Christmas 2011

Holy cow.  I am terrible at keeping this family blog up to date!  I am  so far behind.  So, lets catch up by going over Christmas...

We spent Christmas this year at my parents house (is TX).  My brother Brian, his wife Morgan, and their 2 kids Morgan and Joe came into town also.

We started Christmas Eve off by making Reindeer food.  If you haven't heard of it, it is special food that the reindeer can see and smell from far away because it is filled with yummy smelling food and has sparkles to light the ground up so that the reindeer can find us!  We mixed oats, chocolate chips, raisins, and red sparkles for them.

On Christmas Eve we were all sitting around the fire singing Christmas carols when suddenly...outside the window...we see...SANTA CLAUS!!!!!!!!!!

Cooper almost had a heart attack!  When Nick asked him if we should let Santa into the house, the poor kid started to cry!  Why?  Because he was awake and knows that Santa only brings presents to kids who are sleeping!  Kacie and my Mom were already running to the back door to let him in though.  Cooper got so excited that he quickly forgot he was upset that he was still awake and started talking to Santa.

The kids and Santa talked for a bit before Santa said he had to go visit some other kids.  As SOON as he left all the kids ran to their rooms!  They were asleep within 20 minutes of Santa leaving!  It was amazing!

The next morning we awoke to the most gifts we had ever seen!  We must have been great this year  ;)

We spent the morning openning our gifts from Santa and family.  What a blessed family we are!

Want to  see how crazy the room was after we were done openning all of our gifts?  Get ready...

Later that afternoon everyone thought it would be fun to ride around my parents house on Cooper's new scooter.  Silly family.

We also got a really great family picture!

Cooper is 4

Can you believe how fast time flies???  Cooper just celebrated his 4th birthday.  He went to his doctor 2 weeks ago for his check-up and was supposed to have his immunizations (4 of them), but couldn't because he had an ear infection.  What?  An ear infection?  "Yes, its a bad one," his doctor said.  Hmmm, well he doesn't have a fever, hasn't acted out of the ordinary, and hasn't complained a single bit...but okay, if you say so!  So we gave him the medicine to cure this mysterious ear infection (which by the way is only the second one he has ever had!).  Today we went back to the doctors to make sure the ear infection was gone and so he could get his needles...all 4 of them.

His ear infection was gone, so it was now needle time.  Nick came with me to help.  We talked to him about it and he understood.  He sees me give my needles everyday so he is kind of familiar with them.  Tara, our nurse, came in and said to Nick "lay him down with his legs to me, and hold his arms crossed over one another."  By the time Nick had Coopers arms crossed she was done.  This nurse is amazing.  Ya, ya, we all talk about how good of a nurse we had, but you don't understand.  ALL nurses give needles the same way.  I've had a few thousand needles to know this.  And this girl is AMAZING.  When I say all 4 needles are done within 8 seconds, I mean it.  Done, band-aids on.  I need to video her next time to prove it.  These is something about her that is unlike anything I have ever seen.  Its amazing.

Anyways, Cooper teared up a bit for the needles but since they were so fast he mostly got mad at us for making him have them.  He's been good ever since.  I've heard horror stories of "my kids having a bad day because they got their shots."  Not mine, once they are done with their crying from the pain, they are totally over it!  No fevers, no owies, no nothings.  We hit the jackpot with these two boys  :)

New Floor

It seems like whenever I finally remember to write on this blog, I come up with many different postings I need to write about!  Last weekend Nick and I took a sledgehammer to our kitchen floor.  When we bought the house in 2006 we put our (well I didn't do  any of it...Nick is the home repair guy) first attempt at a tile floor down.  Our grout lines were big and a bit uneven...and the grout was white.  NOT A GOOD IDEA in a kitchen.  Ever.  So finally we decided to change it.  And holy heck am I glad we did.  Our new floor is beautiful...as is the rest of our house because it has all since been dusted...yes, every square inch of it.  That's what happens when we don't tarp off the doorway from the kitchen into the rest of the house when we took the sledgehammer to the floor.  Sigh.  So, here are a few pictures of our incredible new floor!  (OOh!, and I got a new dishwasher while he was at it.  Amazing.  I am beyond excited about my dishwasher.  YAY).

Picture of the old floor...when it was clean...yes, I told you white grout was a bad idea.

New floor going down!  You will have to wait for more pictures of the finished project because they have yet to be taken on the camera...then uploaded!

Cooper's 4th Birthday Party

I am a terrible blogger...sorry.

BUT...I am here now, blogging.  What an awesome weekend we just had.  Cooper had his 4th Birthday Party!  It was amazing.  We had all of our closest family and friends here.  We decided to have it at our house (actually I tried to have it elsewhere but Cooper insisted on having it at his "home").  It worked out so well.  We played lots of games with the kids too!  We played pin the tail on the donkey, had sack races, bobbing for apples, and had a pinata.  The bag races were especially fun because my brother dared my mom and I to compete.  It was fantastic!  Anyways, here are some pictures from the special day.  Happy Birthday Cooper, we love you bunches!!!

The kids all lined up ready to start their race!

The boys: JD, Cooper, and Patrick

Mom and I racing...It was crazy!

Pinata time!

Cooper bobbing for apples while Kacie looks on.

Uncle Brian with the little boys playing in the backyard.

Guess what Cooper got...  :)

Make a wish birthday boy!!!

Turner Falls 2011

Over labor day weekend we went with my family to a cabin in Davis, OK where Turner Falls is located.  What a fun time we had!  Unfotunately we had to cut it short because of a cold invading our family...  Oh the joys of children!

We went up Friday and got settled in the cabin.  When we got there Mom and Dad had already showed up.  There was a bedroom downstairs in the basement with 4 double beds and room for a pack-n-play for Wyatt.  Mom and Dad were down there and we decided to crash with them.  There was the main floor with a kitchen, bathroom (there was one on each floor), living room, and then a third floor with a bunch more beds where Brian, Morgan, Kacie, and Joseph slept.

On Saturday we went to Turner Falls.  It is a big outdoor lake/pond with a waterfall that flows into it.  Then there is a big creek to play in.  It goes to another pond where there are cliffs and slides to go off of.  I went here with camp when I was 12, but it has changed since then.  Here's some pictures of our trip!

Standing in front of the cabin

Turner Falls.  The waterfall isn't very good because of the massive drought we are in, but you get the idea.

Playing in one of the creeks.

Swimming in the pond/lake where the waterfall is.

He loves it!

Mom, Morgan, and I visited a winery, YUM!

Nick going down the slide!

And the other slide!

Yup, even I went down the slide!

Mom and Dad with the kids.

FOOTBALL!

Our little man Cooper is now playing football!  EEK!  How did he get so big???  I feel like he is too little to be playing because he's only 3, but then again he has enough energy for the entire team!  He has practices every Wednesday and a game every Saturday until the first weekend of November.  I'm super excited for him.

First practice went well.  Nick is the assistant coach too (yay!).  There are two 5 year olds on the team (one little guy Jared is tiny...but he's quick), and the rest of them are 3!  Some of the kids are truly there to play football...while some of the others like Cooper are there to simply be around other kids.  I'm not going to lie, my Cooper is NOT a sportsman.  This is not an easy concept for his father to understand but he's not.  Cooper would rather watch than play.  I'm just happy that he is out having fun; whether that be playing hardcore football...or simply twiddling his thumbs while standing in the middle of the field!

His first game was a "gymboree."  Its score wasn't kept.  The rest of the games scores will be kept however.  There are 4 teams total in the league.  The league is an i9 league which is nationwide now.  I like it because they have a huge emphasis on teaching teamwork and having fun rather than winning.  Each week, each child receives an award.  They have to wear football cleats which Cooper loves!  Each game they have to wear their cleats, jersey (it is a reversible jersey that each kiddo gets.  One side is grey, the other is light blue), shorts without pockets (for safety I guess), and a mouthguard.  It is flag football, which means they cannot tackle, but I have noticed a bully or two.  Luckily our team is all super sweet kids and none of them a mean or have shown any roughness, but let me tell you about this pain-in-the A*S kid on the other team.

Parker, number 20, on the team we just played will be lucky if I don't kick him to timbucktwo before the end of this season.  He is so big and has no team spirit.  Three times he made kids on our team cry.  One of our guys wouldn't even play the second half of the game because of the jerk.  He clenched his fists up as yelled "yes, I made him cry."  Come on?  Lousy parenting at its best.  If I see it again, you better believe I will be making a phone call,  there is NO reason for this kind of crap on a 3-5 year old sports team.  Especially when his father is the coach.

Well, anyways...we didn't win the first game but that's perfectly okay.  Our kids had a BLAST!  We only lost by 6 which isn't bad considering the other team was full of probably 4 and 5 year olds.  I'm a super proud Mommy of our little team.  And even if we didn't win, we had the best looking little guys out there!  (Even my dad said that haha).  Mom and Dad came to cheer on Cooper and he loved it.  He TOLD EVERYONE "there's my Grams and Pop."  It made his day!

And now, for some pictures!

1st Practice!!!  Stretching out  :)

Run Baby!  He had so much fun!

Look at that hair!  Hah!

Team Practice!

First game.  We are the grey team!

Coach Nick giving a pep talk!

Love it!

Art Projects

Boy have we been a busy group of Middletons lately!  Cooper is finally old enough to do some of  the crazy art projects that I have had brewing up in this teacher brain of mine for the past few years.  Want to see what we have been doing???  Here are a few pictures!

We made a clothesline of t-shirts that had the letters of our last name on each shirt.  I laid all the shirts (mixed up) on the floor and had Cooper go to work hanging them up in order.  We have mastered our last name!

Bathtub painting!  Shaving cream + Food coloring = Super fun, but easy to clean up!

We took a large canvas and hot glued crayons to the top.  Then we took a blow dryer and heated up the crayons.  Isn't this fun???

We bought this a few weeks ago and Cooper has been busy making tons of fun pictures for us.  Its amazing, I thought it would make a mess with paint spraying all over the place, but it hasn't sprayed a single drop anywhere!  I love this!!!

Cooper is learning fine motor skills by tracing the line's from our house to the rodeo!

I drew 2 "grape vines" after the boys went to bed, and then they painted the grapes using their fingerprints the next day:

Some pipe cleaners and plastic beads helped up learn how to count.  He already knew how to count, so this helped him by pulling a pipe cleaner and showing up how he could count out the beads for each number.

Pour whole milk into a plastic bowl/dish.  Drop some food coloring around inside of the milk.  Take a toothpick and dip it into dishsoap.  Drag the toothpick through the water.  The surface tension of the milk is broken when the soapy toothpick hits.  We had tons of fun with this one!