Oh what fun!

Katie getting a drink from the Frog Prince water fountain at the Schonbrun Zoo in Vienna.
Seeing the peacocks at the zoo.

Panda Bears!

Well, I should be blogging about some current events like putting up the Christmas tree and our 7 week old little Jackson Matt, but I recently went through all 1000+ pictures taken from our trip to Europe. I don't have them all organized yet but here are 3 pictures taken in Vienna at the Zoo (the oldest zoo in the world, it claims). Wow, that was fun! I look back now and can't believe we saw all those amazing places.

Collin and Katie's favorite place in Europe: Europa Park in Rust, Germany

My favorite: any gelato place, Normandy, Paris, Rome, Switzerland!! Oooh too many

Matt's favorite: Berlin, Munich, Paris, Normany, Rome - also too many

Jackson's favorite: Also any gelato place - he just told me yesterday

Blog time is over for now.

Blessings to all my family and friends!

Sorry. Been a little busy. Here is Katie's 4th and other stuff.

Katie turned 4 on November 3.
You might say we are/were a little behind in celebrating.

Luckily our spunky, happy, silly, busy, carefree girl didn't seem to mind. She takes after her mom and likes to drag her birthday out as long as possible.

Thank you Mia for the GREAT 4 year old outfit! We love it!

My dad and mom with the kiddos. Thank you Momma for taking care of us for a whole week!

And thank you Daddy for letting Momma stay take care of us here in OK.

It's hard to see this photo...Katie is the small one in the turquoise dress. This is OC's homecoming. Katie helped crown the king and queen. Actually she carried some flowers and then somehow got the little boy holding the pillow with the crown to switch with her so she could hold the crown.

Luckily some OC students gave Katie her own kid crown and ring and earrings.

Collin thought she was a bit of a showoff, but look at her smiling face.

Jackson Matt

Jackson's arrival was at 8:39am on Monday, October 26. He weighed 7 pounds and 8 ounces and was 20 inches long. Go ahead...check the predictions and see who got closest. It was me! Yip! So I will take that steak dinner sometime soon, thank you Matt!
Surgery should have begun about 7:40am and we had to WAIT a whole hour!! Wow - I wonder what's it's like to not know what time or day you will have your baby - that must be weird.

Katie and Collin had to wait in the parking lot with Pops and Jarre. Mercy was not allowing any kiddos inside the hospital because of swine flu and other illnesses. This news really upset me on Sunday when the nurse called to tell me about the policy. Although I completely understand, I didn't like the fact that Collin and Katie wouldn't see Jackson until he came home.

Thanks Sada for the VERY cute shirts! I love them!

Thank you Catherine - who watched Katie most of the day Monday, so Matt and Pops and Jarre could come be with us in the hospital.

Thank you Stefanie - for picking up Collin from school and doing his homework with him. And THEN picking up both kids the next day and doing more homework and entertaining them.

Thank you Aunt Reese - for driving up from Texas to spend the nights with our kids so Matt could spend the nights with me in the hospital. And thank you for coming to hang out with me while I was in isolation in the hospital.

Thank you Dr. Hager for keeping our baby as safe as possible in my advanced maternal age. You are a great doctor and make surgery lots of fun, really!


Jackson and me - love, love, love him! He is adorable! What did we do before a Jackson was in our life?

On a side note: we have been home almost one week now. Jackson is 10 days old! My sweet Momma is here now to cook our dinner, mop my floors, do our laundry and drive me and the kiddos around wherever we need to go. Thank you, thank you Momma! This leaves me to just concentrate on feeding Jackson and sleeping.

Must go now...baby is calling.

Predictions

Last family photo of 4
And we now move into a zone defense.

PREDICTIONS

Matt - Boy 7 lb 10 oz, 21"
Alyssa - Boy 7 lb 9 oz, 20"
Collin - Girl 8 lb 15 oz, 21"
Katie - Boy 6 lb 7 oz, 18"
Pops - Girl 6 lb 15 oz, 19 1/2"
Jarre - Girl 7 lb 12 oz, 21"
Poppa - Boy 7 lb 11 oz, 21"
Grammy - Girl 7 lb 1 oz, 20"
Colt - Girl 7 lb 2 oz, 20 1/2"
Kristen - Boy 8 lb 1 oz, 20"
Serena - Girl 7 lb 2 oz, 17"
James - Boy 6 lb 5 oz, 16 1/2"

Rhynes and McCooks - you need to get your predictions in or you have NO chance of winning that steak dinner! And you won't be in the baby book. And thus the child number 3 "syndrome" has officially begun...but not by me!

Briefly allowing anybody...

Hello friends and family,
I'm awake at 4:30am on Sunday. The day before the BIG DAY! Because of my last minute surge of hormones and paranoia, I went "invitation only" on the blog. However, some of my older family members are not able to log on or don't have a google account or maybe never got an invitation, so I'm briefly allowing anybody to read/stalk. I mainly have the need to show off Baby McCook arriving in just a little over 24 hours! Yippie!

Pictures and predictions will be posted today - just at a more reasonable hour.

Now...to try to go back to sleep...

Happy Birthday Mack and Swirl

Can not, can not get a good picture of us with dogs! I wonder about those people that have professional portraits made with their dogs! How does that happen? Well, it does NOT happen at the McCook house.
Mack and Swirl - brother and sister - were Collin's Christmas present from Santa last year. They are part St. Bernard and part Louisiana Coutoula Leopard Dog (we hear they are anyway). We know they are part St. Bernard for sure.

For their first birthday, they received extra amounts of Pupcorn - their favorite doggie treat!

I should also say that even though Collin prayed to have a dog from June - December last year, Matt is the one who really takes care of them and plays with them. I am allergic to dogs and never thought we would be a pet family because of this (well and the fact that Matt hates cats).

And cousin Jenny - I promise I will post my most recent pregnant picture before next Monday just for you!

Fall Break

Last Fall Break we had a GREAT trip to New Mexico! This year not going anywhere because in 9 days we will have baby 3. So everyone got to pick something they really wanted to do here in town. Here are/were the plans...

Katie - wants to have family game night - this always involves her favorite game Hullabaloo - thank you Aunt Reese. When Chandler turns 4, I know what I'm getting him!

Collin - wants to stay in his jommies all day - we can totally do that for 3 days!

Mommy - wants to go to the movies - doesn't matter which one, just to see something on the big screen before new one arrives

Daddy - wants to play golf and/or go to bookstore

As of Saturday morning, we've done them all but the family game night. So you know what's happening at our house tonight: Hullabaloo!

Oooh...must go now. Sugary jumpstart (aka donuts) has arrived!

Sly Dog

Katie to Daddy: "You are holding my hand. You sly dog."

Where does she get this? Oh wait, it's from another movie that I might decide to ban from our house..."It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

Oh dear.

I have a thing for drama

Collin's first performance of the year at Edmond Fine Arts Institute! Here he plays the part of the fat, green bug in the play "The Ugly Green Bug"! He was an awesome fat, green bug!
Collin playing the role of the lamp in the "There's a Nightmare in My Closet". Did you know one could have a part as a lamp?

Collin is a shark that turns to a guppy in a friend's "pretend box" play. All the kids in class get a chance to look through the pretend box and then write or help write their own play. These are often the most funny plays. You really get to step inside the mind of a 5 and 6 year old.

Collin's pretend box play was about a magician with some bad hands. Apparently a potion this magician had made years ago had gone terribly wrong and turned his hands into monster hands.

One of his potions students tried to help him get rid of the horrible hands but instead he melted.

Collin and I are reading Harry Potter #2 right now...thus the wizard teaching potions, although he said he was not playing Snape, he was a completely different potions teacher. And one of his favorite movies is the Wizard of Oz, so of course he had to melt.

We SO enjoy seeing Collin's productions. He is definitely in his element.

Soccer Monster

Katie has called herself a "soccer monster" since Halloween of 2008. Have you seen the Halloween Backyardigans movie? Well, I know you will want to check it out. There is a very fine episode about soccer in that movie. Here is our Kate, the soccer monster.
Her first soccer game.

Today (not this picture) Katie kicked the ball from half-court (or whatever you call it in soccer) and scored her first goal!!! We are so proud!


Having fun at half-time. Katie and her friend on her right have to be split up during the games because they tend to distract each other OR you might say they have fun and forget they are playing soccer.



Katie likes to taunt the ref by trying to kick the ball away from him.

You will often see our sweet Coach Lesley redirecting our little Kate.

Matt thinks Katie would rather play golf instead of soccer. She tends to gravitate toward the out of bounds flags...just to make sure they are firmly planted.

Run this way Kate.

Coach Lesley and the Sassy Sisters: A, C, A, Katie, M, M, C, R...just in case other mommies don't want their kid's names or pictures broadcast on my blog. It's only read by my family, a few friends AND an anonymous member of the community who has yet to come forward. But maybe that person only liked to read my blogs about Europe. Yep, those were their favorite.

"Oplahoma" State Fair

Katie and Collin had a great time at the "Oplahoma" (as Miss Kate says) State Fair. They loved petting all the animals.
They also rode every kid ride in Lil' Pardner Land. Well, some of the rides Katie wasn't tall enough for but she did NOT throw any fits tonight! It was great! I was so proud of her!

Katie is in car 3 and Collin is in the last car - with his hands up! At Europa Park (a fun and funny copy of Euro Disney in Rust, Germany), he vowed to NEVER ride another roller coaster again. But here he is on the kid coaster and was the only one with his hands up!

We also saw a magic show at the fair. Collin was called up on stage to assist. He did great!

Daddy was also called up on stage to assist. He did great too!

We also saw a lumberjack show. Collin and Katie got a small chair cut out of a hunk of wood and it is now signed by the 9 time world champion of log rolling! Yea! We also went to a hypnotist show. Matt tried to be hypnotized and it did not work on him. I was ready with the video camera just in case. But the rest of the show was hilarious and honestly I was a little glad he was not up there doing those crazy things. He does enough crazy things when he is awake.

Bowling with the Boss

Katie really enjoyed the bowling this year. She was very excited about her pink bowling ball.

Collin also loved the bowling tonight. He did quite well this year...

but since Katie SOMEHOW got a strike and 3 spares in a row, she won!

We bowl with the boss (the president of OC) every year before all the faculty and staff return to OC. It's a fun evening. The kids like the bowling, pizza and especially the M&M cookies.

Jarre - your friend Jane Neece was there tonight and we enjoyed visiting with Art and her. She told Katie about you two growing up together and being little girls at the same time. Katie said, "Jarre is not a little girl. She's now a big sister like me." We think that meant that Katie thinks she is a grown up like you because she will be a big sister soon. Really not completely sure though.

First Day...6 days late

Here is Collin sitting in his line waiting to go to his classroom.
Tuesday was a VERY rainy morning so we took our outside photo on Wednesday.

Katie was not as frustrated that she was not going to school with Collin this year. There has been no stomping of feet and declaring that "Katie goes to Kindergarden!" But she misses Collin so much and this makes me miss him more too. This year she says, "Collin is gone a wary, wary long time."

Collin LOVES first grade. His favorite thing to do is math! He likes it when it is time to get out the math workbook. He loves PE and music and health and eating lunch at school. He likes having recess on a "big kid" playground. He likes having his friend Nathan in his class. He also said he made a new friend named Lily, but he calls her Lily the Second because he already has a friend named Lily at his old school (and church). Today he told me that he told the teacher that in Mrs. Bigelow's class last year he learned that the answer to an addition problem is called a sum and the answer to a subtraction problem is called a difference. And because he told Mrs. Johnston this, he got to put some "honey in his honey pot." (I'm not quite sure what this means, but I do know it's not real honey and it's only paper.) But putting honey in your honey pot is a good thing.

I'd like to take a moment to blame our 8 year old home computer for the lack of blogs. When I click onto my blog, the computer turns off and then back on EVERY TIME!! I'm annoyed, I'm frustrated, I'm really mad. But I have taken a few deep breaths since the last time I decided to try it again, so now I am using the Sonshine School laptop to help feed my blog frenzy. (And if you have seen the Sonshine School laptop, it is probably older, but it's not going crazy on me.)

Seahorse and Goldfish

Collin, the seahorse, has passed swimming lessons this year. He had to repeat the seahorse level this year because he cried almost every day last year. Collin told us it was because his teacher had a tatoo on his back and that scared him. Well, he didn't cry any this year and did all his skills to pass to the next level! Yea Collin!
Katie and Collin having fun after their swim test.

Katie, the goldfish, would jump off the high dive and then wonder what to do next if we would let her. She is a daredevil. But she was the best swimmer in the goldfish class. She swam (with assistance from the teacher) the entire length of the lazy river at Pelican Bay. Yea Katie!

She opted for the 0 foot sprayground after going through the river.

We are fortunate to have a neighborhood pool now so we can practice our skills more frequently than we did last year. Yea to my seahorse and goldfish!