Annie's blessing

Last week was Annie's Baby Blessing. It was a very beautiful blessing and a special day for our little angel. We had several family and friends with us that day and it was a nice reminder of how truly blessed we are. We have such wonderful people surrounding us and I'm so thankful for each of you and the influence you have on us and our children.

Here are a few photos of Annie in her dress that my mom made for her:




The white squares was the fabric from a dress my mom had made me when I was a little girl. The flowered squares were from a blouse that belonged to my mother. And the lace at the bottom of the portion with the squares belonged to my Great Grandma Riskedahl.

So in her dress was fabric/lace that belonged to Annie's mom, grandma and great great grandma. Which I think is pretty darn neat. :)

happy birthday america!

Happy 4th of July!!

I am so grateful to live in this wonderful country. We are so blessed to have the rights and freedom that we do.

Yesterday at church, for the closing song, we stood and sang "The Star Spangled Banner." For some reason I can't seem to make it through that song without getting emotional. (The same thing happened last year too!) Just singing the words and thinking of our great country's history, and the wonderful men and women who sacrificed so much to make our country what it is... I am just overwhelmed with gratitude and joy for my blessings.

And I love fireworks! I'm so excited for fireworks tonight. We watched a few last night of our neighbors until Annie was not so happy. And tonight we'll go over to some friends and have homemade ice cream and fireworks.

I hope everyone has a blast this 4th!! And God bless America!

old man tuttle

Tuttle, my little town, has turned 100 years old. The weekend of June 17-19 was its birthday party. Obviously it was the party of the century!! J/K.

Tuttle is rapidly dying so this was probably the last big celebration it will ever have, which makes me so sad! I used to love going to Dairy Days!! (Which later became Community Days... either way it was a highlight of my summers growing up.)

For the last 12 years I haven't lived in Tuttle though, and getting home for the celebrations have been difficult and limited. Last year when I found out about the Centennial, I told Jason we will need to be making a trip there in June 2011. And we did! And I was so happy to be there!

Here's a little summary of our vacation:
Friday 6-10 We left in the afternoon going as far as Idaho Falls and stayed with Jason's brother, Troy and his family over night.

Saturday 6:11 Drove. And drove. And drove. For about 14-15 hours. I love portable DVD players.

Sunday 6-12 Went to church. Had a little birthday party for my nephew Andrew, who turned one the day before. We were able to see lots of our extended family. And Annie ended up with a sun-burned little face. :( (Sorry no pictures so far.) Stayed the night again at Aunt Donna and Uncle Mike's house.

Monday 6-13 Did a little shopping with Leesa... mostly groceries, but I did buy a new sweater, skirt and shoes just because! The we went out to the farm.

Tuesday 6-14 Out at the farm.

Wednesday 6-15 Donna came with her usual breakfast for the kids:

Yes, that's right Cheetos and Oreos for breakfast. Only Aunt Donna gets away with stuff like that!

But my kids are weird. Sam had one cheeto and got distracted by the four wheeler and left. Livia decided to go with Frosted Mini Wheats instead. (I wasn't about to tell them what they were missing out on though...)


My dad asked Jason to mow the yard. (Silly Jason thought he meant the lawn.) No, on a farm, a lawn and a yard are not the same thing! He was out there for about 5 or 6 hours mowing the entire farm yard. Luckily it was a riding mower!

As you can see, it hasn't been mowed yet this year. Yes, I know it's June.


Thursday 6-16 Jason spent most of his days on the farm (other than mowing time) with one of these firesticks in hand. He's thinking he used about 1000 22 shells. Among other ammo for 2 more guns. Crazy head.


Uncle Duane introduced the kids to his little abandoned calf.

But Livi wasn't thrilled with the hand sucking moment. (I used to love that as a kid.)


Uncle Duane is a favorite when he gives the kids 'scooter' rides.


Friday 6-17 Pictures from this day are on my phone. My cousin, Ashlee, and her hubby, Steve, had a vow ceremony in their church. With a little reception afterwards.

Saturday 6-18 Tuttle's big day. It started off with a parade. And it was probably the biggest parade ever to drive down this street! It took almost an hour, which is really long for a Tuttle parade... especially since everyone only went through once this time!

The one in the middle is my daddy-o. This was the start of the parade.


Here's a shot of the street. I was surprised how many people were there.

What's a parade without a port-a-potty...

The kids got way too much candy!! And loved it.
My cousin Beth was in the parade with a couple of her horses, so she let Sambo get a little ride afterwards.


There were several fun things going on through the day, like Turtle Races, foot races, egg toss, ya know, fun stuff like that. Sam's highlight was the bounce houses (where he stayed for about 3 hours) and the free stuff stand. My 4th grade teacher passed away a couple of years ago, and apparently at her family reunions she always had fun stuff for all the kids, so her 3 children decided to carry on that tradition for the centennial. They had cotton candy, balloons, temp tattoos, bracelets, and popsicles, all for free.

The "highlight" of the day was the professional wrestlers that came. But you had to pay for that, and frankly I wasn't that interested. Plus the kids were exhausted by then... so we went home. But here's a picture of my whole town from in front of the school looking down Main Street. Yes, that's right... that's it, that's the whole town! (Now you can see why I surprised that the parade managed to last a whole hour!)


Ahh, my old playground! This is where I went to school K-12th grade!

Sunday 6-19 Happy Father's Day! Went to church then drove. And drove. To Casper Wyoming where we stayed the night at a little motel.

Monday 6-20 Drove. Oops, 30 minutes in the wrong direction. Turned around, said hello to Casper again, then drove and drove and drove again. And I still love DVD players. And parade candy.

We got home about 5 pm and I was surprised how different the yard looked! The roses were in full bloom and the trees had completely filled in in the back yard. It was a welcome sight and it was good to be home.

I have so many wonderful memories of my little town, so it's sad to see it die. But I was happy to get to see a few of my classmates and other friends while I was there. I know it's not Jason's first pick of where to go when he takes a week off of work, but he loves me enough to let me have that time there. (He's so wonderful! He didn't even complain!)

It almost makes me want to move back there. Almost. Then I remember the winters and the spring flooding... I guess I'll be happy where I am...

I had a feeling this would end up in my bag...

We just returned from ND yesterday. I'll post about the week soon.

(For anyone who is confused about the whole dog thing, you can check out this post from a couple of years ago for the story.)

bunny collection

Here are some current pictures of our dozen bunnies. The 9 babies (introduced here) are getting pretty big, they are 8 1/2 weeks old now. I thought I'd share a few photos, because let's face it... there aren't many things cuter than baby bunnies...

5 of them are lion heads, which means they have extra long fur around their faces. So. Cute.

One tan and the one orange-ish lion heads:

These are 3 of the 4 that aren't lion heads. The 4th one is another black one.

The gray lion head:

The black lion head:

One of the two tan lion heads. This one is the fluffiest, and his long hair is white so he looks like he wants to be Santa Bunny or something. (He's my favorite.)

As cute as they are.... it's time for them to move out! Anyone interested in showing your kids how much you love them by getting them a bunny?

happy memorial day

Yesterday for Memorial Day we didn't really do anything exciting or spectacular, but we did enjoy our dinner!!

I've been marinating pieces of steak for 2 days, so it was nice and yummy! We soaked some bamboo skewers, added some zucchini, squash, red peppers and green peppers and grilled em up! Delish!!


We also had some grilled corn. The one other time we tried to grill corn it was a disaster since I had no idea how to do it. This time, I let Youtube train me before proceeding. It's so easy! Just husk the corn, rinse it off, spread some butter on it, add salt and pepper, and roll it up in tin foil, sealing the ends. Then grill it on the top grill shelf for about 10 minutes, flip them and grill for another 5-10 minutes. Then they stay warm until the rest of your food is done as long as you don't unwrap them from the foil. And voila:
Super yummy corn!

For some crazy reason, the kids were not as enthused and opted for the left over ramen noodles in the fridge... weirdos. (We did grill them some hotdogs too, but they were way more excited for the ramen.) Those silly crazies.

Annie's blog

For any of my friends that are interested I set up a blog for Annie too. I haven't been great at updating Sam's or Liv's, so don't get too excited....

But I will invite you to see it (since it's private) if you're interested.

Sweet Annalee

She's here!

So let me tell you all about it!

I was scheduled to be induced on Tuesday, so Monday was crazy busy as I did all the laundry and cleaned up the house and did all the last minute things I wanted to do before bringing another child into this crazy world.

We stayed Monday night at Jason's parents' house so the kids wouldn't need to be disturbed on Tuesday morning since we needed to be at the hospital by 6:30 am. I didn't really sleep at all that night, so with the exhaustion from doing too much on Monday, plus not sleeping, I knew Tuesday would be real fun.... I was hoping I'd get in a little catnap during my epidural. (That didn't happen though.)

Here's my last shot of this pregnancy on the morning of:

They got me all checked in and set up and started the pitocin at 7:20. About an hour later they broke my water... which is just a bizarre feeling of utter wetness. (With Sam and Livia I already had an epidural when they broke it.) I got an epidural at 9:30 (yes, I am a pansy and proud of it.) At 10 they checked and said I was about a 3. At 11:10 the doctor came in and checked again and said I had made it to a 4. At 12 a nurse came in and said it looked like I had probably progressed quite a bit by the look of my contractions and checked.... and said, "yep, you're complete." I was really confused how I went from a 4 to a 10 in 45 minutes, so I was suddenly really nervous and anxious.... and then she left. And they didn't come back until 12:25. I was surprised and wanted to ask them if they had never seen the movies.... babies come the second you reach a 10, right? Nope! You can lay in bed for another 30 minutes! Finally they told me to start pushing... and a few minutes later, out popped this amazingly gray little body.... but there was no noise. Which freaked me out... but she just didn't want to take her first breath. He cleaned her mouth out and she announced her entrance into this world. But only for about 3 seconds. Then she was done making noise for a while.

She scored 9 and 9 on her Apgar test. She weighed 8 lbs 2 oz, and was 20 inches long. She is adorable and so sweet. Very sleepy, but sweet.

And Daddy fell in love again:



And so did Mommy.



Later that day Jason's parents came to meet her. They brought Sam and Livia to see their new baby sister. They were interested for about 3 minutes. Then the 'exoticness' of the hospital room overtook them. Those big curtains are just way too much fun. But at least they let me get a couple of pictures while they were still interested.


We were able to hang out in the hospital until Thursday. Jason was a trooper and stayed the nights there with me, even though the couch bed was less than inviting.

I think the most challenging part of this delivery was choosing a name. (As so many people already know! Sorry it took so long!) This process seems to get harder with each child... so we're in for a real treat when #4 comes along. We debated and discussed this topic several hours each day we were there with very little progress! (This topic could be a post of its own. So maybe I'll do that for any interested readers.)

To make the long story short, we decided on Annalee Ray Cook.

Thursday we packed up our stuff and our new little family member and made the trip home to start our new life as a family of 5.


Most of the family has been adapting well... apparently Cowboy is a little jealous and wants to not be forgotten as "the baby of the family."

We'll be keeping a close eye on that one....

And sorry for the side-ways-ness of this picture, but 2 weeks before Annie was born, Jason's younger sister, Shelly, had a baby boy. I'm sure they'll be the best of cousin-friends.

Here's Bennett and Annie, meeting for the first time:


So yeah, that's the story. We now have this precious bundle of joy, and the kids have way more interest in her now that the available curtains are boring... luckily they don't smother her too much though...

But we're just so happy she's here, and she's healthy, and she's beautiful.

April

April has been pretty busy. Between baby bunnies, Easter, my birthday, and a new baby (she gets her own post though) we've been taking lots of pictures.

My 30th Birthday:

The week before my birthday, Jason and I went on a date, which turned out to be a surprise party for me. He had invited some of my North Dakota friends, my sister and brother-in-law and his parents to meet us at the restaurant to celebrate with us.
The Wednesday before he gave me my first birthday gift. (He likes to celebrate my birthday for most of the month. Isn't he so sweet?) He made an appointment for me to get a pregnancy massage. May I say those things are amazing? Loved. it. The end.
The morning before my birthday he made me crepes with tons of fresh fruit for breakfast. (He had early Sunday meetings on my actual birthday and knew he wouldn't be able to make me breakfast.) Then on the morning of my actual birthday he gave me several presents. He always goes way overboard gift-wise (which is really so sweet!!) and he always does such an awesome job at finding gifts that I love, even when I don't give him any ideas. All I asked for was a new scented wax burner since my other one broke. He got me that, plus a Willow tree statue of a woman holding a newborn baby (which made me tear up being two days away from having my own newborn,) and a cricut machine. Which is super cute since he doesn't really know what one is, but it said online that scrapbookers love them... which is true! I'm just excited to learn how to use it now! He's always so thoughtful and makes such an effort to make my birthdays special, and this one was no exception. He made me a cake after church... and best of all, he did all the dishes that night while my friend, Holly, painted my toenails (haven't been able to reach those little things lately....) My best friend growing up, Serena, came down for the weekend, so that was another special birthday treat. And then to top it off, it was Easter. :)

Here I am at 39 weeks:


Easter:

What's Easter without 9 baby Easter bunnies?

They are getting bigger now, this picture was taken on Easter, it's 2 weeks old.

On Friday night we had some of our friends over and we dyed Easter eggs. As you might be able to guess, I didn't trust Livia to not dye her shirt as well. (Sorry for the little nudey.)

The Easter bunny came Saturday morning and the kids were excited to find their "Easter bags." I have no idea why they kept calling them bags.



Later that day Jason hid all the eggs they had dyed around the yard and they went on their little egg hunt.


The rest of the pictures are from Easter Sunday. Serena was here and she takes such great pictures. So here's a bunch from Sunday:


My sweet little freckle-faced girl:






Happy Easter!!