A little bit of this and a little bit of that!

Yes, we got a real piano! This is the Yamiha Clavinova CLP 330. It is a beautiful electric piano that we never have to tune, it's lighter weight in case we ever move, doesn't take as much space, has head phones, so I can play after the kids are in bed and not worry about anyone hearing my mistakes, but still sounds, plays, and performs like a real upright grand piano. Kirsten has been taking piano lessons for going on 3 months now and was getting frusterated because her teacher wanted her to pranctice varying her sound with loud and soft. This was impossible on the keyboard that doesn't have tension in the keys. So I started looking on the classified ads and the almost purchases kept on falling through. I then started looking a the gallerys, but everything was always too expensive...even the trade ins. All this time I was looking for and upright piano because thats what I had growing up and loved the feel and look of the"real" pianos. Then I looked at the pros and cons for the electric with all the advancements in technology and we got a really good deal on this one...more than we wanted to spend, but well worth the investment if we were serious about having Kirsten take lessons with success. We all love the new music in our house and not a day goes by when someone doesn't play "kirsten's piano" as Caleb calls it when he wants a turn. Kirsten's piano teacher has asked her to count outloud the notes when she is practicing a new song and Caleb the spong that he is has started doing the same and will sit at the piano as while playing say "1,2, 1,2." It is so cute! Now we just have to wait till he get a little older to start him with lessons.
After persistant asking from Zach, Nathan helped Zach build yet another tower one night. Boy do these boys love to build with their legos and their Dad!

Caleb has been fighting against the staying in bed once he's been tucked in and tries to sneak downstairs and see whatever we are doing...he didn't last that long this time and we found him on the stairs asleep. Silly little guy who is not so little anymore...sigh!

Halloween night 2009!

At the beginning of the year, I was way too ambitious in signing up to help in both kids classrooms. So Nathan once again bailed me out of trouble and took time to help out with Zach's Halloween party and I helped out in Kirsten's class. I was incharge of coming up with a craft activity to do at a center and then man it. The day before the party I tried out the egg carton bat that I had planned to do and it was hard even for me the cut through the cardboard carton....so with this in mind I went on the hunt for a new simpler project. Kathy Anderton saved the day when she mentioned the styrophome spiders that she had seen done at her school. Then the problem was not what to do, but where to get the black wire piping for the legs and for 25 kids worth. I eventually concluded I wasn't going to find them after going to 6 store and as a last resort went to the local grocery store down the street and found some colorful striped ones and for only $1 a package. The spiders turned out great. I found the styrophom balls at the craft store, the black napkins I got at the dollar store and the eyes at walmart. Cute activity that went off without a hitch except that there was no time for pictures during the activity, thus Kirsten's pose at the end with her spider.
I was feeling lazy and didn't want to make dinner so we got one of the pumpkin pizzas from Papa Murphy's. Hint for next year...go get it before 5 pm then there won't be a mile long line not only in drive through but inside too.
The kids were happy about pizza any way they get it!
We went trick-or-treating with the Reynold around our neighborhood and found this "freety" (freaky) house with gravestones and a fogger machine going. Nathan tried to take a picture and it turned out better than I thought it would. Kirsten was the witch, Zach the lion, and Caleb the fireman. I love it when we can reuse Halloween costumes!

Pumpkins from start to finish!

We were a little late at going to pick out pumpkins this year; leaving it till the week of Halloween. When we went to pick out our pumpkins it was bitter cold outside so we we strongly encouraging the kids to "hurry and pick a pumpkin." Caleb of course said, " me hoad it."
Here's Kirsten finding her perfect pumpkin. This time we didn't have our fingers go through the pumpkins underside because lots of the pumpkins were soft and starting to rote from being on the ground too long. Yuck! Luckily we were all wearing our gloves.
Here are the perfect pumpkins that we finally found. We are all frozen and eager to get into the van and out of the wind.
On Halloween morning Nathan took the initiative and carved pumpkins with the kids. Here is his demonstration on how to get the goup out. The kids always have the same reaction..eeeew!
Nevertheless, the plunged into their pumpkins and got the job done. We had to save the goup in a bowl for Zach's choice of pumpkin decorating this year.
Still hard at work....
The finished products. Kirsten's selection....
Zach and Nathan had way too much fun with this one!
Caleb, just glad to be a part of it this year! His pumpkin was harder to carve...it was really tough. We didn't know there were differences in the skins until this year.
The happy cheesy kids and of course their pumpkins!

FHE at the Woodhouse's

Well this picture is a little out of order, but as you can see the boys love to rough house with their Uncle Danny. However, we did manage to contain that energy until the end of the evening!
Aunt Rachel and Danny invited us over to FHE and we had a great lesson on "Gratitude." Rachel taught about the meaning and shared the story, or rather Nathan butchered the story of the 10 lepers that Jesus healed...we all had a good laugh. Then we drew pictures of the things that we were grateful for...i.e. cars, houses, husbands helping around the house, our families, our pets...
Then we put are grateful pumpkin pictures on the pumpkin patch poster. It was a very cute idea. Thank you Rachel and Danny for inviting us over. We then played a couple of games...we were taught a animal sign tag game, which the kids did better at remembering what they were than us parents and then played a roudy game of "Duck, Duck, Goose that I got too into and therefore took a break from when Ellie woke up.
We were then all entertained by sweet little Ellie's cute smiles and attention. Zach and Caleb were trying to get her to smile by tickling her toes.
Next was dessert. Rachel made these yummy pumpkin cookies! Everyone enjoyed them!
Zach enjoyed them too...he just wasn't at all pleased that I made him pose for a picture when he could be eating. Caleb, of course didn't mind and just dug in!

A change in color is alway good!

I convinced Nathan on Friday night that we needed to go pick out paint for the basement living room. The white was showing it's age and I couldn't stand it anymore.Nathan wasn't thrilled with the idea, but went along then decided it was my idea and so I could do all the work. I stayed up till one am on Saturday morning taping. Then woke up at nine and started the process of painting while nathan went to help his sister Camille move. By the time he returned I was tired and grumpy and still was only done with one coat. He fed the kids while I did another coat then helped me move the computer desk so we could "do it right" and paint behind it too.
The kids had two options while I painted, stay on the stairs or on the couch. I didn't want to clean up any paint from the floor as they like to run around the new obstacle course that we created with moved furniture. They were pretty good sports through it all. When Zach awoke that morning to find the blue taped walls he thought that was the finished product and declared he really liked the new color. So easily pleased.
Here's me peaking behind the itty bitty space for painting behind the cabinets. I'm glad I'm small cause they were hard enough to move out that far.
The finished product. It looks really nice. I'm still deciding if I would have preferred it a little lighter, but there's no way I'm painting it again. I'll get used to it.
Different angle, but still the finished view...Nathan likes it and says it make the room look more formal. He especially like the contrast of brown walls and the white trims.

Zach's 1st grade field trip to the Big Red Barn in Santiquin.

I got to go on the field trip with Zach to the Big Red Barn!This was my first time going and Dad and Kirsten told us all that we could expect to see...the tour of the apple orchards had changed just a bit, but we had a memorable experience anyway.
After riding over 30 minutes on the bus, we disembarked the bus an got on a trailor with hay bails pulled by a tractor to bring us to the apple orchard. We passed cherry, and peach trees along the way. Notice the bundled up kids and the heavy gray clouds...forcasting our future wetness.
When we reached the apple orchard the guide explained how a apple tree comes to be from seed to keeping the insects from getting to the developing apples. The kids were pretty good to pay attention although a few complained about the freezing cold wind, not that I didn't agree with them too.
Then we were instructed on the correct way to pick and apple...grab hold and lift up so you don't cause more than one apple to fall to the ground. Each child picked at least one. Zach and Morgan are picking theirs here.
I was assigned to keep track of the blue group...Zach, Rylee, and Morgan are on the left by Zach...I don't know the other girls names. After we picked our apples we headed back to the trailer to bring us back to the building/store where we were to each lunch. On the 5 minute ride back the rain started in earnest.
We were literally soaked to the bones. Check out these drenched kids coats and pants.
We didn't get to tour the sorting machines or view a movie like Kirsten and Dad told us about, but we were very happy to be out of the rain. This small room became our cafeteria for 150 kid, teachers & parents. We took off our coats to try to dry them out before we headed back...it didn't work.
Then we were back on the buses a half hour ahead of schedule and took great delight in drawing on the fogged up windows after the bus driver cranked up the heat. Overall it was a fun trip!

Jump'n jacks with the Cooks!

Aspen and Taylor invited Caleb to go to Jump'n Jacks with on Monday the 12th. I was a little bit hesitant to leave the phone unattended as it was Kirsten's first day back to school, but after giving the school Lona Marie's cell #, I felt better about leaving to let Caleb have some fun. We had been home bound because of Kirsten's pnemonia and he was getting cabin fever. The kids had a blast and got out all their pent up energy along side their friends.

Lona Marie gave the kids a ride on the snail. Everyone waited their turn eagerly.
This is Caleb's turn when he is determined to stay on the bucking snail. He is having a blast! Thanks Lona Marie!
Taylor just being the cutie pie that he is under one of the punching bags.
On Thursday, all the kids had Fall break and no school so we returned for a second round of jumping for fun. The train going down the biiiiigggg slide.
That looks like a happy boy having fun.
It was hard to get pictures the kids were running from one bounce house to another. Sometimes Caleb would be left behind or run from when they were playing lion, but they all had fun anyway.

Zach, Aspen, Caleb, and Taylor were not too happy I made them stop for a quick picture, but did nevertheless.