Carving "Mr. Nobody"

We picked out and carved our family pumpkin on Saturday. The kids got really into it this year- especially Madison. She wasn't scared of getting dirty with the pumpkin guts.

Ewww.... pumpkin guts!

Madison hard at work cleaning out the pumpkin.

Everyone watching Daddy finish up all the dirty work.

Madison designed the face of our pumpkin this year. She is quite the little artist. She did a wonderful job too! Here the kids are showing off their mad monster faces with their pumpkin!

After carving our pumpkin the kids asked why he didn't have a body. Hence, we have named him "Mr. NoBody". We love our cute little pumpkin!

October

This month has been a busy one. And I have been too lazy to blog about it. But here are a few pictures of what we've been up to.

We celebrated Daddy's birthday!
I made homemade lemon pie for his birthday because that was his request. I have learned never to make a dessert for a special occasion without trying it out first. That night I made 3 lemon pies. Although we only ate one of them. I am not a Betty homemaker and have learned that I need some practice in the kitchen! I was very persistent and made sure that Cory had a birthday pie... we just didn't eat it until 9:00 pm. Oops!

We celebrated my birthday on the 19th with a delicious cheese cake Cory surprised me with. YUMMY! :)

This last week we have been having a lot of sick days. Hyrum was very sick with a fever and a horrid cough for 6 days. And Madison had the same thing for 4 days. I'm so glad they are all better and I got away without getting it. Yay!

Barnett Family Park

We found a fun park in Lakeland that is loads of fun to go to. It has fun water fountains to run through and a play ground. We've gone there a couple of times and Madison and Hyrum LOVE it!


Daddy and the kids pretending to be crocodiles.

One of Hyrum's many facial expressions as he soaks himself in the water!

Madison posing for the camera!

Hyrum was having so much fun I couldn't get a picture of him standing still. So here is another action shot. I love this boy's smile! (And Madison in the background.)

They have this cute statue at the park and Madison came to me and said, "Mommy come take my picture with those boys over there." I asked her if they were her boyfriends and she smiled and answered in the affirmative. What a girl!

All dressed up and ready for church!

These kids are SO DARN CUTE!!! .... at least their mommy thinks so!

We Are A Happy Family!

Madison and Hyrum love taking pictures these days. We were all in a pretty goofy mood on Friday night and decided to try to get a family picture.

Take One...

Take Two...

Take Three... I think this is as good as it's gonna get folks!
We love spending time as a family! :)

Update

It's been a while since I've updated this blog of mine... it's definitely time!


Madison is still loving school! She is constantly writing letters and singing songs that she has learned at school. She loves the fact that she gets to see her friends everyday- she is such a social butterfly! She has also become particular about a couple of things since she has started. She does not like us calling her by "Skatz" anymore. This has been one of her nicknames from Daddy for quite a long time now. Hyrum calls her this name the majority of the time because it is easier for him to say. She has now corrected us and tells us that we need to call her Madi or Madison. (Makes sense, doesn't it?) Ever since she has started school one of her chores has been to leave in the morning with a clean room. Madison has taken pride in her clean room and locks her door everyday before she leaves for school. I asked her why she does this and she told me that "she doesn't want anyone coming in and messing up her clean room." It works for me! :)


Hyrum and I have enjoyed the one-on-one time that we have to play together in the mornings since Madison has started school. I have decided to start potty training him AGAIN. (Hence the funny pictures of the kids with underwear on their heads!) I have decided that its REALLY time to start potty training since he has started to use the laundry room to do his business. Today Hyrum and I stopped to get a few things at the grocery store real quick- while he was wearing his big boy underwear. I thought that we would be safe. Yah RIGHT! He stopped in the middle of the isle dripping wet saying, "uh-oh potty!" A little late for that one. Needless to say we had a mess on aisle 8 to clean up! Haha. Pretty funny! Hyrum is doing pretty good. He still does not want to tell me he needs to go to the bathroom until after the fact. But he is becoming more and more willing to sit on the potty for me- and will go most of the time. (I wonder if Cheetos have a playing part in that one!) We are learning about colors right now. He is now starting to tell me other colors than "blue" when I ask him what color certain objects are. Now that's what I call success! :)
This picture of Daddy was taken by Madison on Sunday. (My kids have really been into taking their own pictures these days.) Daddy has been sick for the last week with a cold/cough he can't shake off. We hope he gets better soon!

Sorry I've just been too lazy to get on here and blog. I need to start taking more pictures and get back into business!

First Day Of School

Madison has been asking me for two years when she would be able to start school. Believe it or not, the day finally came for this little girl. Madison's first day of Preschool was on Tuesday.

I love Madison's face. She is so darling!

Madi was being quite silly with her posing. Too funny!

Here is Madi in her new classroom.

She is absolutely LOVING school. She is so excited and feels so lucky to get to go to school every day. (I hope she keeps up her positive attitude throughout her life!) She is making a lot of new friends and loves to come home and share with me what she has learned. I can't believe my girl is getting so big! What a fun stage Madison is entering. SO FUN!

Uncle Devon!!

We were lucky to have Uncle Dev-O come out and visit us last Friday night. Madison and Hyrum LOVE Devon and they both ran to them when he came over!!



We had the pleasure of meeting Devon's good friend, Kaylee.

We made pizza together... and it was yummy! :)


And after much laughing and monkeying around...

We decided to eat some ice cream and watch a movie together. We had so much fun- it was sad to see Devon leave us so soon. We love you Devon!

Summer Days In Utah

I know we took our trip to Utah back in July. But I got a cd full of pictures from my family that I couldn't pass up to post. Here are pictures of some of the things that went on that I don't want my family to forget.


We got to pick up Uncle Devon from the airport coming home from his mission. We love you Dev-O.


Madison got to spend a lot of time with her Aunt Caitlyn who she loves so much! Every time I ask her where she learned something she says Cait taught her. We love you Cait!


And lastly, one memory that we had of the Utah trip was Hyrum and I getting the swine flu. (cousin Carter and Aunt Hilary got it too.) It wasn't the funnest memory, but it was a memory, nonetheless. AND I couldn't pass up posting the sweetest picture of Uncle Devon and Hyrum resting together.

All of the cousins got to play together. They had so much fun together- despite some of their faces in the picture. They were so darn cute together!!

We got to celebrate Hyrum's and Madison's birthday together with this monstrous princess jumper! The kids... especially Madison LOVED it. Thank you Papa and Grandma... you spoil us rotten!!

My most talented sister Caitlyn cut both my hair and Madi's hair. We also got to feel special and act as models for her. :)


We had many many more memories and pictures, but this post would go on forever. We had the best time with our whole family together this summer!!

Birthday Fun

July is known as the Birthday Parade around the Cooper home. Both Hyrum and Madison's birthdays are in July. Since we were in Utah during a good part of July we had some fun birthday celebrations there.




Madison's birthday was a few days after we got back from Utah. We started the day out with a balloon party in Madison's room.


Our dear friends came over later that morning and brought a cake over to share in our celebration.


I took Madison out to the store to pick out what she wanted for her Birthday dessert since we had cake with her friends earlier that day. She picked out Jr. Fat Boys and her own colorful candles. She was so sweet and was worried about Hyrum not being able to blow out his own candles when he had his birthday (since he was stuck with the swine flu that day). So we sang to both of the kids and had a grand old time!

Hyrum was so excited about his candles that he blew them all out before we started singing! I guess he wanted some practice! :)

Madison enthusiastically singing "Happy Birthday"- with the Hoorahs and all!
(We have a tradition in our family to sing the Danish version of Happy Birthday as well.)


Hy singing his little heart out!

Madison so happy that it is her birthday!


The kids scored big time for their birthdays! Madison got a new Princess bike and Hyrum got a tee-ball set. The kids also got many many toys from grandparents. There are too many to list. But I think their favorite that they're playing with at the moment is the train tracks and all the trains!

Happy Birthday Madison and Hyrum!!

Utah Trip

FYI: We did not spend the whole trip in our pajamas. The only time I thought of taking pictures was either in the morning or night. Hence, that is why every single picture I have of our trip my kids are in their pajamas. Haha.

With that said, we were in Utah for the past two weeks having a lot of fun with our family. I was too busy cherishing the moments we had with our family to take pictures. Fortunately, other family members did and I will be receiving those pictures shortly.





My nephew Carter LOVES sprinklers and my kids loved to run in them. They got Carter to follow the crowd and do it with them. YAY!
Grandma was so fun to have all the grandkids on her lap to watch "Elmo" on the computer.
I think Grandma enjoyed it too! :)



We had a lot of popscicle parties. Due to the fact that half of the crew got sick with the swine flu. Did I mention, that was the only bad part of the trip. But we are lucky that the WHOLE family didn't catch it. Only cousin Carter, Hyrum, Hilary, and I got it... wham baam!


Papa put on a fun firework show for us all on the 24th of July- Pioneer Day. Hyrum liked the fact that there was a ladder to mess around with.

Mischievous boy! The kids all loved the firework show!Madison, Hilary, and Devon all waiting for the show to begin!

Carter and Hyrum are 2.5 months apart and had so much fun playing with each other. Hyrum and Madison LOVE Carter. They are all best friends! We had a blast!!


There are so many more events that took place during our visit... so I'll end this post with. TO BE CONTINUED...