The Santa Rosa Six

Ryan turns 1!

2010-08-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

So we celebrated Ryan's first birthday a week and a half ago. It was really funny because the big kids had such high expectations for his birthday, and of course, to Ryan, it was just another day. They were hugging and loving on him all day, and going out of their way to play with him and keep him happy since it was his big day!

We started the morning by opening a few presents that his Nana and Papa Cowley had sent. Let me tell you, they were right on the money with the stuffed bear "Cashew" they sent. Ryan couldn't stop hugging and kissing it after he opened it. He wasn't interested in opening any of his other presents after he opened Cashew either! So we actually waited until after cake and ice cream that night to open the rest of his presents.

(I love the double chin he has in this picture! I just makes me want to squeeze and kiss him all over!)

After a busy day of errands, we came home to make cupcakes. Well, sorry for Ryan, we forgot to get eggs while we were out. It was late and everyone was starting to get a little irritable, and we hadn't done birthday dinner or cake and ice cream, so we looked up online that you could use extra milk as a substitute for eggs and we tried that for the cupcakes. Unfortunately, we were misinformed. The cupcakes turned out concave, and mushy inside. But luckily for us, none of the kids even noticed or cared. I guess a treat is a treat right?

Well, Ryan was cranky by the time dinner was done and cake was ready, and he didn't understand the flame on his candle. We

wouldn't get it close enough to him to touch, so he pretty much looks grumpy and or terrified in all the pictures until the candle is taken off the cupcake.

Once the candle was gone, he was happy to get down to business and dove into his cupcake and ice cream. Compared to the other kids' first birthday messy face pictures, he actually stayed pretty clean.

Overall, it was a great relaxing day with the family! Days like that always remind me how lucky I am to be the mother of these four amazing kids! Happy Birthday Ryan, thanks for being my kid! You really are a VIP in our family!

The First Day of School

2010-08-22T18:55:00.000-07:00

So all the kids started back at school last week. Kimmy started at preschool. She goes twice a week for 2 1/2 hours. She loves it! She loves being a big girl and getting to get ready in the morning like Nate and Dana. She really likes the sandbox and the dress ups!

Nate and Dana started at their new school this year. Since we moved across town, they are going to the school down the street from us, instead of their old school across town. I was a little nervous for them, but after one week, they seem totally adjusted.

Dana loves it and makes a new best friend every day. She keeps saying that she just can't believe that she now has to do homework, but she secretly loves it. She tries to say "it's not fair that I have homework," but she can't get out the whole sentence without smiling. When I asked her what her favorite part about school is, she says that she loves the challenging work. Just like me, I loved school when I was little too.

(Did you notice that Dana and Kimmy both have the same pink boots for school. We found them at Target and they both fell in love. Dana was glad that Kimmy got some too, because she loves to be twins with Kimmy...so sweet.)

Nate is a little discouraged because they don't have any tetherball courts, but that just means he has to learn to play basketball instead. They seem to have some really good after-school enrichment programs too. He is excited to see some of his friends from around the neighborhood at school.

Soccer Banners

2010-08-15T22:36:00.001-07:00

So for whatever reason, I volunteered to do both Nate and Dana's soccer banners this year. When I offered, I thought the deadline was September 14th, only to realize later, they meant August 14th. I took about a week planning them out in my mind and designing the appliques, another week procrastinating, and then spent several late night/all night sewing sessions to get them complete. They are still not totally done, I have to add uniform numbers and a few

finishing touches, but here they are.

Nate's team is called the Owls. I originally planned on having the owls sitting on the ball all the way around, but then I realized there were more than 8 players on his team and that wouldn't fit. So instead, they are lined in in the goal, and on the top of the goal. I think it turned out pretty great since I made up the patterns for all the appliques myself. They were surprisingly simple to make and I actually really like the idea of using buttons for the eyes.

When I add the numbers, they will go on each owl's tummy.

Dana's was a little more difficult. There were sixteen girls on the team, and each has to have a little part of the banner that is all their own, because at the end of the year they cut up the banner and send each little girl's part home with her as a keepsake. I wanted to make it soccer, but keep the theme of space, since they are the Meteors...thus I came up with the idea of the soccer balls being the meteors streaking through space. Each soccer ball was the white base with the black hexagons appliqued onto it, with ornamental stitching to make the white hexagons.

I still need to add red stitching around the yellow felt flames, to give them dimension and detail, and I also need to add the uniform numbers, but I really like it. The last thing I will do to both banners is fold back the tops and the sides to make a place to slide pvc pipes through, so we can stake the banners into the ground at their games.

Ryan's First Haircut

2010-07-25T18:24:00.000-07:00

So, we gave Ryan his first official haircut yesterday. I wanted to wait until his birthday, but I couldn't take the bangs hanging down in his eyes any longer. Here is a before picture:

And here is an after picture:

I meant to give him a buzz, but I wasn't thinking about how short it would really end up, and I am afrad we made him look a little too much like Caillou...

Other cool pictures

2010-07-04T16:33:00.001-07:00

Also, I just posted some pics of our 4th of July Sunday afternoon on my family (as in my parents and brothers and sister's blog). Follow this link to see them too: http://bobnoblefamily.blogspot.com/

The Nikon D90 has arrived!!!

2010-07-04T15:00:00.000-07:00

So, I have finally purchased my new DSLR camera, and even though I have been the proud owner for less than a week, it has already changed my life. As you can see from the following pictures, it is amazing! It seriously blows my mind. I mean, I knew I had cute kids (I am not even going to try and feign humility here) but the pictures I get with the D90 just melt me to the core. So for the last few days, I have been making the kids model for me. Of course, the only one who really enjoys it or listens to any direction is Dana, so I have the most/best pictures of her, but every now and then I can get the other kids being adorable as well. Here are just a few of my favorites:

Kimmy in Mommy's sunglasses

Ryan eating pizza

Dana modeling in the back yard

Best friends

The most beautiful red-head in the world!!!

You can always find Nate riding his scooter

Ryan NOT enjoying the grass
Ryan and Dana loving each other
Kimmy and Dana gathering flowers
Ryan finally enjoying the grass

Nate has a hard time being serious for the camera

But he sure does love his little brother!

Funny Video

2010-06-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I haven't been blogging a lot lately...I could have never imagined how crazy life would get with one more kid. Anyway, I just wanted to take a second an pass along this hilarious video....I have watched it a bunch of times, and it still makes me laugh out loud! Enjoy! (I can't seem to make the whole video viewable, so just try and appreciate it anyway, sorry)

Oh, and I am getting a Nikon D90 today, so expect more/better pictures soon!!!

Ryan's Blessing Day

2009-09-20T23:03:00.000-07:00

Today, September 20, 2009, was Ryan's blessing day. He was lucky enough to have both sets of grandparents, as well as Uncle Kevin, Aunt Megan and cousin Kale visit him for the occasion. As you can see above, Kale and Ryan hit it off immediately as they were posed by parents together with little Ryan sitting on Kale's lap. In this first picture, both seem pretty happy ...

A moment later, Ryan isn't sure about the seating arrangement, but Kale still seems OK with the situation.

Eventually, even though the two cousins obviously have mad love for each other, Kale was done with having Ryan and his lap and Ryan was ready to move back into Mom's arms.

Dana was in love with Kale, and was very excited to spend some time with Aunt Megan, whom she worships. When it was time for Uncle Kevin and Aunt Megan to leave, Dana broke down into semi-hysterical sobs. It was so sad, and cute!

More bonding time between Aunt Megan, Dana and Kale. Notice Uncle Kevin's stylish pink tie in the right edge of the photo!

After church, we gathered outside for some family photos. We asked our great friend, Sandra Hanson, to take some of the photos for us, and afterwards she was very anxious to hold little Ryan. As soon as Ryan went to her, he started smiling all over the place. It was so cute! This photo is proof!

There were several family photos from the day, but this was our favorite. It really captures the personalities of Nate and Dana. Kimmy was happy to be snuggling Mommy, and Ryan was trying to get in a little nap. Also, if you look closely, Ryan is using his hand to flash the sign of the horns. Lovely. My son is a Texas Longhorns fan.

I like this photo. Sandra took it right after we were finished with the photos, and I think it was interesting to see everyone beginning to scatter once photo time was done.

Another nice family photo.

Nice photo, except for Nate's "Chandler smile" (a Friends reference). He's such a cute kid, but every now and then, you put him in front of a camera, and he forgets how to smile. It's cute.

This is my favorite photo of Nate in the family pictures. You can see the difference between his "Chandler smile" in the photo before this one, and his real smile here. Why the sincere smile here? He was reacting to Dad's announcement that Ryan had just passed gas.

The whole family! From left to right: Grandma Cowley, Grandpa Cowley, Nate, Aunt Megan, Uncle Kevin, Kale, Dana, Angi, Kimmy, Jared, Grandma Noble, Grandpa Noble, Ryan.

More family fun! We were very grateful to have both sets of grandparents as well as Uncle Kevin and family out to visit and participate in this wonderful day. A special thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Noble who came out for this on their 43rd wedding anniversary! Thank you, we love you all!

The Loves of My Life

2009-09-20T23:02:00.000-07:00

There is nothing in this world that I am more passionate about than my family. Can't you see why I love them?

Dana Sillyface

2009-09-20T22:55:00.000-07:00

My sweet Dana girl loves to make silly faces...here are a few:

Birthplace of Snoopy

2009-09-20T22:40:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't know, Charles Schultz, the creator of the comic strip Peanuts was from Santa Rosa. In addition to a museum and skating rink named in his honor, all around town you can find statues of different characters from his comic strip...when my mom was here last May, we went on a little scavenger hunt to see if we could find all 50 statues. We got up to almost 20! And since then we have found a few more...Good times!

Snowboard Bunny

2009-09-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

So, Kimmy has taken to wearing a little blue snow hat that Grandma Cowley bought her. I don't know why she has fallen so in love with it now, as we are currently in the middle of a heat wave here in California, but she is too cute in it and I have had a hard time convincing her to take it off. We'll see how long this phase lasts...

Ryan Duke - a photographic retrospective

2009-08-31T12:28:00.000-07:00

I was going to do a long post all about Ryan's birth, but I got started and it was wearing me out...so for now, I am just going to post some pictures, so everyone can see how handsome he is, and give you a brief summary of his life so far...This is me, right after they officially admitted me to the hospital. As you can see, I was in good spirits. Ryan was 20 inches and 8.2 pounds when he was born. Pretty average size, but when I saw him for the first time, I said "oh, he's so small!" Here is the proud daddy:

These pics look a little weird, as Jared took them without the flash, cause he was trying not to make his first bath any worse:

He has since grown 1 3/4 inches and is up to 8.13 lbs. He is SUPER mellow. He only fusses for a short time when he is getting his diaper changed (really, who can blame him?) or when he is hungry, but as soon as his needs are met, he is happy to sit quietly using his shifty eyes to see what is going on around him. He has big dimples in both cheeks. I only have one on my left side, and just when I am smiling, but he has them all the time. As you can see, it was a poor choice of finger I used to point out his dimples, sorry!

The big kids couldn't wait to meet him:

Nate came with Daddy to bring Ryan and I home from the hospital. He couldn't be more pleased to finally have his little brother here. As he told me "I have been waiting my whole life to have a baby brother!"

The only "problem" we had the first few days of having Ryan home, was the big kids fighting over who got to hold him. Since his newness has worn off, the fighting over holding him has stopped, thank goodness, but they still want to hold him all the time and be great helpers.

I can't try and be modest here, I make BEAUTIFUL babies. When Ryan came out, he didn't have a cone head or any birthmarks or any of that baby acne...he is just one good lookin' baby!

They say babies don't smile before 6 weeks or so, but I have photographic evidence that this is not the case for Ryan, as he is only 2 weeks old in his super smiley picture, and no one will ever be able to convince me it was just gas.

Hopefully that is enough pictures for now for those of you who have been pestering me to update my blog. I have tons more, and I promise they will get posted in the next few days...keep checking back.

2009-08-31T10:53:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what it looks like when someone who is 9 months pregnant takes castor oil to start their labor? Well, here you go:

Yes, it really is that bad, but it does work.

School's Out for the Summer

2009-07-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, so technically, school starts up again in less than 5 weeks, but I am really behind in my postings, and I felt like Nate needed some love on the blog. This school year was great because I was able to volunteer in Nate's class once a week and I really felt like I was able to get to know not just his teacher, but his classmates as well. For the last day of school, I was able to attend his BBQ party and it was really fun. It was cute to see all the kids "signing" each other's yearbooks.

Nate learned how to do the monkey bars really well this year. I was really impressed because I never really had the upper body strength to do the monkey bars very well, and I definitely couldn't do two at a time like Nate. The big thing this year in first grade was tether ball. All the kids were playing it and Nate got pretty into it too. He isn't the best, but he sure has a lot of fun doing it. In fact he asked me if I could get a tether ball for him so he could practice over the summer...I am still "thinking about it."Nate made some really good friends at school this year: Nate and AustinNate, Austin and Alexis

Nate and Jack
Nate's friend Darius crashing after the sugar high he got from all the goodies.Rebecca, Paige (Nate's "girlfriend") Nate, Diego and Devin all writing notes and pictures for Ms. Miller on the board.

First grade was an overwhelming success for Nate, not only did he develop some really neat friendships, but he also really developed a love for learning and an even greater love for reading (if that is possible). We did get some exciting news for Nate this past week or so too. At the end of 1st grade, he participated in the Terra Nova testing that they do for all 1st graders around the country. They only tested in reading and math, but Nate scored in the 94th percentile for reading and the 99th percentile for math, giving him an overall score in the 99th percentile. Way to go Nate, we are so proud of you!! Keep it up and you'll make us all rich someday!

Funny Quote

2009-07-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

So Dana was giving me a foot rub tonight, and to help me relax even more, she offered to rub my temples by saying: "Mom, can I rub your pimples for you?"

Dana Graduates from Preschool

2009-06-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I am about a month or more behind on posting, but that's how life goes. I wanted to post a few of the pictures from Dana's preschool graduation in May. She went to the Presbyterian Preschool here in town, and had an amazing experience. She was devastated by the fact that she was graduating, and couldn't return in the fall. The preschool is really a wonderful one, and usually has a years-long waiting list, but we got really lucky that they happened to have one cancellation last summer, so they were able to fit Dana in. It was pretty expensive, at least by our standards, it cost $220/month for three days a week, when we paid just $50/month for Nate to go to preschool. But that is the Bay Area...more expensive all around to live here. Anyway, they put on this graduation program/potluck that was unbelievable. The kids prepared several songs to perform, and the decorations for the potluck were amazing...the level of effort that went into the potluck was right on par with the effort that goes into the Brush Creek Ward activities...and that is really saying something.

Here is just one of the pictures of Dana on stage performing for the parents. She is the second one to the left of the kid in the bright orange shirt.

This is Dana's plate that the preschool made as a graduation gift for her. It's a picture she drew of her "Fabby-Fifi," which is what she calls her Daddy. Note that she made the picture very realistic by giving Daddy a red beard, but she put him in a dress with puffy sleeves. Too funny.This is just one of the decorations they put up. They hung all these big bugs from the ceilings and each one had a face of one of the different preschool teachers. The kids loved it. This is Mrs. Maloney, the director of Dana's class, and she was hanging directly over our table.

This is Dana's best friend ever, Sydney Wold. Sydney lives right near by and is in our ward, and the girls were lucky enough to get to be in the same class for preschool. They did great, because even though they were best friends before class started, they also never had a problem playing with other kids or letting other kids play with the two of them. The teachers commented to me several times how pleased they were with this.

Here she is with Mommy and Daddy at the potluck dinner. We took a picture of the three of us together, but you will never see it unless I am ever a contestant on The Biggest Loser. It is from a sideways angle, and for whatever reason, it looks like a "before" picture instead of a picture of me at seven months pregnant. Seriously, you can't even tell I am pregnant in the picture, I just look really fat. As Kimmy would say: "it's gigusting!"

Apparently they also used rocks that the kids painted into bugs as more decorations. This is Dana's bumblebee.

Dana Brielle turns FIVE!!

2009-06-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

So Dana turned 5 last month! I can't believe my little girl is going to be starting all day kindergarten in two short months! What will I do without her, oh, that's right, I'll have a newborn plus mischevious little Kimmy to keep me occupied. She loves to hold my hand and is always offering to give me foot massages - lotion and everything. She is very empathetic and can just can sense when others are unhappy and goes out of her way to help them feel better. She loves to help around the house with chores or cooking and especially taking care of her little sister Kimmy. She can't wait for the new baby to be born so she can help change it and feed it. Dana's birthday was such a fun day. For her birthday breakfast she got to have french toast with strawberries and whip cream made by Daddy: The she got to open a new birthday outfit:

Then she got to go on a date, just her and Mommy to the mall. We had to make a stop at "her store" which is actually Claire's boutique so she could pick out a new present. I loved this hat, but she chose a diary with a lock and key instead...could she be 5 going on 15?

After the mall, we got to go see Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D, again just the two of us. Dana is such a sweet girl with such a sweet heart, I loved having the chance to do something with just her. For her birthday cake, she wanted to get an ice cream cake, and Baskin Robbins had just the perfect one for her. It was pink and shaped like a purse. Too cute!

Of course, Nate couldn't wait to dive into the cake!(She was having a great hair day, don't you think? Kate needs the CHI Jed ;)) After cake, Kimmy had to go to bed because it was already after 8. So it was just Nate and Dana for the opening of the presents. I realize that it looks like from these pictures that Dana got a massive amount of presents, so I feel the need to clarify. The presents in her pile include those from both sets of grandparents and quite a few from Mom and Dad were much needed clothes, which I decided to wrap up to make it look like she had more. Jared said she is going to look back at these pictures next year and say "36? 36 presents? Last year, last year I had 37!!!" (for those who don't know that was a Harry Potter reference).

Of course, her favorite present was this one:

It was a great birthday, we are so happy and blessed to have her as a part of our family. Life wouldn't be half as fun without her.

To quote Dana: "This was the best day of my life. I got everything of my heart's desire!"

What we do for fun

2009-06-05T17:30:00.000-07:00

Here are some more amusing pictures of what we do for fun at our house.

Dana and the OTHER Nathan

2009-06-05T17:07:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, Dana has a little bit of a preschool romance going on. The lucky young fellow to have captured Dana's fancy for the moment is named Nathan. They got married at the beginning of the year on the playground at preschool and have been "boyfriend/girlfriend" ever since. Nathan recently invited Dana to come see him play in a Tee-ball game and also to his Batman themed swimming birthday party. Nathan just recently sent her a card in the mail and this picture of them together at his party was enclosed in the middle. Too cute! Of course, who can blame Nathan for liking Dana, he has excellent taste!!

Nate's Walk-a-thon

2009-06-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

Every year at Nate's school, they do a fundraiser called the Walk-a-thon. In kindergarten Nate wasn't too into participating. However, now that he is a mature, socially concious 1st grader, he was really excited to do it. The kids get pledges from people they know for each lap that they walk around the track. Each lap is 1/4 of a mile. The day of the walk-a-thon it was close to 90 degrees! Nate was able to finish 17 laps around the track which is equal to 4 1/4 miles in about an hour and a half. Since he only got pledges from Mom and Dad - for $1/lap, he was able to raise $17 for his school. We were very proud of him! Way to go Nate!

Like Father Like Son

2009-06-05T16:45:00.001-07:00

Jared likes to get the kids to do weird poses for him to take pictures of. Nate loves to oblige. They both end up cracking up and going nuts. Can you see the resemblances here?

Just a day at the beach

2009-06-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

The other day it was so hot here we headed out the beach to cool off, but when we got there it was so cold and windy that Kimmy and I decided to stay in the car. Jared and Nate and Dana had tons of fun running up and down the sand dunes and exploring the beach. I took these pictures with the zoom on my camera from the sunroof of the car. I just couldn't venture out into the freezing wind without a bathroom nearby. I blame it on the pregnant bladder!

This is what Kimmy spent the time doing, watching Disney's Beauty and the Beast on the DVD player in the van for probably the 150th time...no exaggeration! My girls love that movie!

Dr. Dana

2009-05-18T09:30:00.000-07:00

Ever since she could talk, Dana has said that she wants to be a doctor when she grows up so she can help fix people and make them feel better. We recently took Kimmy to our pediatrician, Dr. Green, and she has a little toy doctor kit in her exam room that the kids love to play with. I actually had my camera with me this time so I was able to take pictures of Dr. Dana in action.

Dana, the aspiring photographer

2009-05-17T23:41:00.000-07:00

All of these pictures were taken by Dana. Do you think she has a career ahead of her in photography?

Wasn't Easter just yesterday?

2009-05-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

I realize that it is May already, but I finally figured out why I couldn't download pictures from my memory card for the last month. Apparently the little tiny switch on the side that prevents any pictures from being erased was switched on, and that kept it from letting me download the pictures as well. But since I figured that out, and Jared and I leave for our trip to Boston and NYC in just 6 short days and will have tons of pictures from that to post when we get back, I thought I should do a little catching up.

For Easter we went to our wards annual Easter breakfast and egg hunt. It was really nice because for once Jared didn't have to go in early on a Saturday and so he was able to go with us. We are getting so many kids, I really prefer to go places with him than without because I need the extra hands.

Here's Dana with our wonderful babysitter Amee. All the kids love her and she really has no idea how much we appreciate her!
Even at her tender age of 1, Kimmy was a hit with the boys in the ward, making instant friends with Noah Harris from Nursery.

While the youth was making the final preparation of hidden eggs out on the church grounds, they stuffed all the primary kids into the hallway like sardines to wait.

Here you can see that Dana was a little less than enthused to be shoved so tightly into such a small space. Then the craziness began:

Kimmy was really excited because she got to hunt for her eggs in the baby section, and the big kids weren't allowed to look there, so the little kids could get at least some eggs.

You'll notice that I don't have any pictures of Nate hunting for eggs because by the time I got over to his area, probably 3 or 4 minutes after the hunt started, all the eggs there had already been collected and the kids were already opening them up and stuffing their faces full of the treats inside. Stinkers!

This year I took Dana with me to the fabric store to pick out fabrics and patterns for the girls' Easter dresses. To my surprise, Dana picked out really simple easy patterns and so I was able to whip up both the dresses the night before Easter Sunday.

Don't you love the sweet attitudes they have first thing in the morning?

All in all, for the meager amount of effort I put in on the dresses, I think that they turned out pretty well, and Dana was able to share that her Mommy made her dress for her Good News Minute in Primary that day. (No worries, I actually did their hair before we went to church, I just forgot to take a picture afterwards). We bought Nate a whole new outfit for Easter because the time that it takes to tailor a little boy's shirt is so not worth it, when I could buy one just as nice at Walmart for $5. He doesn't care that much about it anyway, so it all works out.

"I drink water"

2009-04-25T09:33:00.000-07:00

So, sometimes after the kids take a bath, I will let Kimmy run around "nudie-moon" style until she is dry. I was checking something on the computer when I let her do this the other day, and the following video is what I found her doing only four minutes later.

The Jungle Book

2009-04-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

So, for those of you who didn't know, Nathan was recently involved in a Showbiz Kids production of The Jungle Book. This was his first play ever, and he really took to it. It's the perfect outlet for him, because he gets to sing and channel his energy into his part. Surprisingly he was chosen to play the part of Amal, a young wolf in Mowgli's wolf family pack, which was a pretty significant part for a first grader who had never been in a play before. He actually had more lines than some of the 3rd graders in the play.

Here he is in make-up from the dress rehearsal:

And here he is trying to look like a fierce wolf:

When we came back for the actual play last Thursday night, they gave him a bit more make-up, which he thought definitely made him look more like a wolf. Here he is waiting for his turn in the make-up room:And here is the finished product:
The whole family went to support Nate. Next time though, Kimmy will probably stay with the babysitter. She was fussing for me and for Dad and for Nate all throughout the show, and I felt really bad for the parents who were trying to video tape the play...you can't hear the actors when there is some crazy baby screaming in the background.
Nate was in two of the three scenes. The first one was at Council Rock, where the wolf pack is discussing how Shear Kahn is back in the jungle. He is right in the center next to Mother Wolf in the white and grey costume:
Here is the opening number, our video camera is out of commission, so I taped it with my camera. The quality is not the best, but it's still great to have. Don't stop watching until you see Nate's bow at the end.

He had a hard time figuring out what arm went in front and which went it back. It was my favorite moment from the whole play.

Mowgli finally makes his appearance here:
Here is Nate delivering his first line:
More from Council Rock: He finally found where we were sitting in the audience...he's looking straight at us.
This is the pack's hunting song:

This is the end of the play, when all the characters are on stage at once. They did great sitting quietly considering there was like 30 kids participating.

When the show was over, they invited the actors to come onto the stage one by one for photos. Nate's good friend MaKenna was in the play too. Here they are afterwards:They wanted to take pictures with all Kimmy and Dana, but Dana had tried to go on stage after the show was over and was told by one of the adult leaders that only the actors could be on stage. She totally got her feelings hurt and refused to pose for anything, so Nate and MaKenna took pictures with just Kimmy:
The other awesome thing that happened after the play was that some little kid came up and asked Nate to autograph his program. It was the sweetest thing. Nate was more than happy to do it, and I got to catch it on camera. It was a really great production, and we couldn't be more proud of Nate. He memorized all his lines and delivered them right on cue. As you can see from the videos, he was also a singing star! He loved it so much he is already asking when the sign ups are for the fall production of Pinocchio.

Cowley Reunion: Part 2

2009-03-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

So, if you are a follower of my blog, you know that our family had a chance to reconnect with almost all the other Cowleys in our immediate family back in February. You know that we had an excellent time playing in the snow, but did you know that we are so creative, that actual plays were put on by various members of the family? Yep, it's true, us Cowleys are one creative bunch. It all started when Dana and Bella found some cool animal hand puppets in Grandma's toy box...Dana happens to have a flair for the dramatic.

Next thing we knew, we were captivated by Dana and Bella's performance of 'Panda and Chicken Are Best Friends and Like to Go Shopping."

Intriguing is the only word that could have described their little play. Camden seemed quite happy about the puppets having found their stage.

It wasn't long before Nate and Camden developed an intellectually stimulating screenplay of their own to perform.

There were quite a few action scenes in their puppet shows.
All the characters involved were amazingly skilled in martial arts, as it was a requirement for the 'actors' in the boys' play.

So clever was the scripting of their play, the audience became spellbound:
However, as we all know, Uncle Jed is quite involved in the creation of dramatic art. He was so inspired by the children's plays, he too, came up with a play to share with the audience.

He was graciously accompanied by Jared, who as it turned out, was quite the undiscovered talent.
The dialogue was witty and clever.

The emotion on stage was raw and moving.
The acting was superior!

The play went on for a surprisingly long amount of time, but, the audience was rewarded with a shocking twist in the finale! We were all so spent from the dramatic emotional roller coaster the various puppet shows put us through, we had to relax and visit for a bit.
Luckily, Jed was able to lighten the mood with his fashion forward attire.

And Kimmy was able to get some time in with her favorite member of the family, Brody...though her feelings seem to be unrequited at this point. Who knows, only time will tell if Brody will come to love Kimmy as she loves him. The kids needed to get some wiggles out, so it was out to the backyard for some quality basketball time.
I don't think anyone cared that the basketball was flat.

Or that the hoop is in the front yard, not the back.
The boys had a great time throwing it on the roof anyway.
And they even let Kimmy get in on all the action.

Of course, all this playing wore them out a bit, so the boys took a break to hug. Any guesses as to what Nate's expression means here?

And Nate was happy to read to Camden.It was sweet to seem them curled up with a book.

Dana felt the need to demonstrate to Bella her exceptional 'picking up people that are too big for her to pick up' skills. Bella was pleased to be selected as a participant in this display.

The crowed was once again wowed by Dana.
The kids had such a great time together!
What family reunion would be complete without a 'Ring-Around-Rosie' finale to cap it all off?

Announcements, Announcements, Annnoooouuuuccceeeements...

2009-03-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

So, we have some announcements to make. The whole family had a myriad of doctor's appointments today, and we learned a lot of things. First, we learned that Kimmy loves the dress-up doctor glasses in the exam room:

Then, we learned that Nate is healthy and growing like a weed and that he wouldn't have to get any shots today. He was really happy about that.

Next, we learned that the new baby we are expecting in August is going to be a ... well, you will have to watch the video to find out. Nate's reaction, where he is trying to play it cool is great, but don't forget to notice Dana getting crazy in the background:

Here are some pictures from the ultrasound. I didn't have the energy to try and scan them into the computer, so I just took pictures of the pictures, and you can get the idea from them.

First, we have the super "Skeletor" face picture:

Then we got this really amazing profile picture, and I have to say, ultrasound images have improved so much just in the 8 years since we had our first one with Nathan. I turned this one on it's side so you could see it better.
Then we got the awesome pictures of the baby's privates, which were much better on the computer screen than they are in this picture of a picture, but there is no doubt in all our minds what it is:
Anyway, all I can say is that I am so glad that we are having a boy...I don't think I could have handled Nate's broken heart if it was a girl. Plus, Jared and I were talking about where we would put the baby if it was another girl, since there really is no room to put the crib in the girls room with their dresser and bunk beds and bookcase, so if it was a girl, it would probably just end up sleeping in a dresser drawer :)! I am sure the baby is heaving a huge sigh of relief right now...

What we do at our house for fun

2009-03-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

Cowley Reunion of Sorts

2009-03-11T19:24:00.001-07:00

So in February we went up to Oregon to see most of the Cowleys as Grandma and Grandpa Cowley returned from their mission. Lucky for us, the kids are pretty good in the car...

Once we were there, we had a planned a trip up to the snow with all the brothers and their families. Kevin and Megan were lucky enough to get to ride in the Fiesty Mama, Uncle Kevin couldn't resis the opportunity to watch a Harry Potter movie with Nate.Sean and Amanda and their family met us up there and their timing was perfect, they pulled up just as we were all piling out of the car. Unlike our last sledding trip to Tahoe, this sledding spot was perfect, two great hills next to each other with big open spaces at the bottom with no trees to worry about hitting.

Uncle Jed and Nate went exploring.This hill was particularly steep. I think this is Nate on his first try going down it. It didn't take him long to discover that going down on his slick snow pants was just as fun as riding an inter tube. I sent Nate back up the hill to try again with his Dad.

However the result was the same:

For some reason, when Jared took Dana down the steep hill things seemed to go better.

Uncle Jed was great with the kids.

He took Dana and her BFF/cousin Bella on a sled ride:

Then he and Uncle Kevin decided to conquer the steep hill while riding the green tarp:

I don't know if they realized how fast the green tarp would go... Too bad I couldn't get my camera to focus so quickly... here's the aftermath:

I'm not sure where the green tarp ended up. Kimmy wanted to ride the sled like the big girls, so I took her for a little trip.
Then she got to hang out with Daddy for a bit.

With a little help from Jared, Jed and Kate were able to go down once on the big tube.
Dana is our little Daredevil, and right from the start wanted to go down all by herself on the tube, from the tippy top of the hill. Camden was pretty brave too.
Then he and Nate had lots of fun beating up any large chunks of snow the could find.
Even Uncle Kevin had a little bravery in him. Dana and Bella also went exploring and found a fun hole to jump and hide in.

To be continued....

Here's what happens when the kids get a hold of the camera

2009-03-02T12:09:00.001-08:00

In case you wonder...even if you didn't, here is what happens when my kids get their hands on the camera. It doesn't really bother me anymore, since it's digital and I just erase the pictures, but some of them are quiet funny.

Here is what Nate does with the camera:
I teased Nate that he took this picture to give to his girlfriend....
This is Nate's artistic vision:

This is Dana's artistic vision:

and this:

She also enjoys being silly for the camera.
These are Nate's candids of Kimmy:

They capture her weird little personality well.

What we really did for Jared's birthday

2009-03-01T14:55:00.001-08:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, we did more for Jared's birthday than just have a family party. We actually took the whole family to Lake Tahoe for the weekend. This is a picture of Kimmy on the ride up. She has become obsessed with the headphones for the DVD player in the car. You might have to look a little hard to see them on her here, but we can hardly go anywhere anymore without her wanting to wear them, or hear her screaming about how she wants to wear them.

Anyway, we had been talking about going to play in the snow for a while, but each time we tried, Kimmy kept getting sick, and with all of her medical trauma, the last thing I wanted to do was to be so far away from a hospital if she had a seizure. Funny enough, the weekend that everyone was finally feeling good enough to go was Jared's birthday weekend, and he had four whole days off to celebrate.

We went to the Northshore of Tahoe, and though we didn't see much lake, we had an excellent time. We had planned in staying somewhere around Truckee, which is not quite all the way to Tahoe, but when we got there the first couple of hotels we checked out were charging between $140 to $249 per night. HAHAHA! This was supposed to be a quick cheap weekend and paying that much for a hotel room didn't fit into our budget. Luckily, I was able to use our navigation system in our Honda Odyssey as a yellow pages and find a hotel in King's Beach, which is only seven or eight miles away for $40 a night instead.

It was certainly not the Ritz Carlton, but it was sufficient for our needs, especially for the price. And while we were in King's Beach, we randomly ran into two guys from Norway, who fascinated Nate with their ability to speak Norwegian. It made us think of Dee-Rob.

Unfortunately for us, the motel didn't have adjoining rooms, and we forgot how poorly Kimberly sleeps when there is more than just Dana in the bedroom with her. She basically spent the whole night awake either wriggling around in a bed disturbing everyone else in the bed, or screaming from her playpen about how lonely and miserable she was. Not the best night. You may be able to tell from the two pictures above how happily our morning got started since no one really got much sleep, except for Dana, who could sleep through a volcanic eruption!

For breakfast, we went to this restaurant in Truckee, I think it was called the Wagon Wheel. The food was fantastic, and the portions were HUGE! Nate couldn't finish his order, and you know that means there was a ton of food. That is one thing my Nate got from Big Nate...he can eat more than any other kid his age by far.

We had planned on going sledding at the resort Boreal, but their inter tubing area, which was nice, was CRAZY EXPENSIVE!! Anyone who wanted to inter tube had to pay $25 for two hours of inter tubing. If you weren't going to be tubing, but wanted to watch, you had to pay $5. For the whole family to go, it would have cost us $125 for two hours, plus the $7 for parking. I don't know if you can see it in the picture below, but they did have this cool escalator thing that you could ride to the top of the hill so you didn't have to hike, but I certainly wasn't going to pay $125 to go sledding! Lucky for us, we had borrowed a sled from our good friends and neighbors, the Sarots, and were able to find a day-use snow park a mile or so up the road which cost us $5 total for a parking permit.
As you can see, our little snow park was not as tree-free as the Boreal sledding area, but at a savings of $120, I was willing to compromise. And since the kids had never been officially sledding before, they didn't even know the difference.

We didn't really have a very good hill, because the path wasn't smoothed out yet and there wasn't really a good place to sled that didn't have trees at the bottom, directly in the line of sled.

Because of that the first couple of times Nate and Dana went down with Jared, he had to use his feet to stop to avoid the trees (see pic below): and Nate and Dana both got sprayed pretty good in the face with snow. As you can see from our pics too, we were kind of in the shade, so that made it a little chilly for them too. However, after a small amount of begging on my part, Nate and Dana both got up enough courage to go again with me after I swore to them I could do it without spraying them in the face with snow.Of course, Nate still wasn't convinced that sledding was fun, and he spent the rest of them time there either sliding down the hill on his bum or making snowballs and throwing them at trees to destroy them. Thankfully, Kimberly was more than happy to go on unlimited rides with both me and Jared.Kim was also happy enough to wander around in the snow with Nate or Dana and shake off her gloves a lot too.The excitement of this also seemed to wear on Kimmy the longer we were in the snow...

This is the girls when we first got there...Kimmy, 20 minutes after arriving...Kimmy, 30 minutes after arriving...Kimmy after two sled rides with Mom...Kimmy after five sled rides with Mom...Kimmy, before we even got her snow boots off in the car...
Though Nate has yet to be convinced of the fun that sledding can be, he does love to build a snow fort, or in this case, a snow hole.

We had an awesome time, and are thinking of making it an annual trip...Tahoe look out!

Nate says the darndest things...

2009-03-01T14:52:00.000-08:00

Nate to Dana after feeling her flex her bicep: "Better than before, but still not solid rock. Feel mine."

Kimmy and her new Bestie...

2009-02-26T14:55:00.001-08:00

Our neighbors have a sweet baby girl named Rylee who is just about two months older than Kimberly.Kimmy loves her so much. Rylee goes to daycare several days a week while her mom works, so Kimmy is always asking me "RyRy skol?" when she is not home.
For being so close in age, they play really well together.

We had her for a couple of hours the other night and they were so sweet together. The kept following each other up and down the stairs and holding the same toys.

Jared Is Over The Hill and On His Way Down...

2009-02-25T19:41:00.000-08:00

So, Jared recently celebrated his 31st birthday!! When he got that old, I don't know, but it has happened. This year we celebrated with a very low key family party....and a special trip, which I will detail in another forthcoming post.

The kids did a really good job of helping me pick out his presents, he loved all of them, and an even better job putting the tape on the packages. Because the kids aren't quite skilled at wrapping yet, and we all know how Jared feels about gift wrapping and bows and gift tags, putting the tape on definitely seemed like a task they could handle.
Nate was really funny because he got Jared a memory card for the XBOX 360 which he (Nate) really wanted, and he just couldn't fathom how any other gift Jared could have gotten would have been better than that. So he kept asking Jared what his favorite present was, and wasn't it the memory card, ect. all night long. Jared couldn't bear to tell him that he didn't really want it. What a self-less Dad.

One of the big presents that I got Jared was a new suit. He hasn't had a black one since his mission because the only suit he had on his mission was black and he just couldn't bring himself to get one that was black. So since it's been over 10 years, I thought it was time. I got a SMOKIN' deal on it too, and doesn't he look handsome (even if he isn't wearing the whole suit)?
Since Kimmy had to go to bed before we opened presents (probably because she was throwing a temper tantrum, which she has become an expert at lately), I thought I would throw in a picture of her on this post for good measure. She is wearing Spongebob Squarepants disguise glasses which she loves to wear. I like them because when she is wearing them, she is not trying to wear mine!

Happy 2009!

2009-02-24T18:44:00.000-08:00

This year for New Year's Eve we had a rockin' Cowley family party. Tons of yummy treats, noise makers and even fireworks. Kimmy had to go to bed at the regular time, but Nate and Dana got to stay up late. Here are some pics of them at our par-tay!

Too bad for us that we didn't realize that the fireworks we bought were actually confetti poppers until after Jared lit one of them on fire.

Around 11:45 Dana asked "Isn't it midnight yet? I want to go to bed!"

We are sure gonna miss this...

2009-02-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

As most of you know, Jared's parents, have spent the past 18 months serving a mission at the Visitor's Center at the Oakland Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Lucky for us, that is only about an hour drive for us, so we have been really spoiled and got to see Grandma and Grandpa Cowley, I mean Elder and Sister Cowley about once a month or so for the past 18 months. We were even blessed with the luxury of being close enough to come and see Jared's brothers and their wives/families when they came to visit his parents. In December Kevin and Megan came to visit and we had a great time. Since the trailer can be a little small for six adults and three kids, and since Grandpa had access, we went up to the stake center on temple square and Grandpa was able to let us into the small gymnasium there. We had so much fun...

This is Jared and Kevin re-enacting their childhood playing "soccer."

Dana was determined to perform on the stage for her Grandma, as she was accompanied by her Aunt Megan. As you might guess, she really wants to be on American Idol.

Pretty soon, the soccer game Jared and Kevin were playing looked too fun, so all the kids decided to join in.

After the soccer game was over, the kids played hide and go seek with Grandpa and Daddy, but soon tired of that. So Grandpa, understanding kids as well as he does, decided to come up with a new game. He found some large garbage sacks and blew them up like ballons, and the kids and the "big boys" (Jared and Kevin) spent another hour playing "keep the bag full of Grandpa's hot air off the floor!" Too funny.

And just to show the awesomeness of my new camera (THANKS JARED!!), I took a short video of them playing.

It was so much fun, and the kids can't wait till they get to see everybody again!

You can't tell, but it's Christmas...

2009-02-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

So, I realize that I have long needed to update our blog, but you know, life kind of gets in the way. Here are a few pictures from Christmas 2008. You can't really tell, because Jared bought me a new camera, and I wasn't going to keep it, but then I changed my mind, so I only took a few pictures that day, and I don't think I really got any of the kids opening presents, or the tree...I guess we will tell the kids they were so bad this year, we cancelled Christmas, just kidding. Hum, but then again, maybe it would keep them in line this year.

For those of you who don't have seven year old boys, this is Nate playing with his Bakugons, they are the new Pokemon...good times.

Dana got a myriad of presents, but her favorite was her very own two wheeler Barbie bike. It's pink with streamers and came with a Barbie backpack/tote on the handlebars and even a Barbie sized bike that your actual Barbie can sit in and ride with you. Too fun! Needless to say, she was very animated about the whole thing.

For those of you who don't know, Kimmy is quite the Daddy's girl. She can't get enough of him, and when he has to go to work, she is always asking "Why Dadee wok?" Very sweet.

She is also very bright, and has discovered how much fun it can be to take off or put on clothes.

Too bad for her she hasn't completely mastered getting the pants all the way off...so this is what she spent most of Christmas day running around like...

"I'm a Vegetarian"

2008-12-10T19:14:00.000-08:00

So tonight Dana was holding a pair of play glasses up to her eyes and said,

"Look at me, I'm a vegetarian."

I asked her what that meant and her response was

"I'm a library girl, who buys books from the library."

to which Nate responded,

"That's not what it means, it means you eat vegetables."

Kids are awesome!

I'm gettin' nuttin' for Christmas, Mommy and Daddy are mad...

2008-11-26T11:04:00.001-08:00

So, my kids will each be getting less Christmas presents this year as I have to replace the camera that none of them will fess up to breaking....If I subtract the cost from our Christmas budget...they each get NOTHING!!! I am kidding, but it does stink. I have to have a camera for Thanksgiving and Nate's birthday this week, and Christmas...So, expect completely boring blogs for a while...

Favorite Quotes

2008-11-11T18:56:00.000-08:00

Dana - "I'll just put it right there and you can watch it and if anyone comes near it you protect it, pie, cause I forget what it's called. Oh yeah, lemon bars."
Translation - "Mom will you watch my lemon bar while I go upstairs and take a shower so that Kimmy doesn't get into it and eat it all gone."

Dana - "Mom, so you know who we are I have one of these around my neck that is green diamonds, and Kimmy has one that is purple circles, so you don't forget, okay?"
Translation - "Mom, don't you like the green necklace I am wearing and the purple one I put on Kimmy?"

Nate - "Mom guess what I did? Did you know that 12,468 plus 11,221 is 23,689?" Mom - "Awesome Nate, how did you know that?" Nate - "I counted it on my fingers, duh."

Kimmy, after walking over to me, grabbing the remote off the couch next to me, walking about three feet away, turning around, and smiling like a tricky trickster at me - "Mine now, mine now, mine now, hahahahahahahaha!"

Trick-or-Treating with the Wold family

2008-11-10T11:05:00.000-08:00

Jared had to work on Halloween night again, but he was able to sneak away for a minute to meet us at the mall, where we went trick or treating again this year with our friends the Wolds.

We always have a really good time with them because their kids are so close to the age of our kids.

MaKenna who is almost 8 was dressed up as Minnie Mouse

Sydney who is just a couple of months older than Dana was dressed as Ariel, the Little Mermaid.

Jackson, who is in 1st grade with Nate was dressed up as Dracula.

It took us an hour and a half to cruise the mall, which gave the kids plenty of candy, so we only went to a few friends houses after that. It was a fun evening.

Daddy ain't THAT bad

2008-11-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

So, whilst reading the last post about Kimmy's costume, Jared became upset. He claims that I made him look like a callous, uncaring father when I wrote about how he told me not to bother with making a costume for Kimmy. I need to clarify that. He was only telling me that I didn't need to make a costume for Kimmy because she could wear an old one of Dana's; he was just concerned for ME. He didn't want me to make myself sick by staying up all night sewing and then not feel well enough to take the kids trick or treating the next night. Jared had to work on Halloween night, so I was going to have to take the kids all by myself, and it was my second night staying up all night to sew in one week. That's how much he loves me!

And from this picture, you can see how much he loves Kimberly too!

Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting

2008-11-08T08:33:00.000-08:00

So, when it came to Kimmy's costume, I had decided that I wanted to make something warm for trick-or-treating. I actually bought the fabric and the pattern for a panda costume 3 years ago for Dana, but for whatever reason I didn't get it made. So I decided that I would make it this year for Kimmy. Nate and Dana didn't think that being just a panda was exciting enough for Kimmy, so they decided that she should be Po the Kung Fu Panda. So, that's what she was. Here is Po in action in the movie:

And here's the finished product:

I spent the least amount of time on this costume, and it was actually my favorite one as far as cuteness goes.

This was my first time working with faux fur. It took me a while to figure out that you only cut it out one layer at a time, but then it wasn't so bad.

The hardest part of the whole thing was keeping the black fuzz off the white fur.

I made the head-piece and then lined it so it wouldn't irritate her. Then I stuffed it full of batting to give it some shape. I was afraid that she wouldn't like having something on her head all the time, but even though it made her head sweat and gave her "panda-head hair," she didn't try to take it off once! In fact, she wore it around the house for about an hour yesterday.

Since the movie doesn't come out on DVD until this next week, I didn't have any reference for how to make Po's shorts. I spent about 3 hours total searching Target and Walmart for a Kung Fu Panda book so I could get an idea for how to make them.

The most distinctive thing about the shorts is the red and yellow waistband, which you can see in the pictures. If you look closely, you can also tell that I waited until the night before Halloween to start Kimmy's costume, and pulled an all nighter again. All the finishes on the shorts are pinked (ie cut zig zagged with pinking sheers).

The suit was also supposed to have soles on the bottom of the feet with leather paws. Instead I skipped the soles and wrapped the foot edge with 1/2 inch black double fold bias tape. I had also planned on doing some sort of fabric wrap around the ankles, like Po has in the movie, but by 7 am on Halloween morning, I just stopped caring. Jared made fun of me because he said that Kimmy didn't know any better, and I could have just used one of Dana's old costumes, but that was just not fair. Whether or not Kim cares, I care, and she is just as important as the big kids, and when she is a teenager and hates me, I can pull out pictures of this costume and show her proof of how much she matters to me and how much I love her!

Isn't this last picture just classic? She is not upset about the costume, rather she was ready to go and play outside, but the big kids weren't ready and it was raining and wet, so I made her come in and wait. KIDS ARE AWESOME!

Batman - The Dark Knight

2008-11-07T19:02:00.000-08:00

When we were talking about what he wanted to be for Halloween, Nate knew he wanted to be somebody tough and cool, so when Dad suggested Batman the Dark Knight, Nate was sold. Here is a movie still shot of Christian Bale as Batman. As you can see, the suit has been made way cooler than it was in the 90's movies. In fact, one of the coolest things that they did to Batman's costume was give him this cool cape that when charged with electricity or something, it would become stiff and he could like hang-glide with it. Here's another movie still of him doing just that:
I was totally excited when I found this really cool, shiny pleather material at the fabric store. I knew that it would work perfectly. However, I had to squint over movie stills to figure out how to design the top. Here's my finished product:Here's a closer look at the bat design and the muscles I "built-in" to the costume (this is one of my all-time favorite pictures of Nate too, he's just so good lookin'!)
In order to make the top, I sewed lines in it where his muscles should be. After that, I had to stuff between the lines I sewed with batting, and the top hade to be lined so that the batting would stay in place. It was kind of time consuming, and I don't know if my pictures do it justice, but I really loved the way it turned out.
We were also able to find Batman's utility belt and his expandable wings online. The wings were really cool, cause you wore them like a backpack. When you wanted them to pop out, you just pulled the ripcord, and they would shoot out. When it was time to put them away, like to walk through doors, you pulled the rip cords at both shoulders like 4 times and they would gradually retract. Nate kept forgetting to pull his wings in though, and ended up poking a lot of people.

Funny story about Nate's costume though. I got all the supplies for it pretty early, but I put off making it until the night before our Ward Halloween carnival. Nate was getting a little stressed because he thought that he wasn't going to have anything to wear to it. But I assured him that I made him a promise and that I take my promises really seriously, so no matter what it took, I would get his costume made.
So, it was bedtime, and I was just starting to cut out the pieces for the costume. As I was ushering the kids up the stairs for bed, Nate turns to me and says, "Don't forget to drink a lot of Diet Coke so you can stay up all night and finish my costume!" I couldn't help but laugh at that, he's so funny the way he expresses himself sometimes. Of course, I did end up staying up all night to get the costume done. Nate is an early riser anyway, but he woke up at 6 am and before he even came around the corner at the bottom of the stairs and saw me, he calls out "Good job staying up and making my costume Mom. I am really proud of you." It was too funny. He was so excited about the costume that he put it on right then, and I couldn't get it off him all weekend!

The last few pictures have been of Nate and his 1st grade classmates in their Halloween costumes. It is such a fun holiday, and the school does such a good job making the day special.

During the parade at Nate's school, we were walking behind Nate and his "girlfriend" Paige, who is pictured below as Scooby Doo. Kimmy LOVES dogs, and since we were right next to Paige the whole time, she couldn't stop doing her little high pitched "bark" that she does. I put bark in quotations because she doesn't actually say "ruf," she just squeaks. It is the sweetest thing!

Giselle from "Enchanted"

2008-11-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

Dana and I have the same favorite movie, a Disney classic, "Enchanted." If you haven't seen it, you truly missing out. It has all the sweet princess magic you would expect from a Disney film, plus wonderful music, and many clever jokes. So it was not a surprise that Dana chose to be Giselle for Halloween. However, she had to pick the most over the top costume from the whole movie for the one she wanted to wear, Giselle's larger than life wedding dress. Here is a picture of the actual dress itself, on display earlier this year in the Disney Store on 5th avenue in NYC. I tried to upload some movie stills here so you could see what the dress looked like on, but the quailty was crappy, so instead here's the link to check them out: http://www.costumersguide.com/enchanted1.shtml

Now that you have seen the real dress, here is my simplified version that I made without a pattern...

I agonized long and hard over the organza ruffles in the front, and (this is for Tiana) finally decided that they needed to be cut on the bias and then sewn vertically to hang correctly. The original dress was made from more than 40 yards of fabric (420 square feet of fabric), and had 3 layers of petticoats and two 6-hoop crinoline skirts underneath, and weighed more than 40 pounds! Dana's version only had one petticoat and a 3 hoop skirt, but they were so heavy for her, she had to wear white suspenders under her dress to hold them up. (You can see them under her dress in some pictures.)

You will notice Giselle holds her hands really delicately throughout the movie. That is what Dana is tryin to do in this picture, with her pinkies out, but it looks more like she's doing hang loose instead.

All the glitter detail you see on the dress are not ribbon or trim, they are actually lines of fabric glue sprinkled with glitter, with the excess shaken off. It was a nightmare to do, I will probably be finding glitter everywhere for years to come.

I didn't do the orchid flower at her waist, because the one I got seemed really too big, and it was very cream compared to how white the dress was. I also had some trouble finding a good set of butterflies for the neckline. After endless hours at various fabric and craft stores, I finally decided to make one out of sparkly foam, and glue rhinestones to it. I skipped the small one all together, and added small bridal flowers on the left instead. You can't really see them very good in these pictures.
Dana's preschool doesn't let the kids do Halloween costumes cause it's just too much trouble, so she went with Nate to his school so she could walk in his Halloween parade with him.

She had an awesome time hanging out with Nate in his 1st grade classroom.

We also got to participate in our Ward's Halloween Carnival.

Everyone had a great time, and Dana loved being able to show off her beautiful dress. The best part, everyone knew that she was supposed to be Giselle, not just a beautiful bride or queen or something.

I was really pleased with how the dress turned out, even though I found traces of glitter in my dishwasher yesterday!

Sunday Best

2008-11-06T17:42:00.001-08:00

Since our kids always look so nice on Sundays for church, Jared decided to do a little photo shoot with them.

Dana loves to wear necklaces and perfume to church...such a girly girl!

Nate has the same problem as Chandler from Friends. He can't smile on cue. It always comes out funny!

Aren't they so cute?!?!?!

Birthday Party Fun

2008-11-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

These are just a few pictures of the kids participating in their first water ballon fight at a friend's birthday party.

By the time that we got down to the last few ballons, the kids seemed to have either figured out how to aim, or how to pop the ballon over someone's head with their fingernails.

Completely Gratuitous Kimmy

2008-11-05T19:53:00.000-08:00

These pictures are just because she's so stinkn' cute! And she's a member of Red Sox Nation
I don't know if you can tell, but her hair is in 1 inch long piggies in this picture.

Just because she's so stinkn' cute in this picture!

KISS Live in the living room

2008-11-05T19:19:00.000-08:00

So, every year at Nathan's school, they have a back to school night. They do a dinner and a carnival to help raise funds for the extras at school like fieldtrips and supplies and stuff. At this year's carnival, they had a professional face painter. I know that sounds like it's not a real profession, but it's true, this lady had a whole portfolio of all different kinds of face designs she had done (Okay so maybe you would probably call her a professional makeup artist).So Nate had her paint a firebreathing dragon on his face, we thought it was going to be more dragon face, but it was fun and Nate felt like he looked tough.

Dana got a butterfly face painting. She wanted pink and purple, but the lady thought the orange would go good with her hair. I think she kind of looks like a lion or something.

Dana also purchased a blow up guitar toy at the carnival with the tickets she won. When we got home she wanted to rock out.

Holding the guitar like that with all the face paint, I thought it looked a little like a KISS rock concert in our living room. Aren't kids awesome???

What's taking you so long?

2008-11-05T18:53:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged for a long time and I could waste a bunch of time here telling you why, but instead of make you listen to that, I have decided to treat you to pictures of my beautiful kids!

Our family vacation in August was a whirlwind of Oregon activites, we spent time in Medford visiting Grandma and Grandpa Noble and I got to go to a Dirtclod reunion. It was so neat to hang out with some of those old friends again...Thanks again Craig, Jeanette and Darelyn for all your hard working planning it.
In Portland we got to visit the Markers, our old couple friends from BYU. It was so much fun because all our kids are almost exactly the same age and play really well together. Hoever, I suppose that Kelly's kids play well with just about everyone. We got to go to Dallin's soccer practice with him and Nate got to kick the ball around with the other kids, even though he wasn't part of the team. He had a really good time, but he got frustruated because he wanted to be great at it without any practive. He's a perfectionist in some areas for sure.

Jeff and Kelly were nice enough to take us out on their boat for some waterskiing...however, the kids tried to ride the tubes, but ended up getting dunked on the first time out, and Nate was so traumatized that he refused to try again. Too bad, maybe next time things will go better.

Then we went to Redmond to visit the Sean and Amanda Cowley family and the cousins had an awesome time camping in the tent in the back yard and making smores. Jared and Sean got treated to a round of golf by Uncle Cliff and got schooled! Then it was off to Myrtle Point for some river camping with the Hyrum and Tiana Johnson family. The trip was awesome, we love reconnecting with family and great friends, and we had a ton of fun.

One of our favorite family traditions!

2008-08-02T19:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, so prepare yourselves for a lot of pictures. Last week the Cowley family participated in one of our favorite family traditions. We spent a day at the Sonoma County Fair. They have so much neat stuff, and each year they have a day where the ride tickets are only $1, and each ride is only 1 ticket, so we go. We can make a great day out of it and everyone in the family gets their fill of rides for under $60!

This year they had this amazing real life garden display that filled a whole barn, but it also had miniature models too. The models aren't really miniature, just scaled down, but it was really fun and the kids couldn't believe how good it smelled in there. The new family picture at the top of the blog was taken here in front of the model of the lighthouse. In the picture below, you can kind of see the model of the old Mill and the wheel. I love this picture, the girls look so sweet, but Nate was too worried that Kimmy was going to fall off the ledge, that we couldn't catch him looking at the camera.

Every year the giant slide is one of our favorite rides. You can really get moving with that burlap sack under you!

Dana and I had a great time going down while holding hands. She needed a little reassurance the first time, but she went on it alone the next 3 times!

This is actuallythe first ride that Nate and Dana went on, and it was really tame compared to some of the others. The picture is a little small, but you can actually see how they both look bored.
This was my personal favorite ride. Nate and I went on it together. It's called the Cliff Hanger, and you lay down flat and soar through the air like you are attached to a hang glider, but we both felt more like Superman! It was awesome. We went almost as high as the top of the huge tree in the background.

I have to be honest, when we go to the Fair, I kind of always expect there to be some sort of meltdown with at least one of the kids. This ride actually triggered the only meltdown of the day, and it was Dana who had it. It wasn't really her fault though. This ride was called the Super Shot, and we had all gone on a smaller version of it earlier in the day, several times in fact. It would take us up about 15 feet and then drop us 10 feet really fast and repeat that about six times. Dana LOVED it! When Nate and Jared saw the big one, that took you up about 100 feet and dropped you 90 feet really fast, Dana couldn't decide if she wanted to go on it. I told her she didn't have to go on it. After getting in and out of line 3 times, at the last second she decided she really did want to go, so I let her, since she was sitting right next to Jared. Well, that turned out to be a mistake, because by the time the drop was finished, she was crying hysterically! It was just too high and scared her too much. However, 10 minutes, a merry-go-round, and some cotton candy later she had forgotten the whole incident!

Here the big kids are again waiting for and then going on the Bumblebee ride. I think you can see the boredom better in this picture.

Kimmy was a great sport about the whole day. She only got to go on the Ferris Wheel with the whole family, but she happily and patiently hung out in her stroller all afternoon, giggling at the big kids having fun on their rides. She is such a sweetie!

The theme of this year's Fair was something along the lines of revisiting our patriotic heritage...So here are Nate and Dana as Paul Revere warning the colonists that the British are coming!

We even got to teach them about our country's early prison system by putting them both in the stockades!

Here's Nate popping a wheelie on one of the rides, while Kimmy (below) is smiling and loving the show!

One of the last rides the kids went on was the Raging River canoe ride. They thought it was awesome that they got to captain the canoe all by themselvese. It was only in about 10 inches of water, but it was cool, it was pushed by jets around a little obstacle course.
They even got to get a little wet.

It was such an amazing day. The weather was nice and there was a cool breeze. There was no arguing, and when it was time to go, everyone happily trotted out to the parking lot without a single complaint! I love my family! One of the things that I always really admired about Jared's family while we were dating, and even now, is that his siblings all got along so well. They rarely fought or said unkind things to each other. I feel proud that our own little family is following in their footsteps as well. It brings me so much joy to see Nate and Dana prefer to spend time with each other most of the time than with their friends. Nate always allows Dana to participate in his games, and vice versa. I love to hear Dana say to him in her make-believe play, "Come on Nate, I made it a two player game just for you!" They are even sweet and mindful of Kimmy, even though she can't quite play in the same way yet.
This picture is from last November, but I wanted to post it here because Kimmy didn't get enough face time in this post, and I think she looks so beautiful in this picture!

Kimmy's Walking Everywhere!

2008-07-24T19:44:00.000-07:00

So, our little baby girl is finally walking. Kim actually started walking several weeks ago, but she is finally stable enough to catch on camera. She is so good that she is not scared of walking out on our new patio which is made of pebbled concrete, so it's not the softest.

She even goes so fast that I had a hard time getting far enough in front of her to get a picture of her face. She is always smiling and laughing so big because she is so proud of what she is doing!

I love this one because you can see her mid step, even if it is from behind.

This is what our new patio looks like. Mom and Dad, doesn't it look so much better? As you can tell the kids LOVE it because they can ride their bikes all around now, and I have a place to sit and read while I watch them, or while I watch Jared barbecue! YUM!

This is Dana with our little neighbor boy, Lulu. He is Native American and has the most beautiful features!

I love this picture. Nate decided to take Kimmy on a ride on the little blue truck that used to belong to him when he was her age. I have a picture of Nate riding this with Dana when they were both in diapers! (I can't find it though, or I would post it here).

I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but Kimmy is actually LOVING playing with Nate right here. They get along so good! It makes me so happy!

See how Nate has grown. The distance from his hips to his knees is long enough for his knees to drag on the ground when scooting on the blue truck.

This is Dana and her sweet little friend next door, Sylvanna. She is almost exactly one year older than Dana, but they get along really good and love to play together.
Here they are riding the bikes while Lulu is getting into mischief on the stairs.
We love our new patio! Thanks to Felicia who made it happen, you are awesome!

Oh, I wish I were an Ocsar Meyer Weiner!

2008-07-20T18:57:00.000-07:00

So, I was out and about the other day, and what did I run into but the Oscar Meyer Weiner-Moblie! I thought the kids would find it funny, so I took a few pictures.

Nate seriously laughed for almost 5 minutes when he saw the picture of me looking like a hot dog! They were so jealous they didn't get to see it too! Maybe next time....

My Current Favorite Picture of Jared

2008-07-10T19:20:00.000-07:00

This picture was taken by Dana. Enough said.

2008-07-10T18:51:00.000-07:00

So, since our 4th of July outing was so successful, I decided to take the kids the next night up to Monte Rio, a little town in the Redwoods a few miles from the beach, the next night. It's right on the Russian River, and they were having their annual celebration on the 5th. It consisted of a "River Parade," which was a parade done at night on the river where the boats are decorated like parade floats and are decked out with all kinds of lights. After the parade, which was kind of more like a flotilla, they did a water curtain from the bridge, where they showed all kinds of patriotic images to music. Then they had a small fireworks show to cap it all of. It was cool because the picture above is of the hotel on the opposite bank of the river from where we were sitting. I tried to take the pictures of it at night, but they turned out terrible, so we went back on Monday, when Jared didn't have to work, on our way to the beach. Anyway, right there where they do the "river parade" the river is really calm and shallow and on the beach there is a concession stand, some other flea market/craft fair type of stands, and a place to rent canoes or kayaks or rafts for the afternoon. We are definitely going back next year and spending the day it was so much fun!
This is Kim feeling patriotic in the car on the way up.
One of our favorite things to do as a family since we moved to California is go to the beach together. We totally lucked out when we went on Monday because we found this little secluded beach that was down the cliff in a cove that was only occupied by 2 couples at each end of the beach. Since it was sort of in a cove, we were protected from the wind and it was actually pretty warm for once! Jared took Nate and Dana out to chase the waves while I held Kimmy in the Snuggli and we looked for treasures in the sand.

Nate and Dana both loved the seaweed that was washed up on the beach because it has these huge bulbs that are like full of air that enable it to float on the surface of the water. They love to squish them. Plus, since Nate got his Indiana Jones Legos video game, he loved to pretend it was a whip.
Dana was busy digging for treasures too. She found several half shells she liked, plus a penny.
Dad to a break from all the wave chasing to snuggle with Kimmy, and it was the highlight of her afternoon.
I don't know what is up with the kids doing all kinds of weird poses when I try to take pictures of them together...I think they think it is cute.
It was an awesome day!

Fun on the 4th

2008-07-05T17:53:00.000-07:00

So, since the 4th of July is my FAVORITE holiday, it was a little depressing that Jared had to work. I love Santa Rosa, but what's up with their 4th celebration. The town is over 160 thousand people and they can't have a parade? Ashland has one for just 30 thousand (even if it is a bunch of liberal granola-eating, tree-hugging, alternative lifestyle-loving thespians)! So because there is not much of a celebration here during the day, I decided that I should take a chance and take the kids to the fireworks display in Petaluma that night. Here we are at the gate: I tried so hard to get a good picture of Kimmy but since it was so dark, the flash kept bugging her eyes!
Sad to say, I was actually surprised at what a great time the four of us had. The kids were really on their best behavior and we had hot dogs and cotton candy to eat while we were waiting for the show. They didn't fight with each other, or act disobediently once! Hurray for us and our small victory!

I think that the red, white and blue glow sticks that we purchased at Target before hand had something to do with the good behavior.
I don't know what was up with Nate, but he is trying to look like he is eating someone in every picture! What a goof!
Dana had a great time dancing and singing along to the classic rock songs they had playing over the PA system. It didn't bother her that she didn't know the lyrics. The way she is so passionate about singing (whether she can sing the tune or not) is one of my very favorite things about her!
The fireworks were pretty good, and we even had the best luck leaving the fairgrounds, it only took us about four minutes to get out.

We had a great time and I am very encouraged by it, I might just try taking them out by myself again sometime!

Dana's Look-alike Meter

2008-07-02T13:16:00.001-07:00

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family pedigree - Free printable family tree chart

Kimberly's Look-alike Meter

2008-07-02T13:12:00.001-07:00

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Geneology

Nate's Look-alike Meter

2008-07-02T13:09:00.001-07:00

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Holy Trailer Park!

2008-06-30T23:18:00.001-07:00

So, one might think that going to visit Grandma and Grandpa Cowley in a trailer park would not be the most exciting thing in the world to a 6 year old, a 4 year old and a 1 year old. Well, if you are one of those people, you would be WRONG! Grandma and Grandpa Cowley are currently serving a mission at the Oakland Temple Visitor's Center and while they are there, they opted to stay in their RV trailer, which is camped on the temple grounds around the back. It must be so cool to actually live on the temple grounds! With round the clock security to boot (that was for you Mom!)! Well, we are lucky enough that we are only an hour or so away, so we get to see them pretty regularly, which is just the best thing in the world according to Nate and Dana. In fact, next week, they are having a sleepover in the trailer for Grandma and Grandpa's P-Day, and they have already started a countdown! But this past week, Jared and I have the wonderful privilege of going to see them, then dropping off the kids so we could enjoy a temple session together. Needless to say it was awesome! Here are some of the activities the kids did while we got to be spiritually filled:

I'm not sure what Dana had to eat, but it looks like it was pretty good! Grandma Cowley is an excellent cook! Jared is always begging me to make him her special homemade Mac and Cheese. You know how kids say the darndest things, well, here are 2 funny/sweet things the kids said on our way to the temple last Tuesday:

We were listening to some instrumental hymns in the car on our way down to Oakland, and Dana recognized one of the songs we were listening to. Since her deepest desire is to be on American Idol, she began to sing along. The song was 'I Am A Child Of God', and this is how it went: "I am a child of God, and so my knees are grey." I about died laughing!

As we pulled off the freeway and could see the temple spires, Nate got this silly grin on his face. I asked him what he was smiling about and he said, "I just got filled with the spirit Mom." It's moments like that one that just make everything else worth it. I love my kids!

Kimmy just kept saying "Hiya!" about 900 times all the way there. It's her favorite word.

Nate and Dana having lunch in the Holy Trailer.
Nate has had so much fun getting to be around Grandpa Cowley. Since Grandpa used to be a teacher, he loves to feed Nate's curiosity.

Apparently, some kind of nuts were had, and this is the method of choice for opening them up. Doesn't it look super safe?
Thanks again Elder and Sister Cowley. See ya next month!

Let's Play Tag!

2008-06-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

Tag

How To Play This Game of Tag: Post these rules on your blog. List: 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random surprising facts about yourself. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names.

JOYS (aside from the top 2 family & faith)

1. When Nate, Dana or Kimmy say or do funny stuff!

2. Girls night out!

3. Playing outside from the time the sun starts to go down till the moon comes up (the "twilight" hours).

FEARS

1. Not doing/teaching/giving/serving enough with or to my kids.

2. Dying young and leaving behind my kids to grow up without a mom.

3. Swimming in the ocean and being attacked by a shark.

GOALS

1. Keep my house picked up every day!

2. Care about getting back on WW and losing another 20 pounds.

3. Run a marathon with Kelly!

CURRENT OBSESSIONS/COLLECTIONS

1. Finding things (besides the TV) to keep the kids occupied all day!

2. Sewing.

3. Finding as good a place in No. Cali. to go camping as Lake of the Woods.

RANDOM/SURPRISING FACTS ABOUT ME

1. I love weird alternative music from the 80s.

2. When I read the newspaper, I only like to read the classified ads.

3. My idea of the ultimate vacation is not going to some tropical paradise, but going on a month long tour of Europe instead.

I TAG THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE

1. Tiana

2. Melissa

3. Nancy

4. Kelly

5. Kristin

I am being wooed by my 6 year old!

2008-06-14T16:35:00.000-07:00

I got this note from Nate in an envelope that said "Happy 30 Birthday Mom":

I think it's pretty clear, but in case you can't tell what all the letters are, it says: "Mom, Your eies (eyes) are cute. Your lips are nice. I love you. From Nate" Aren't you all jealous? He just graduated Kindergarten!

Angi hits middle age!

2008-06-14T16:25:00.000-07:00

Well, the worst has happened. At least I am still standing to tell the tale. This past Thursday, I turned 30! I know, so old. The only thing that keeps me from crying about the passing of my youth is that my sister Ronni turns 40 in October. (Hahaha, no matter how old I get, you'll still be older.)

(Above photo courtsey of Dana) My birthday was great. I got to sleep in till 8:30 (trust me, that is sleeping in!) and then my wonderful husband Jared made me French Toast with fresh fruit toppings. Jared has always been so great about making my birthdays really special! *I love you honey!* This birthday was no exception. He and the kids had been planning my surprises all week. After lunch, I got to open my presents.

Jared and the kids got me a completely new bedding set. (Don't worry, it's not that pink cheetah print you see at the bottom of the picture.) It was so nice, you know, one of those things that I have needed for a long time, but am too lazy/cheap to get for myself. The only teensy, tiny problem with it though, was that I really didn't like the pattern. (Poor Jared! He tried so hard to get something he thought I would like, and it backfired. I didn't want to tell him that I didn't like it, but he could tell immediately! Luckily, he had already prepared himself for that possibility, so he wasn't offended. What a good sport.

After that, all I knew was that we were going down to the city for the evening, and my AWESOME friends, Felicia and Sandra, had agreed to take the kids all day/evening. Well, we ended up at a wonderful seafood restaurant on the Wharf, Scoma's, where their lobster bisque soup is to die for (thanks of the recommendation Felicia).

Can you tell that the bowl that Jared's Cioppino came in was bigger than his head? We had a great grown up dinner, I almost forgot what it was like to have dinner without one of the kids crawling all over me or eating off my plate or something.

They even brought me a slice of their choclate cheesecake marquis drizzled with raspberry sauce, and topped with whipped cream, with a candle for me to blow out. After dinner, we headed downtown to Union Square where we were going to see a Magic Show. Yeah, I was a little worried too! Jared had been recommended to go see this guy, "Darren Romeo, The Voice of Magic" by some people at work.

He apparently apprenticed with Sigfried and Roy in Vegas for several years, and also loved musical theatre, so his show was a sort of combination of the two.

Here we are in the Post Street Theatre lobby trying to get a nice picture of the two of us, which never happens because one of us is always behind the camera. However a nice gentleman also waiting in the lobby offered to take one for us, but it is a little far away.

During the opening act, I was really starting to question how well Jared knew me, I mean first the bedset that wasn't my style and now a singing magician? :) However, once the singing died down a bit and the magic started, he totally won me over. He had some really neat tricks, I wish I could have taken pictures, but they didn't let cameras into the playhouse. When we got home, my friends were waiting for me with a ballon and a card and a promise of a girls night out this Tuesday. I am so lucky! It was a wonderful birthday, and through the haze of my depression about getting old, I am so grateful that I am blessed with such wonderful family and friends who love me so much. Thank you!

I kept trying to get pictures of the two of us on our way home in the car. Jared is going to hate me for putting the next one up, but I like me in it, and it's just a really bad angle for him.

You can tell the angle is bad, and makes his face look big because look how great he looks in the next picture. What a handsome, kind man! I love you Jared!

So it's up to Jared to Photoshop the 2 pictures together to make us a photo we both like!

My Nephew's High School Graduation

2008-06-14T12:29:00.001-07:00

So, the kids and I made the trek up to Talent to see their cousin Daniel graduate from High School. We all had a fun few days, and it was neat to see Danny graduate. Funny story, my sister, Ronni, (Danny's mom) didn't cry at the graduation, but I got a little misty-eyed! So my question to Ronni is "Are you dead inside?!?!?"

Here are some pictures from the ceremony:

Nate and Josh were reading while we waited for it to start, and Dana and Jake we just messing around.

Can you tell how fun the 1 hour wait was in the Stadium stands with 3 small kids?

Here's Dan crossing the stage, shaking the Principal's(?) hand

Here is his triumphant exit from the stage. It was fun to be a part of it. Congratulations Danny!

Goodbye Kindergarten

2008-06-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

So, the summer has officially begun and Nate has graduated from Kindergarten. It is so weird to think that my baby is going to be in first grade next year. He likes school so much, and his wonderful teacher Miss Andi, that he asked me if it was okay for him to go to summer school. So funny!

I was lucky enough to be able to volunteer in his classroom this year almost once a week. I think I may have been more sad about the school year ending than him, because I will miss his teacher so much. We bonded. Lucky for us, Miss Andi already told us that when Dana starts Kindergarten in a year, she is going to grab her up for her class again. Dana CAN'T wait!

Here he is playing "Blob" with the class.

Nate was a very well liked kid. Here he is is being hugged by Crystal, and his good friend Jeremiah is trying to get in on the action too.
Dana loved that Nate was in Kindergarten, because she got to come with me to volunteer in the classroom a lot, and she always got to come to all the fieldtrips, and fun activities, like the picnic on the last day of school.
Here is Dana with our good friend Sandra, whose son is in Kindergarten too.

Here he is at the bubble station. All in all it was a great year for Nate. He learned so much and can't wait to go back in the fall as a first grader, and get to play on the big kids playground!

Kimberly turns 1

2008-06-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

This past weekend the Cowley Family reached a milestone. Our baby girl, Kimberly Ann, turned one. I say this a milestone for our family because she will probably be our last baby, and I just can't believe how big she is already! It makes me get a little sad everytime I think about it. One of Kimberly's first pictures in the hospital after she was born! She actually came out with almost black hair if you can believe it.

Poor Kimmy, Mommy was so busy gettting the house clean for guests, that I didn't even bother to make her a cake. Don't I get the Mom of the year award?!?! Anyway, here is the progression of Kimmy chowing down on her first birthday cupcake-cake.

First Bite "This tastes good!" "I like this!"

"More please."

Her dress actually had to be removed because of all the frosting!
Here is Kimmy opening some of her presents. I love the one where she is actually biting the package! So cute!
Nate is anxiously waiting to see if Kim needs "help" unwrapping her presents.
Kimmy loved the bubble machine she got from our friends the Wolds

But it is not just Kimberly who is growing. In the year since Kimmy joined our family, Dana has grown from my little baby girl, into a pretty smart and independent big girl. This is the day that our little girls met each other for the first time. It's hard for me to even remember Dana being so little. Dana has always loved to give Kimmy loves...no matter how much Kimmy may hate it!
Here they are together in September supporting the Cougars
And this is them together today, they have both grown so much!

Nate's last day of Kindergarten is tomorrow, and then he will be a first grader. He has now lost 6 teeth, and when he lost the last one, the Tooth Fairy found this sweet note inside the container:

If you can't read it, this is what it says: "ToTH FARy, you aRe gReAt i HoPe you HAve LOTS oF Fun AT SuMMur BRek" When he woke up the next day, the Tooth Fairy had left him a letter that was printed on stationary that said "From the desk of the Tooth Fairy..." and Nate was so excited. He said, "I didn't know the Tooth Fairy had a desk!" It was so funny. Then just yesterday, Nate was sick with a fever of 102. He stayed home from school and watched movies and layed on the couch the whole day. When I was cleaning up, I found a pad of paper that he had written on. It said: "To Do LiSt, heLP Nate geT BeTTeR, heLp MoM Take CaRe oF Nate, SpanK DaD." He is so clever and funny!

Nate and Kimmy and Mommy on the day Kimmy was born.

Dana's 4th Birthday

2008-05-29T13:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, I knew this would happen. Start a blog, get excited about it, then ignore it for a while. I do have a pretty good excuse though. Here is a quick description of what has been going on with the Cowleys the last month or so.

Kimmy - Sweetest, funniest little baby ever. BIG DRAMA QUEEN. Up till now, all of our kids have been pretty healthy, regular kids. Not Kim, she needs attention! In March she started having feveral seizures (seizures resulting from a rapid spike in her fever), and to date has had a total of 3, resulting in 3 trips to the ER, 2 rides in the ambulance, and 1 very flashy, loud, and dramatic exit from church. If you thought the seizures would be enough to keep me on high alert, she has also in the past 2 weeks developed an intense lactose intolerance coupled with a double ear infection. Needless to say, Mom and Dad aren't getting too much sleep!

Here she is getting some help from Grandpa Noble on the pinata! Grandpa Noble was SMITTEN with her during this trip. If anyone thought I had him wrapped around my finger, you have got to see what Kimmy can get him to do!

We brought her exersaucer to the party so that we wouldn't have to be holding her the whole time. It actually worked pretty well.

Dana - Not wanting to be left out, has taken to being VERY sensitive! The silliest thing can send her running up the stairs to the solitude of her room for a loud crying session. But I will blame it on her just having her birthday and turning 4, she never went through any type of terrible twos, so maybe this is how I am paying for it. We had an outdoor BBQ for her big birthday bash. Both sets of Grandparents were able to make it, and we had about 35 guests! It was great! Dana was so excited. After we ate and had cake, all the kids got a chance to smash the pinata! It was hilarious. All the kids got so worked up over it. All in all, it turned out great, and I have another 4 years before I have to worry about doing it again!

Here she is showing everyone that she is now 4 with her birthday candle!

I totally ripped off Tiana's Barbie cake idea. I don't think I did it as well, but Dana thought it was amazing, and that's all I could ask for, especially since it was my first foray into fancy cake making!

The pinata was a hit! (pun intended)

We also had a backup cake, in case the Barbie cake didn't make it through the cutting...Here are some of the kids chowing down

Nate - Is getting ready to finish up the last 4 days of kindergarten this week and next week. He is an AMAZING reader, he is currently reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban all by himself after finishing the first 2 books in the series. He reads so fast, that we were worrying if he was actually retaining anything. So Dad set a new rule, before Nate can start a new chapter, he has to take a multiple choice quiz, written by dad, on the previous chapter and get at least 4 out of 5 right. And guess what, it's no sweat for him. He hasn't missed a question yet!

I had to add this picture. I wanted to put more pictures of Nate in this post, but I couldn't find many close-ups of his face. However, I love this picture, because if you look closely, you will be able to see Kimmy through curtain of my hair. So funny!

Jared and I are currently existing on Red Bull and Diet Coke. Sleep deprivation has become a way of life. Maybe when we are 50 we will get a good night's sleep...Work is great for Jared and I am happily trying to figure out what color I want to paint the living room, and what kind of plants to line the front walkway with. We have been incredibly blessed! We may not have much money, but our family is rich in love! We are looking forward to this weekend, when Kimberly will turn 1, and Dad has 5 days off for us to have a mini-vacation! I'll post pictures of that later!

Oh, one last note: My awesome older brother Nathan has become a father! His daughter Emilina Sofia Noble was born on May 18, 2008. I think she was about 7 pounds 11 ounces, and 20 inches long. She has tons of hair, and is just beautiful! Here is a picture of her.
If you know my brother, congratulate him. He is on cloud nine! I love you Nate, and welcome to the family Lina!

Trying to live more Charitably

2008-05-02T16:35:00.001-07:00

I have been told that if you want more happiness and love in your life, you should spend more time serving others. I have been trying to do that lately. I am working towards being a better visiting teacher, a better friend, and a better mother. Since my hair has been annoying me lately, I decided to be more charitable with it and donate it to Locks of Love, a non-profit organization that uses the hair donations to manufacture wigs/hair pieces for underprivledged kids who have lost their hair due to any type of medical illness/diagnosis. It's pretty cool what they do if you think about it. You can visit their website at http://www.locksoflove.org, to get information on what they do or how to donate your own hair. I forgot to take the camera with me, but here is a picture of me before I cut my hair from a couple of days ago:

And then here is a picture of me today, after the haircut, with the new glasses.What do you think? (I just took these pictures with the web cam because it is easier than trying to hold a camera in the right place.) I have never had my hair this short before in my life. The hair on the back of my neck is actually shaved in places. I think it might take me a couple of days to get used to it, but I kind of like it. It should also keep me cool for the summer, and even though it's not much, I am glad that I could help out some less fortunate children. Well, I better go, it's movie night and we have friends coming over!

This is it...at least for today

2008-04-30T18:37:00.000-07:00

I just have a few more pictures that are so cute, I can't help but put them up. Enjoy!

This is Nate "modeling" for Dad. Every so often, Jared gets the kids to do the funniest poses!

This is Nate fighting the dark side of the force, did I mention he loves STAR WARS?

This is my sweet Kimmy-bear. We stopped at Dad's work, and since the two big kids got to go in and we had to wait in the car, we decided to take some cute pictures!

Seriously, how could anyone resist this sweet thing? She melts my heart and totally manipulates me on a daily basis, just with her smile!

These are the results of Dana's modeling session with Dad. She is just getting so pretty! I just love this girl!

This last one is my favorite. It's taken from across the room, so it's not as clear, but I love her hair in this. She could be a Pantene model!

Dana's birthday is in 9 days!!!!

2008-04-30T18:04:00.000-07:00

Dana, my sweet baby girl that loves to sing, is turning 4 next Friday. I personally can't believe it, but when I look at all the amazing things she is doing, I realize that she really is that big! She has been taking a ballet class with her best friend Sydney:

She also got to go on a big date with Mom and her friend Felicia and her daughters Makenna and Sydney down to Oakland to see Disney Princesses on Ice, Princess Wishes. It was a great day! We went as a family a few years ago to Monsters, Inc. and loved it, so when we heard this one was coming, we were so excited. It doesn't have to be as expensive as you might think, I think we paid $60 for both of our tickets, and we were about halfway up and could see great! Here are some of the highlights!

This is from the front back: Dana, Makenna, Sydney and Felicia.

This is Aladdin and the Genie, and the next one is the dishes from Beauty and the Beast, where they sing "Be Our Guest"

Here is Ariel from The Little Mermaid and all the fishes singing "Under The Sea" and Dana and I watching the show: I have to add one more, even though the picture quality is not great. It is from Sleeping Beauty where Malificent turns into the dragon and fights with Prince Phillip. The Dragon actually came out on the ice and spit real fire! It was so cool!

Nate's front teeth debacle

2008-04-30T17:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, this happened a couple of weeks ago, but I thought it merited a post. Nate has lost 3 teeth on the bottom, but didn't start losing the teeth on top until a few weeks ago. His grown up teeth are coming in so fast, that they had pushed his two front teeth on the top together. Here's what he looked like in December, before the new ones started growing in:

And here is what he looked like after the first one on the left came out, the one on the right got totally pushed into the middle, and was hurting him when he ate. So....we busted out the dental floss and tied one end to his tooth and the other to the door, and for a small fee of $5 on top of what the tooth fairy was going to give him, we popped it out. It was crazy to see, I was never able to do it to my own teeth, I always chickened out.

Isn't he brave?!?!?! (the extra $5 sure buys a lot of bravery!) I can't believe that I am old enough to have a kid who has already lost 6 teeth!

My first try!

2008-04-30T16:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, after many requests, I am joining the blogging revolution. This is harder work than I thought, but Tiana assures me it will become addicting. I just want to figure out how to get the pictures into the middle of the post, instead of at the top. Oh well...

So, the past few weeks seem like they have been crammed full of stuff, none of which include cleaning up my house...First something funny that happened today...Nate and Dana were outside playing with a friend, and I was in the front room folding laundry. Kimmy was "helping" me, and then she crawled into the kitchen. She was in there for a suspiciously long time, and she didn't crawl out when I called her, so I went in to find her. This is what I saw:

Busted!

Note how she is almost armpit deep into a double tub of cake frosting!!!! Of course I had to laugh because she is just like her Daddy and Mommy, and loves treats!