Shopping trip

In case you didn't know, shopping means different things for a boy and a girl.

A girl will look at every single rack of clothing available, even if it's not in her size. She will call, text, and send pictures of cute clothes to everyone she knows before she'll finally try something on herself. Usually, after many different outfits, she chooses one and plans every outing she'll wear it to for the next two months, complete with accessories and hairdos. Finally, she'll bask in the happiness of her new acquisition. A pictural explanation might look like this:

Then, there's the boys view of shopping. Grumbling with every shirt his mother holds up to him, and not committing to anything that doesn't have a crude saying on it, or a toy attached. When he finally goes to the dressing room to try it on, this is what it looks like:

He gets distracted by the full-length mirror and spends ten minutes flexing in front of it until his mother finally checks to see what's taking him so long. With exasperation, his mother grabs the shirts, decides she'll MAKE them work whether they fit or not and leaves the store.

Until next month.

Latest News

We've had a lot going on the last couple weeks. I don't know why it always surprises me! My sweet children are active, energetic, involved children who drag my anti-social self along! :-) Truthfully, I love supporting them in all their activities and functions-I'm proud they're so excited to get everything possible out of life. Here are a couple pictures of how we've spent our time:

Cooper will enter Scouts this year, so we participated in the cake auction. These are his mustache cupcakes. We ended up buying them because Amelia and Cooper liked them best.

Cooper and Amelia also attended a birthday party for one of our friends. They played laser tag against a bunch of over-confident, slightly snotty, loud sixth graders. After the game, the sixth graders weren't quite so confident or loud. I might have announced their loss to ELEMENTARY (even though Amelia is technically middle school) kids a little loudly. To the whole room. Full of people. Twice.

After their victory, it was time to eat.

Last night Amelia had her first performance at halftime during a basketball game. She lost sight of her tambourine for a minute and became a little flustered. She regrouped like a champ though, and finished the dance flawlessly. It might be hard to see her, but just look for the best dancer. :-)

 

Isn't she pretty?

And January is half over......

I can't believe how fast the last two weeks have gone. Once the new year passes it seems like the days just fly by in a blur of school, lessons, activities and life! We managed a short break to go snowmobiling and play in the snow last weekend with cousins. Here's some pics:

Ready to be pulled behind the sled. Cooper LOVED it when I let the line go slack and then flip the sled around....until he flipped right on out. Actually, even then he loved it!

Playing on the snow hill.

Lynnli and Jojo.

Joey and Coltman.

Matthew (Conagher was napping).

Lynnlie doing a snow angel.

Cooper!

Amelia!

 It was a fun break, now back to school and life!

Happy New Year 2015!!

This last holiday week has been crazy, fun-filled, and memorable! With school ending so close to the holidays and then Dad coming home on Christmas Eve, there hasn't been much downtime--but it's been a great few weeks!

Watching a video on Nana's iPad.

Christmas 2015 tree.

Sure they argue sometimes, but they also get along really well. Nothing I love more than these two!! Except Jon...he runs a close second! :-)

Santa got Cooper bongo drums. Not sure what he was thinking........

Amelia is a craft/sewing/enthusiast. She also got a gift card because she LOVES to shop!

 
The holiday festivities wore both kids out, especially since they've been fighting coughs.

New Year's Eve was a fun night as well. We decided to celebrate the new year at 9pm because Amelia and Cooper do NOT do well with little sleep. Besides, *sniff* Amelia will be going to young women activities in a short year or so abouts, and our celebrations together will be few and far between. Although--how fun will the year Amelia is 17 and Cooper is 14 and they go to the dance together?!

Anyway, here's a few pictures in chronological order. You can see how the crazy eyes and out-of-control behavior escalates the later the hour......

Trying out the hats and noise makers.

Testing the poppers to make sure they worked.

Getting a little wound up......

 

See the crazy eyes?

 We finally rung in the new year the same time the Puerto Rico did, and for the next ten minutes all that could be heard was, "I did the first cartwheel of 2015!" "Well, I did the first headstand!" "I just took the first drink!" "I'm going to use the bathroom for the first time this year!" and so on.......

After they wound down of "firsts", I  announced it was the first bedtime of 2015. This is the face I got:

The first pout of 2015.

 However, exactly six minutes later, they both looked like this:

So I popped in the movie "New Years Eve", settled down on the couch and rang in the new year with Jon. I think we'll talk about resolutions when they're a bit more coherent. Here's hoping 2015 blows 2014 out of the water! Happy New Year!!

Tis the Season!

A few quick pictures before the chaos and celebrating of Christmas begin:

How do we celebrate? Dessert Pizza!!!

Sooooooooo good.

 On Amelia's last day of school before the Christmas break, Amelia had a breakfast with her "team" classes (three teachers swap the students and cover all subjects), a little bit of school work, then headed to Fat Cats to watch a movie. In addition, she got to dress up all Christmasy!!

Isn't she just gorgeous?

Cooper had a short fluency Christmas program that I ran over to watch. There were about 5 songs, but these had the most, ahem, personality. This kid cracks me up.

 

                                                                                 

December Moves On.....

We've had a pretty fun December so far. Amelia had her Nutcracker, and she did fabulous! She was a mouse this year and LOVED the acting almost more than the dancing. She was cute to watch (when we could pick her out from all the other mice). This is why it was hard to spot her:

Cutest little mouse I've seen!

 Each mouse had a head with ears and a nose. When they all scurried around and fought the soldiers, it was impossible to keep track of Amelia! (I usually look for the shortest one, but she wasn't that one this year!) I splurged this year and bought the DVD, so we can watch it over and over and find her. This is her before she turned into a mouse:

 

She said people were asking her all night if her eyelashes were fake.

We also spent some time in Blackfoot helping Mom and visiting Dad. He is improving so much and working so hard! It's fun to see his face light up when we walk in, and Amelia and Cooper especially like to watch him in therapy. I don't mind myself--his therapist is very nice looking!

Amelia and Cooper like to dance to Indiana Jones theme.

Another fun activity was meeting Santa the day after Thanksgiving. They were interviewed on the air, and the television station played it. This isn't a great video, but you can at least see it. Cooper was thrilled, stating his "life-long dream had come true by being on TV!"

It's December?! Wait.....what......when.....?

That about sums up my last few weeks. I don't think I've sat for more than 2 minutes since my last post. Granted, my ceilings have all stayed where they should--but life has gotten so busy. Never again will I complain about being bored or having nothing to do!

Before Thanksgiving, Cooper had his program at school. I wish you could see him clearer, but here's one of the videos. If you want to see them all I can email them. He is such a performer!

Thanksgiving flew by and I don't have a single picture! We were lucky to be able to bring dad home for a few hours and that was fantastic. The kids and I stayed a few more days, but I was busy trying to finish two projects, three papers and one presentation. Saturday I was able to go visit dad for a couple hours. He is doing so well with his therapy--last time I saw him he couldn't move his right side, and on Saturday he was walking with a walker about 10 steps! I'm happy I could stay with him for so long--especially since the therapist wasn't too difficult to watch, either! It was a fun couple of days, and so much fun to see everyone.

We came back and hurled into December. We managed to squeak out time to put up the Christmas decorations and decorate the tree:

The most important ornament of all!

This week we have Amelia's first "Nutcracker" performance. She's a mouse this year, and has the honor of stealing the nutcracker and hiding it. She's thrilled! Let's hope that's the naughtiest thing she ever does. I'll post more pictures as I get them!