan-isms continued

Aidan says “incense” instead of “except” as in:

“You can use anything incense that one.”

Bed head twins.

We don't do mornings around here...

B & C at the dentist

Devlin got braces!

Pre


Post


They stay on for 15-18 months!

Clara declares game night

Clara has decided to make tonight a game night and has pulled out every single game we own. She must have gotten het attention span from James.



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Aidan-ism

The other night, Aidan and I were laying down at bedtime. He was laying
very quietly and then turned around and whispered, "Mama, how do you
spell 'missi-skippy'?"

After I stopped laughing I spelled Mississippi for him. I couldn't
bring myself to correct him. I hope he always calls it 'missi-skippy'.

Cuteness in pigtails

Who knew crayons doubled as lipstick?

Clara figured out that the big toddler crayons make a very nice lipstick substitute. Or mustache substitute.. not quite sure what look she was going for.

Just a cute picture of Clara

Many moods of claras nap

Clara took a nap on the living room floor the other day. She cracked me up with all of the ways she was sleeping.

Clara and her babies

Clara got several new "babies" for Christmas. Here she is watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with a few of them.

Clara hard at work

1st Grade Reader Theater

Xmas monkeys

We (finally) decorated the Christmas tree tonight. We continue the tradition of finishing off the tree with monkeys... yes, monkeys. Instead of tinsel, we use barrels of monkeys to decorate.

Here is some video of the kids monkeying around as the finish it up.

Decorating the tree

All the kids, plus Nachite, helped decorate the Christmas tree tonight. Clara helped and "branched" out from her usual one or two branches. She figured out that the ornaments can go all around the tree. When she wanted something to go up higher she would take it to Devlin and say "high".

Football!

Brandon is signed up for football. The season starts in January.... everybody stock up on stadium blankets and seat cushions!

Earrings

Clara finally let us take her earrings out tonight! Woo Hoo! She's had her original earrings in for over a year and a half now. We've replaced them with a pair from Disney World for now. Let's see how she handles switching those out in a day or two.

Ninja doing homework.

Note the sword....

Clara in her winter coat!

Clara loves her winter coat. She didn't want to take it off to get in the car or when we got to daycare. She dozed off in the car with it on, who wouldn't when you're this warm and cozy!?

Thanksgiving @ Dad & Jenny's

Thanksgiving Day was full of food and family. We spent the first part of the day with Dad & Jenny where we got these pictures of the kiddos..

Decorating the tree at mom's

Sunday night we decorated ONE of the trees at Mom's house - the Santa Tree - with the kids plus Charlie, Susan, Victoria and Sophia. Lots of fun was had all around. The kids 'specially enjoyed the ladder for putting the ornaments on the top.

Clara's new haircut

Me and Clara

Aidan making sure the tree had total coverage, top to bottom.

Devlin and Clara goofing

Nana + Kids

Brandon working on his branch

Clara inspecting....

Aidan..love those dimples!

Aidan and Brandon double-checking the coverage from the bottom-up!