GREAT WOLF LODGE MARCH 2009

Yes it snowed while we were at the lodge. Our room was above the cars on the right:)

The arcade was a blast. This is Grant's favorite game -- jumpin' jackpot to 'the music'.

The waterslide was 7 stories high! Yes, mom even climbed the stairs a few times.

This is the chute you come out of at the end of the big water slide. So much fun :)

The kid's super waterslides with buckets and sprinklers everywhere.

The wave pool-- when the wolf howls, the waves start like the ocean, but WARM...

The bucket dumps 1,000 gallons of water every 5 minutes and you get super soaked.

Like this!!!!

Tall enough for some water slides, but not quite tall enough for the Howlin' Tornado. :( Maybe next trip.

Every year we do something special with the Christmas money that we save and this year it was Great Wolf Lodge near Olympia. The ads on TV made the boys crazy. It is a great big, fun indoor waterpark. We all enjoy the water so much. The temperature at the park is 84 degrees so it is nice and toasty. The rooms are very nice and cozy. It was a fun break to get away and relax. They had a nice arcade and a MagicQuest game. The boys had wands that would activate items you had to hunt for all over the lodge. They had storytime by the big clock at 9pm. It was a great family trip.

We love GREAT WOLF!

Homemade Pizza!

I came up with this wild idea to have a homemade pizza night. The boys talked about it for two days. I remember when I was a kid, we had these Apian Way pizza kits we would buy in the store and make our not so good cardboard type pizzas at home. I don't have a dough recipe, so I bought the pizza dough at Winco. We weren't sure how it would turn out because I bought it a couple of days ahead and we kept hearing exploding in our refrigerator:) We would look and the wrapper would have a hole in it..... Maybe you aren't supposed to keep them for a couple days. Finally, pizza night came and it was a big hit. We made 4 small pizzas and each of us were able to put on our own toppings. They were yummy. All of the boys LOVE pizza, but making it ourselves just seemed to hit the spot. I even got my boys in shirts for a picture.

Bon Appetite!

Valentines 2008 - Rockaway Beach

Day 2 was a much better day, than day 1 on our Valentine's weekend at the beach. (see Sneaker wave below)

Our dear husbands- Dan, Mark and Gary - decided to make us a fine dinner of chips, salsa, BBQ steaks, fingerling potatoes, coleslaw, brocolli salad and margaritas. It was a true feast. We were able to kick back with our 7 children and have a great time of eating and fun. Our friends are very kicked back (like us) and we enjoyed the time telling stories, laughing and having fun. Thanks for the great memory!

These are the 4 kiddos posing for a picture for us on the rocks. Notice they are dry. :) Lily and Ian are 5, Grant 6 and Paige is 2. We hang out with our friends quite often and they have lots of fun. The beach for 4 days was a big treat.

Our little Valentines!!!!

Here is Gary with 3 of the gang looking at the big waves. They just finished feed those nasty seagulls leftover pancakes. Isn't it amazing how you feed one and the entire sky fills up?

Our Ian (5) enjoying a look at the seagulls hoping he doesn't get poop on his head. :)

Our Grant (6) posing for a beach shot on the rocks. He is becoming very independent.

TRUE VALENTINE LOVE

GC + DC

Every beach trip ends with a beautiful sunset picture taken by Amanda.

Does God do amazing at creating nature for us to enjoy?

SNEAKER WAVE.....

We all learned a lesson about Sneaker waves at the Oregon Coast. We just arrived at the beach about 4pm on Friday. We bundled the kiddos up to take a walk on the beach. We put on boots, heavy coats, gloves, etc. We had our 2 boys and Dan & Amanda had their 3 girls. We found a great spot to climb down to the beach. The water was about 50 feet out. Our boys are attracted to water and tend to run away from us at the beach....Always have... They were headed toward the water. We just barely made it down off the rocks. Gary turned around and yelled, "RUN". Well, the tide caught the kids and us and water went all the way to the rocks. The boys body surfed in, Paige looked like a beach ball, we were soaked and very sandy. We walked back up the cliff and went back to the house. The shortest beach walk ever... maybe 5 minutes total. A lesson well learned? We certainly hope so.

Bestest Buddies - Paige and Ian

Ian Robert clicked with Paige Nicole when she was just a baby. I don't know if it because they are both the second child, but possibly having an older sibling to boss them around they really can understand each other. He decided he would help teach her to walk when she was a toddler. Paige(2 1/2) and Ian (5) are all about fun. They love to laugh and be wild. We had a chance to head to the beach with Everson's in February. They hung out in their favorite chair (above) watching the waves:) It is so fun to have a buddy to hang with.

7 Random Things about ME

I was tagged awhile ago by my friend, Stefanie and I need to tell 7 random things about me. (I was tagged on Facebook and have to come up with 25:)

Here it goes:



1) Gary and I dated for a few months, broke up for 18 months, hooked back up together and the rest is history -- 12 years and counting.... He is my soul mate.

2) My first flight was a month long vacation to Greece to visit my sister. I was VERY air sick.

3) My pet peeve is public bathroom stalls without coat hooks. Do they want you to drop your coat and purse on the floor?

4) I have a passion for balancing checkbooks and numbers. I guess I have the right job. :)

5) I am a democrat and voted for Obama. We have a ton of Republican friends, so we kind of kept it a secret. We are so excited to have a new president and pray for him daily. We need change in this country and we hope to see it begin.

6) I really HATE snow and no, it is not really that pretty..... it is cold, wet, muddy, slushy, nasty.

7) I LOVE being a mom and filling up those love buckets everyday with hugs, kisses and stories.


I tag my friends that read my blog if you have not yet been tagged! You know who you are:)

Happy 6th Birthday Grant!

Today is Grant's 6th birthday! Our brown hair, brown eyed baby boy.

It has been an incredible journey for this mom and dad to be parents to these kids. We can remember anxiously waiting for the call from the adoption agency back in January 2003. Many of you remember it too. (Yes, Abby & Scott we remember our last childless dinner, not knowing how our lives would change:) We had a few times when we were picked for a child and then it fell through. It was heartbreaking, so we tried not to get our hopes up and almost took our names off the list. Then we received the call about Grant on 1/21/03. We were home that evening and couldn't believe a baby boy was born that day and would we consider it? We, of course, said YES. I can never describe the feeling of not being pregnant and then being an instant mom. Let's just say it is VERY emotional. Grant stayed in the hospital until we could bring him home on Valentine's Day. The 3 weeks before we brought him home were crazy at the Cooper house. We had 3 emotional baby showers- neighbors, work and family. Our house in NW Portland filled up with baby stuff. Folks dropping stuff off at the door, high chairs, cribs, carseats, oh my. We kept thinking we need all this for a little bitty baby?

We had many visits to Washington to see him and the first time Gary held him, he knew this was it! It scared me, but we both knew that this son had grown in our hearts. What a special child Grant has been to us. He was a little fussy baby, but we didn't know any better being our first child, so we went with it. Lots of our friends would come over and take turns holding him and singing to him trying to quiet him down. :)

Grant has a great smile and loves to make people laugh. When you give our boys pictures to color Ian will always color everything black ( we hope he is not going to be gothic or need therapy:) and Grant will color in pink, orange, purple, yellow... He loves art and music. He is getting a guitar for his birthday today. (shh) He also loves swimming and bike riding.

We are so thankful to God for this child that started our parenthood journey.

Happy Birthday Grant! WE LOVE YOU!