Making Christmas Cookies

We made mint green and pink icing. I couldn't bear to squeeze any more food coloring into the white icing.

Katie - eating more icing than what she is putting on the cookie.

Collin is wearing my Raggedy Ann hat from when I was a little girl. It is paired with a newborn towel. Since we don't use that towel as a towel anymore, it is worn with a large hair band to make an Israelite, Moses, Jesus, and Bible character. I'm not sure why Collin felt the need to be in costume for the icing of the cookies.

Leaving Cookies for Santa.

Kindergarten Tradition

Collin with his finished product.
Collin is decorating his Gingerbread House.

Here is Collin's classroom at Charles Haskell Elementary. His teacher, Mrs. Bigelow is reading a story to all 24 children. Collin wanted Daddy to go to the party with him so Matt is taking pictures here. Collin happily shared his gingerbread house with Katie and made sure to tell her to NOT eat the graham crackers because they have hot glue on them and to only eat the candies and icing. However, Katie was caught eating a graham cracker and I guess dried hot glue doesn't make you sick if it is eaten.

Now I've Been Tagged

Thanks Katie. I've wanted to avoid being tagged, but now I can bless others with the opportunity, right? Ok, here we go.

8 Things I Did Today
1. Spoke on the phone with an attorney
2. Made cookies
3. Watched Charlie Brown Christmas with Collin and Katie (and Matt)
4. Went to Jazzercise
5. Phoned a friend from high school
6. Worked in Journey Land with the great Judy Branch, love her!
7. Went to a staff Christmas party at MRCC
8. Dropped off and picked up Collin from Kindergarten

8 Favorite Restaurants
1. Poblano Grill
2. Hideaway Pizza
3. Charlestons
4. Qdoba
5. PF Changs
6. Elephant Bar
7. Perini Ranch (Abilene, TX)
8. Holly's (Post, TX)

8 Favorite Shows
1. The Biggest Loser
2. The Today Show
3. Dateline
4.
5.
6.
7.
8. I don't really watch much tv.

8 Things I Wish For
1. Someone to come clean my house on Thursdays while I'm at SSS
2. To go to Disney World every year
3. To be caught up in my scrapbooking
4. To respond to my alarm the first time it rings
5. To be organized again
6. To park both cars in the garage
7. My carpet and bookshelf to be fixed by the roofing company without engaging an attorney
8. a reunion of all our friends from Tallahassee

8 Things I Look Forward To
1. 13th anniversary trip to NYC with Matt
2. Going to Vienna with family and OC kids
3. Seeing all our family over the Christmas break
4. Singing "You are Special", "We Want to Wish you Happy Birthday" and/or "There's a Brand New Baby at ____'s house" at Sonshine School
5. Catching up with Laura every week
6. Date night
7. a Coke
8. scrapbooking with friends at Delise's house

And now I tag JanesMom, Tickled Pink, I Drive My Tractor in Pearls, Moir or Less, Northern Exposure, Fowler Five, Bloggin with the Boggs, and Life Around the White's House.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Collin is putting up his 5 firetruck ornaments.
Katie wants to know why she cannot play with her 3 snowman ornaments.

Yep...I'm one of THOSE moms. I MAKE my children collect ornaments. I MAKE them collect a particular kind. And I MAKE them hang them up every year without playing with them. I used to be SO against Hallmark getting their Christmas stuff out in July and now when they have their ornament unveiling I'm there the first day buying my children's ornaments for that Christmas. Because what if they didn't get the next one in the collection??? What would happen then?? Let's not think about it.

Help...serious help!

I need some help...serious help. You see how it says "For cute FREE backgrounds click here" (or something like that) in the upper left hand corner of my blog? Well, somehow I got THAT to appear on my blog, but not my cute new background, with the additional bonus that my blog is now plain white instead of plain black. I need some technical support here.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving Day in Post this year. We were so glad Jarre's sister "Aunt Dee" could come to Post and join us. Going around the table we have Aunt Dee, Pops, Matt, Kristen, Colt and Jarre.
Katie and Collin were the only cousins at Thanksgiving this year. They got alot of attention and Collin really latched on to Aunt Dee, having her play hide and seek daily.

The girls enjoyed a lunch out and a day of shopping. Luckily Tech was playing in town so the stores were not full of crazy people...just us.
Katie, Pops, Collin and Jarre
Uncle Colt, Katie, Collin and Aunt Kristen
Collin fell asleep about an hour outside of Post. He had been drinking a Blue Coconut Slush before he fell asleep.
I LOVE to take pictures of my kids sleeping. Sister Kate fell asleep right before we stopped for dinner.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Collin's Big Show

Collin's teacher at Edmond Fine Arts...Ms. Susan.
This show was written, directed and produced by Collin and 2 friends in class. He is the director (a kind of Elton John look) of the show "The Lost Voice."

This is the Chicken Little show. Collin played the part of Ducky Lucky.

This was the show "The Wozzit in the Closet". Collin played the part of the scared boy.

Collin has loved being in his drama class. Ms. Susan is a great teacher and Collin has so much fun. Katie is very sad that Collin gets to go to Kindergarten, Theatre Magic class, AND he gets to ride the Sonshine School bus. Being 5 has it's priviledges. But Sister Kate was Collin's biggest fan in the audience during the plays. She clapped and yelled and screamed "Yea Collin" after each show. Next show...February 2009.

Front Door

I'm really excited about my new M on my door!
Excellent! Love it!

Election Night at the McCooks

Katie showing her sad face. She didn't like the project so much.
Collin showing his sad face. He didn't like how many states Obama was getting.

Here is our 5 year old version of the project.

When I taught 2nd grade I sent home a blank US map for Election night homework. The children were supposed to color in blue or red in as many states as they could before they had to go to bed. Well, in the 6 years I taught school, I've sent that homework home only twice. The most interesting time being in 2000 when we lived in Florida. The kids came back to school on Wednesday with Florida colored red, blue, red - well it looked purple.

Collin was 1 in 2004 and I didn't have a classroom to make them participate, so I guess you could say I've had some withdrawal from my Election night homework. So here is what Collin and Katie did last night...

Katie's 3rd Birthday

Collin and Katie posing with all her presents.
Katie blowing out her candles and spitting (a little) on the cake.

Poppa, Grammy (my parents), Matt, Jarre and Pops (Matt's parents) came up to Oklahoma to celebrate with Katie.

Katie officially turned 3 at 7:38am on Monday, November 3. Our Katie is spunky, silly, fun, smart, brave, daring, lovable, independent and beautiful. We completely adore her and are so proud to be her parents.

Thanks Poppa, Grammy, Pops and Jarre for helping us celebrate our special girl.

Collin and Katie's Halloween Party

Here is the group eating pizza, fishies and grapes and drinking a strange assortment of Jones soda: the Halloween versions. (The sodas were really gross - but some kids did drink them!)

Here are the "Littles" (younger siblings at the party): Austin - pirate princess, Sydnee - Dora (she had already taken her wig off by picture time), Malia - princess, Katie - spider and JP - fireman (he was not at the party yet).

Here are the "Bigs" - Jaylen - princess, Cole - baseball player, Micayla - princess, Collin - ghost, Gabe - Kung Fu Panda and AJ - policeman (not here yet)

Yes, friends and family...Matt and I were brave enough to let our children host a Halloween party. The invites had to be limited...and Collin (and Katie) had to plan it. So from 5-9 on Friday, this is what they did: played outside (and in), ate dinner, took pictures, played "Pin the nose on the pumpkin", played some more, watched a "scary" movie (It was Backyardigans Halloween for the Littles and Charlie Brown Halloween for the Bigs.) Collin and Katie were so excited to have their friends over and it was lots of fun.

Momma and Daddy...how did you do all those parties when Serena and I were little???

We made it home!

I realized I left our trip unfinished. We're home now. We got home LATE Saturday evening. And now I'm at my home computer and don't know how to post pictures. So I guess until I learn I will have to use Matt's laptop. I'm so happy that our family (and some friends too) have been able to keep up with us on this trip.

Albuquerque, NM

Today the kids and I went to the Albuquerque Biological Park. Paying only $5 for all of us to get in should have been a clue to me that this wasn't some grand aquarium. It probably would have taken us 20 minutes to walk through but we had 3 hours to kill so I read EVERY sign to them.
The "map" for the aquarium said this was a touch tank. But the sign on the touch tank said to not put your hands in the water. Hmmmm.
Outside is the Botanical gardens (included in the admission price). We walked around here for a while. These are grape vines. I've never seen real, live grape vines! Collin took this picture. You can see he forgot to count to 3 for us.
So after having lunch with Matt we found a Barnes and Noble and played at the train table for an hour. Then I found a mall nearby. They had a carousel for the kiddos to ride. We were the only ones riding probably because the people that live here don't pay $3.50 to ride a carousel!
We found the mall playground. Yippie! We spent another 45 minutes here.

Matt finally sent me a text message that said, "im bored pik up asap". This is hilarious to me because who wouldn't be bored after listening to such thrilling topics as "Genre Discontinuities: Allegorizing the Vietnam War in American Television and Film" OR "Imperial Formations and Manifest Destinies: Israel/Palestine and Circuits of Exceptionality". Yikes! I was really glad I spent the day at the small aquarium and gardens and spent $3.50 to ride a carousel.

Glad you are reading this Momma and Daddy! Sorry for the late post today.

White Sands National Park

Today we drove into Alamogordo, New Mexico to visit White Sands National Park.
Collin and Katie were so excited about going on all the hikes. This one was the first - a one mile hike up through the sand dunes.

Collin wrote all our names in the sand shortly before we said it was time to go. Collin and Katie both CRIED because they wanted to keep hiking. Well, maybe it was more of a whine with tears. I think they were so tired and cold...they didn't know what they wanted. Tomorrow we are headed to Albuquerque for Matt's conference.

Carlsbad, New Mexico

On the hike inside the caverns - this was the easiest hike but still took about an hour. Collin really liked it but Katie kept saying she was scared. Poor girl! She was cold, had no nap and we took her into a big hole in the ground.

The view from the Visitor Center at Carlsbad Caverns.

At the end of each day at Carlsbad you can hike to the natural entrance of the cave and watch the bats fly out for the night. The park rangers would not let us take pictures of the bats flying but WOW that was really neat and a little scary. For my ACU friends...it reminded me of the time the bats started flying during chapel at Moody Coliseum and one landed on someone's back.

We arrived at Carlsbad Caverns National Park just in time to take the last elevator down to the "Big Room". We opted NOT to make our kids (and ourselves) hike the 1 hour long "strenuous" hike to get to the same point as the elevator would take us in 60 seconds.

Again...I blogged backwards...I will get better.