Elementary school girls basketball is really entertaining

No lie! It was pretty fun.

Kelly and I went to Charlee's 4th grade basketball game last night.

It was at the old middle school down the street. Man, that building is falling apart! I was a little bit afraid for my safety when I first got in there.

It was cool though.

As cool as Jesee, Wyatt and Kelly in this picture. Watch out world....the three of them are growing up and they are a force!

What is up with Wyatt in this picture???



To my surprise the gym was packed!

I am not being sarcastic when I say that. I took this picture sitting on the side where all of the people were sitting. Never would I have guessed that it would fill that whole side. I guess 4th grade basketball is the IN thing to go check out.

Her team was playing Fredonia. That explains so much. Those fans were serious!!!

There was a few times that I thought to myself that some adults were a bit to riled up when it came to a missed shot.

Sheesh people! It is 4th grade basketball for Pete's sake...

Charlee was really a hoot to watch.

She was guarding this little girl and she was running around her blocking her from the ball, doing a great job. I swear that I kept catching her having normal conversations with this girl.



Like....

"Hey, I really like your shoes."

Or...

"Do you think that the Jonas brothers are dreamy?"

"Do you hate math homework like I do?"



I could not really hear her, I am merely making an observation. When I was watching her it looked like that is what she was saying to her.

That, and I can read lips.

(not really)

I can not end this without another picture of Kelly.

She had a blast!

Now she can't wait untill she can play too. When the game was over she went right out to the floor and started to shoot basketballs with the next team up to play.

It was funny.


Here is a video that I took of the game. Trying to take pictures of running 10 year olds is really hard!

Shooting a video is even worse.

Sorry if it makes you a little nauseous.

Oh yeah...the game ended in a TIE!! 18 to 18. :)

Are you like me, and you are sick of picking up the dead leaves form your yard one by one?

Is all of that back breaking work taking up your precious time with your family? Your job? Your chill time?

Well, never fear. I have the ultimate solution!

The Toro leaf blower!

It solves your painstaking leaf burdens in a snap.


You will go from this.....

A lonely yard, yearning for people to come and chat by the bird bath.

A porch swing just waiting for the children to play on it.



To this....

A leaf free rock paradise of your wildest dreams!!!

Think of the parties that you could throw, the laughter you would hear, the steaks you could smell on your outdoor grill.

All because of this amazing leaf blower.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I went to my Mom's house yesterday and got to play around with her leaf blower.

It was FUN!!!

Hello, I am 5 years old. I don't care though.

I enjoyed it like I enjoy vacuuming, or organizing socks.

Honestly I could not stop myself from taking the before and after pictures.
Oh well.

What did you do with your Christmas tree?

I know....weird question right??? It IS January 29th. Christmas is looong gone.

Here at Casa de Coop we decided to carry on a family tradition.

Papa Coop told me that when he was little his Mom would take the Christmas tree outside, and decorate it with bread. Then the little birdies would have some food for the winter.

Well, he wasn't telling me this, he was telling Kelly.

That is why he said birdies. I do not think that he talks to adults like that.

Kelly had fun putting stale bread on the tree....but it took some work.

For some reason, she had it in her mind that the very second that she put the bread on the tree, that the birds were going to swarm in and attack her and the tree. Like a feeding frenzy.

It took me a little convincing to get her to get out there and put the bread on the tree.

Once she got out there and saw that there were no birds attacking her, she was all over it.

See?

She loved it.

Yes.

She is getting too big for her clothes. My Kelly is growing like a weed!


We got to go to Cedar city to visit Jess and the kiddos a couple of weeks ago.

Sammy and Kelly had a major blast chillin' and playing with various toys.

Cuteness all around.

Speaking of cuteness......

Gavin...(The worlds most sweetest, cutest baby) was being uber precious.

Such a pleasant little guy.

When Jess changes him out of his clothes, he laughs like crazy!!

You could sell tickets to it. It is that great.



Oh yeah!

I can't forget to add that Kelly's snack day in kindergarten was the other day.

To say that I stress a little about what to have her bring is a smidgen of an understatement.

I do not want to send sugar...or even heaven forbid..nasty tasting healthy food.

Ugh.

So, this time I put peanut butter in a little cup...

...then I put rainbow colored gold fish crackers in the peanut butter....

...finally, I put it all in a plastic baggie with some pretzel sticks. They could use them to "fish" the crackers out with them.



As far as I could tell, the little munchkins loved it.

You can almost tell by the look on Kelly's face.

I am pleased with that.

We had a chill weekend...

Not a whole lot going on here at Casa de Coop.

Kelly spent the weekend playing with her various toys. Getting to know her new toys that she got at Christmas.

I really do not think that she needs anymore toys for a while now.

We both found rocks to paint...that was sweet.

Cynthia and I took the kiddos to the movie theater in Hurricane.

That was fun.

I need to work on my patience a bit.

That is OK with me, I could use a project.




Ali was home from Dixie.

She is seriously a gal that has her dreams in order..and she is going to make them come true!

Gotta respect that!

Here are Sav and Ali living the sweet life....love it.






Apparently DJ was not having such a fun time on his day off....










Ooooops!

Guess I was wrong about that.

DJ loves being homes and having a relaxing day. I think that is when he practices his elk shadow puppet poses.






Ali found time to have a nap on the couch by the fire. Then I woke her up when I took this picture.

Stupid flash and my need to take pictures of people sleeping.










Kelly wrapped up her day by pretending that she is a super hero.

Like her cape?

It is really a window flap for our tent. I taped a piece of paper with the letter K on it.

I have skills.

My Mom

I know that everyone say that they have the best Mom. That she is so great.....


Well I am going to go on record that everyone is wrong.
(sorry, but you are.)

I have the best Mom in the universe. My Mom is the great one.

* She is the most caring woman
* When I get sick I still cry for my Mom. That is how good she was to me when I was little.
* The room lights up when she is there.
* She is a great Grammie to her grand kids.
* She makes a loooong boring trip to St. George fun.
* Every skill I have..I got from her
* She is sooo easy to talk to.
* Her food is amazing...I crave it every day.
* You can talk to her in funny voices, and she will not look at yo like you are crazy
* She is my bestest friend EVER!!


On January 17th we celebrated her birthday.

(Happy Birthday Mommers!)

My sisters Cynthia and Shannon, My Mom and myself got together and laughed and laughed! We do that when ever we get together. It is embarrassing to others, and we really just do not care. I love it.

Then we took her out to lunch.....oh man..when I get those pictures they are going right on here.

They are AMAZING!!!

Just you wait..........

It's January 14th already?!!

Hmmmmmm.

I haven't been on here in FOREVER!

What a slacker.

Really, it turns out that I have some what of a social life.

Amazing. I know.

I have a ton of fun things that I want to show you. I promise not to go off, and type forever.

I do have a TON of pictures!

It was a terrific holiday season. Best ever I would say, for sure!

Here is Christmas-to-New Years 2008.....as painlessly as I can bring it to you.

:)

So, you can tell by the picture at the top that obviously it snowed A lot here in Kanab. It was wild!!!

We loved that.

The Annual Gramma Cooper Christmas party in St. George was a blast. Here is a darling picture of Jess, Ali and Mama Coop enjoying the shin-dig.

Kelly and Sammy ran around and had a fun filled time with all of the cousins. They even got to hear Christmas songs, sung to them by a huge family of carolers.

I had never seen that in real life before...only on movies.

There I go....writing too much. I will try to stop.



Sarah and Jim were lookin' snazzy for the party.






Then we had a Christmas Eve tradition that I really dig.

The Progressive dinner!

We all went over to Amanda and Jason's house to have yummy appetizers.

(Sweet picture of Sarah!)


Then, we shuffled down the street to Emily and Doug's house for the main course.


It was sooooo good.

Here is Sadie, Kelly and Mia at the VIP table. I was not cool enough to get a seat at that table myself.



Emily and Doug look like they are enjoying the mouth watering feast that they made for everyone.

Such a fun couple...love them.




Next we had dessert here at Casa de Coop. There was home made chocolate candy, cookies and the fam favorite.....cheesecake!

I have pics of that part...but I am trying to keep it kind of short....

Kelly and Mia got into their jammies and snuggled on the couch. They watched Christmas cartoons together. It was precious.

Then it was finally Christmas morning!!!!!

TAH DAH!!!!

Kelly jumper right out of bed and was soooooo excited. Her eyes were bugging out of her head. It was pretty great to watch her open all of her presents. I felt lucky.





Savy and Ali liked their IPods, and the sweetest toe socks in America! ( I know..I checked)

Everyone should rock the toe socks.



Papa Coop and Mama Coop looked dashing in all of their new threads.

(can you tell that I am working on new words to use this year?)

(no?)

(well I am.)




After the flurry of activity we headed over to my Mom's house.

Horray!

My Mom and Mac..they got me.....

A NEW CAMERA!!!!!

So grateful for them! It is soooooo nice. they know that I have had this sad looking old camera for about 8 years now. We even bought it used.


Goodbye loyal camera friend! Have fun with Kelly.

My Grandma flew in from Colorado to spend Christmas with us. That was super special.

We call her G.G. That is short for Great Grandma.
She is the best.




We then had Christmas dinner over at my sister Cynthia's house. It was a major blast.


There was lots of family there, and tons of friends there too. Everyone was in a really good mood.



Kelly loved the gifts that she got from Cyn and Rhett. Can you tell at all from this picture????

My mom got her this cute, cute Hello Kitty tent. Kelly has been sleeping in it since Christmas. I am slowly making her sleep in her bed some nights.

I figure that childhood is supposed to be full of tent-filled-nights. Why fight it???




Awwww!

Here is Cyn, her baby angel.......Trinity, and Ruthy.

Ruth is Cyn's best friend, Trin is Ruth's baby girl. So much goodness in this pic.




I can't leave out my Shannon!!!

She is such a fabulous Aunt. The kiddos love her.

You can see that in this pic from Christmas at Cyn's house.






I got home from Cyn's party and found myself working on a jig-saw puzzle with Ali and Savy.

It was way, way too much fun for just a simple puzzle.


The next day Jess, Sam, Ivy, Sammy and Gavin were here to spend a couple of days. Kelly could not believe her string of good luck. First, presents for two days...now a two night sleep over!?

Wow!

Jess got a camera for Christmas too!

Smile Jess. :)




Hanging out with Ivy is at the top of my list of favorite things to do. Savy and Ali love it too.

Jeeze....they don't look like they are related at all do they??




I got Sammy, Ivy and Kelly to stop playing for a second so I could snap a picture of them.

My new camera must have a setting on it that captures motion....because they were running around all dang day.

*wishing for energy of a five year old*







The best little baby boy in the Universe! Gavin!









Savy, Jesser, Amando and Mama Coop.

I have a really silly version of this picture...but if you want to see it you gotta learn the secret handshake.








We really did make a tight snowman.

His name was Carl...because he looked like Snoopy's cousin.

If you asked Kelly though...his name was Kevin....again. She just thinks that all snowmen are named Kevin.

This one was 26 years old now. He grew older in the land of snow I guess.




The Savster holding sweet little Gav, Gav.

Or "Baby G".

Sheesh, Gav Gav is more fun to say!






Kell Kell loved all of her toys that she got from Santa . She is still talking about him.

She will start to be naughty..and then she will catch herself and say....

"uh-oh! I better be good. Santa is watching me."

Once she asked me if he was going to be watching her forever. I told her that he was. She seemed a little bit annoyed by that idea.

Hee hee.


We continued the fun that we had been having together by going over to Shannon and Brandon's house for yummy chili one night.

Jesee, Charlee, Wyatt and Kelly played the game Operation.

Kel got that for Christmas, since she asked Santa for it.

She is totally afraid of it. Will not play with it with the sound on.

Bah!


Whatever....

Here is My Mom, and my Sisters striking a sweet pose in Shannon's kitchen.

Work it Shannon!






Mom and GG being sweetie-faces. Love them.








Kelly in her Hello Kitty tent that I was ranting about.

She LOVES it.






Savy and Ali love it too!

My Mom knows best. You just can not go wrong with a tent.


You made it! I am done!


For now............