Christmas letter 2014!

Sorry if you didn't receive a copy of this in the mail if you wanted one!  I have a small stack that never got mailed, and I would love to include you next year if you want one!  Just let me know!  We love all of our family and friends!!

Another whirlwind of a year has flown by!  And it was a pretty good one for our family! 

Brenna has had a very exciting year.  She finished kindergarten, and is now a very mature 6 ½ year old 1^st grader.  She is quickly learning so many new things these days.  She is reading very well and quickly climbing reading levels at school.  She loves school, and has made a new best friend who happens to live 6 doors down which has been really fun for her!  She also played soccer for her first ever team sport, and she LOVES it!  Brenna also loves being in charge, playing with friends or cousins, swimming, and holding her baby sister, who she adores.

Mason is almost 5 now!  I can’t believe how big he’s getting.  He’s in preschool now and is very eager to learn and grow. He is already reading everything that he can.  He played soccer on the same team as Brenna, and is excited to get into all of the different sports.  He seems to be a natural and a quick learner at most things he tries.  He is also a good big brother, especially to baby Sadie, which is good considering he cried when he learned the baby in mommy’s tummy was not going to be a brother.  He got stitches this year, which is our first serious injury for the kids so far.  He stepped on something at the park and got 7 stitches in the bottom of his foot.  Not a fun day.

Owen… ahh Owen.  He is going to be 3 in a few months.  He’s my cute little shadow. ,He can always bring a smile to anyone’s face and will talk your ear off, but only about half of it is clear enough to understand (Jeremy says it’s much less than half).  He loves helping me in the kitchen and smiling at Sadie.  He is very easy going, and gets along with everyone.  He is a sweetheart and a bit of a stinker!  But he’s cute enough to get away with it.

Sadie Rae joined our family this year.  She was born on July 31, so she is now 4 ½ months old.  She had a fussy first few months, but has since become quite content and happy.  She is a big girl, very tall and chubby!  Everyone loves her to pieces.  The kids all beg to hold her and will do anything to get her to smile.  She isn’t sleeping as well at night as I’d like, but really she just makes me so happy!  What a joy to have her in our family!

I am keeping very busy with the kids sports, school, homework and friends, not to mention the baby and the toddle!.  I am glad for the excitement though and always have something to look forward to.  I enjoyed spending some time in Canada this summer with my family, and even got to hit up a family reunion which was really nice.  I am enjoying my calling as the primary chorister.  Our primary is gigantic, but I really like planning my lessons and singing with the kids!  They are great!

Jeremy is still with MetLife, working hard to bring home the bacon.  He is a very good financial planner, and his clients are lucky to have him working with their money!  He is the cub master in our ward and enjoys that too.  He has lately been putting in a lot of work in our backyard as we are trying to get some grass and a bike path to make it more enjoyable for the kids.  It’s always good to have a project!  He golfs with his brothers as often as he can and plays basketball at least one evening a week too.  The kids’ favorite game to play with daddy is pillow-plan-fight… which I am not clear on the rules since they made it all up!  We also really enjoyed having the Clark’s visit this summer!  Jeremy’s whole family was together, which doesn’t happen too often!

We hope that this year has been a happy one for you as well, and that this Christmas season brings you joy, love, and peace. Wishing you a Merry Christmas – the Cook’s! 

And you can have a few extra pics just for kicks.  We had the camera on timer since we just couldn't find a time to get actual pictures!  Even though we had an awesome photographer lined up!  Sorry Aly!!!!!  Yours would have been way better!

Catchup!

I didn't even look at the last post I made... I know it was quite a while ago!  I kept meaning to post our family Christmas letter, but it took me forever to get all the ones mailed that we were mailing, and even now I have a small stack to mail that I ran out of stamps for and then the store was out of stamps, and now they will likely never get mailed!  So I will maybe post it after!  I will do a very general quick recap of our last two months!  We spent all of our spare time (especially Jeremy) leading up to Christmas trying to get out backyard done!  Well the grass anyway.  And we did!  It's lovely!  I love having grass back there and the kids are loving it too!  It's fun to play back there in this nice AZ winter weather!

Then we went on our long awaited trip to Canada!  We got to go as a family in the middle of the day, so I wasn't even that stressed about the flight!  But packing up your whole family for Christmas is slightly stressful!  

This is the face Mason always makes to make Sadie smile.  It cracks me up!

We got to town just in time for my sisters wedding!  I actually have absolutely no photos from that day on my computer!  The only ones I did take were on my parents camera and are still in Canada!  Bummer!  But rest assured, she looked stunning and it was a beautiful day!  And the kids looked really cute too!
After the wedding we moved onto Christmas things!  Amidst the craziness!  The kids tried to play in the snow, but there wasn't much snow, and what they did have had been there awhile and was hard and icy, and also, it was cold out!  Not cold for Canada in the winter, but really cold for my AZ warmblooded kids!  They actually didn't complain almost at all about the cold!  But they didn't last too long outside either!

The boys went to the farm for a day and they took all the kids (except Sadie!) and I'm told they had lots of fun!  On Chrsitmas Eve we tried to pack in as many fun family things as possible since we were all together!  It was a little crazy with so much going on, but we had the best time!  We played with friends, we made gingerbread houses, we played minute to win it, we had chinese food and saw the nativity, and then we came home, had a little gift exchange game, put the kids to bed, and then played some grown-up games too!  Whew, I am tired just typing all of that!  The kids had the best day ever!

Owen couldn't keep the candy out of his mouth!

This is Sadie in her wedding dress!  It is such a pretty dress!!

I was worried she'd be too cold at the nativity, but Jessica did a good job keeping her warm!

We took the kids to play at an indoor playplace, we went to the Telus Spark Children's Science museum again, and stayed pretty busy!  Winter clothes are such a pain, especially when I'm not used to having to do them, but also.. they are so cute!

We had to catch an early flight home, which actually went super smooth!  We came home, had our little Christmas which Santa couldn't drop off in Canada, had a day to do laundry and play and then we headed out to the Gilbert house for a few days with the whole family again!  This was nice because we were all together.  It adds a little bit of complications or inconveniences being all in one house, but it was nice to spend all of the evenings and stuff together!  The kids continued to have a blast doing tons of fun things!  We went to Dave and Busters, went to parks, went to a western town, and had a sibling/spouses date night!

And then we came home and got slowly back to normal.  We had to regulate bedtime and go back to school and get on schedule again!  We did get to have Jessica and Curtis for a few days though which was awesome too!  Then everyone went home!  And it was hard to say goodbye to each of them!  My family is so important to me and so much a part of who I am.  I wish I could spend more time with them!  But I am grateful for the time we had, and it is nice to get back to normal too.  And I have a sister living here now!  So yay!!

And now back to life!  Sadie is getting so big, she's such a joy and I cannot look at her without feeling overwhelmed with love!  It sounds so cheesy, but it's true!  I am sad at how quickly she's growing, but love every minute!  She's almost always happy, as long as someone is paying attention to her!

Brenna loves wearing our matching aprons and helping me in the kitchen!  And she's actually old enough to be sorta helpful, which is nice!  We've been having fun cooking/baking together!

These boys melt me too.. such cuties!  I need to get a video of Owen talking to share so I don't forget how cute his struggle with speech is!  His newest thing is every time he has an accident (potty training is not going well) or spills something or drops something he immediately says "My so sorry.  My so sorry mommy." and it's good because it makes me laugh every time which gives me the second I need to reevaluate my reaction if I was going to get upset!

He fell asleep watching America's Funniest Home Videos last night!  Well just before dinner.. bad time for a nap!

Sadie in her 9 month jammies.  She's almost 6 months, and can fit either 9 or 12 month jammies.  she's very long, and not hurting for nourishment!  And I love every squishy part of her!

And that's it!  Life has been busy!  The older two started up soccer again, we took the fam to glow in the dark mini golf which was a hit with the kids!  Owen and mommy had some quality board game time, Sadie got sick with a cold,followed by Owen and now a little bit with Brenna too.  Everyone's on the mend though!  After looking at all these photos from my phone though I'm thinking I need to get a better quality phone camera if this is how I am going to document our lives!  

Brenna and her friend Alivia spent a good afternoon making this duct tape bag and other jewelry from a kit she got from Grandma Cook for Christmas.  I thought it would be something that would get old quick, but they loved it and were very proud of their creations!  Good call Grandma!