January Birthday Celebration

Happy Birthday 

Hayden 1-12

Justin 1-26

Hayden and Justin both have birthdays in January.  We had a family get together with the Collymore family  and Humphrey family.  We dined on pizza, breadsticks, cake and ice cream!!Hayden's 7 

 Hayden has been so into art lately.  He comes home telling me about his art class and the projects he is working on.  He has a few how to draw books at home and he is doing well at drawings and painting .  So it was no surprise to me that he requested a art cake!  I didn't know how I was going to pull that one off, but I came up with this painters palette!  I made a separete one just  for Justin so he had his own special cake too!!  We love these two boys and they enjoyed sharing a special day together!

Justin's 4

Justin is holding up four fingers to tell everyone, "Hey I'm four now" 

Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas 

2012

 This year is the first year since Clayton was a newborn that we actually had a Christmas morning in our own house.  Nathan and I lived away from both sets of our parents, so when holidays come we take turns visiting them.  This year was originally planned to be with my side of the family, but when it came to buy plane tickets the prices were absolutely crazy for Christmas time travel.  We found better deals for a Thanksgiving trip out to Idaho so that's is what we ended up doing.  Before I always had to pack our kids stockings, figure out how to pack a few presents or just have a pre-Christmas present opening at our house.  I loved having the magic of Christmas Eve with our boys, the excitement that comes with going to bed anticipating the morning ahead.  We had a great Christmas morning and we had our own big breakfast meal of french toast, bacon, fresh fruit, orange juice and then stocking candy!

Justin's Horse Dash from Grandpa & Grandma Cottrell!  It's a pillow that has tons of pockets on his back, mouth, and feet to carry his special treasures!  He absolutely loves it!  He packs it full and sleeps with it every night.  I did have to sit him down and explain why his horse couldn't be stuffed with Christmas chocolate, he was OK with it since I traded chocolate treats for smarty candies that wouldn't become all messy inside his fun pocket!  I am showing off Roman's new shoes!

 Clayton and Hayden are so into art right now! Great they were stocked with some great supplies!  They had fun all morning making masterpieces!  They have a binder full of great drawings, paintings, and mini kid storybooks.  Our main present  to our boys was season passes to Six Flags Great America.  It was so funny giving this to them since it was printed certicate saying "Congratulations!  This gift entitles you to endless fun all summer long at Six Flags Great America! and Six Flags Water Park!  Love Dad and Mom.  Each certificate was in a wrapped envelope which we gave to the boys to open all at the same time.  To a kid on Christmas a envelope is totally not a cool thing to be handed but,  I loved watching the moment when they relized what they were holding and they were super excited jumping up and down and talking about the rides they wanted to go on first!  Nate and I have passes too and it will be a great way to spend some fun family time together riding rides and enjoying some waterpark fun.  Merry Christmas to all our family and friends !

Happy Birthday Clay 12-2012

Happy Birthday Clayton!

Clay's Winter Fun 9th Birthday Party!

December 2012

 Winter Themed Treats

 Minute to Win it Games

These boys had a ball competing in our Minute to Win it competitions!  Who doesn't love games using marshmallows!  Their favorite game for the day was between my Snowman Bean Bag toss and Shoot the Lego man off the Red Solo Cup Tower, using Nerf Guns of course!

Winter Wonderland Cake

Hot Chocolate Bar

The Big 9 Year Old!!

Clay is such a great kid.  I know that every parent says that about their child and we all can be a bit biased about our own kin but Clay is top notch!  He has such a tender heart.  He notices if someone had a bad day and tries to do something nice for them to make it better.  Clay worries that he might get in trouble at times about the littlest things, like he was told to go a certain way back to class and he chose a different way to go and thought that might merit him a trip to the principal's office. I told him that students don't get sent to the principal's office unless they purposely did harm to someone else or possibly damaged school property, and if that happened then he should worry about the talk he will get at home, not in the principals office!!  I said this while smiling and making him laugh by tickling him to the ground and he stopped worrying.  Clay has a strong sense of doing what is right.  Every kid will make their own set of mistakes that helps them learn and grow, but it bothers Clay when he does mess up, which in perspective of things is a good attribute to have.  He keeps himself in line and tries to fix his mistakes as he goes.  Being our oldest he gets to set the example for his brothers and we get to remind me of that at times, but his brothers have a great person to look up to!  Each year he will learn new things, challenge his mom on how much she actually knows, try to out wrestle his dad, and become more and more the person he is meant to be!  

We Love you Clayton Nathaniel, Happy Birthday

Cottrell Sibling Picture Time, Winter 2012

For two days Nathan had all his siblings in the same state, so we planned a family photo shoot at our house to try to make a surprise Christmas gift for his parents.

 All the Grand kids:  Clayton holding Roman, Shayna, Jordan, Ever, Justin and Hayden

 Act Crazy shot...Not too hard for Hayden to comply!

 Everyone all together in our Crazy Shot, although it looks like Nate didn't get the memo.

 I am sure my couch was crying mercy by the end of it all.  Ha Ha. We had to keep stacking everyone up to get us all in the same photo frame.  We were all sitting on toes and trying to find a spot that wouldn't crowd anyone else's head!

 Oldest to youngest: Nathan, Kristy, Kacie, and Benjamin

Couples: Nathan & Lacey, Kristy & Scott, Kacie & Chris, Ben & Edlin

 Couldn't stop the laughing at this one!

My One and Only and our little men!

Here a Little, There a Little : 11-2012

It's one big party after the next in Idaho. Here are a few:

FACE PAINTING
Aunt Jessa was a hit with all the kids and did fave painting for them.  She has been asked by multiple businesses to be their face painter, so getting it for free from your Aunt is just cool!  Justin did not want any paint on his face, but he was completely OK with getting Spider man on his arm!

Hayden loves Sonic, so naturally he requested a Sonic face.  Jessa nailed.  Clay went with a classic Batman!

 BOWLING

SANTA VISIT

DINNER PARTIES
Love these two  two Ladies!  My Grandma Barbra and her sister Aunt Harriet.  Grandma made a delicious meal and we just enjoyed  eating, sitting, chatting, and catching up with how friends and family are doing.

IDAHO FALLS TEMPLE

 I laugh at myself becuase my eyes are totally closed in this picture.


GOOD TIMES

Working Hard

"Pumpkins for Horses?"

 I bet you didn't know, but horses love pumpkins!!  Hayden wanted a job to do and it was no small task for him to lift and carry all those pumpkins to give to the horses. But he did it all by himself and had a great time doing it!  He came back inside and said,

"Whew, that was A LOT of Pumpkins! Good thing I had that cart, but it did go a little fast on the hill."

He is lucky he didn't have a run away cart on his hands!

Hayden is such a great worker, and doesn't quit until the job is all done.

Tons of Energy? Go Swimming

 We decided to put some of the energy bouncing off of these kids to some good use by taking them swimming!

This is a video of Hayden taking on the High dive!!  He was so confident going up the stairs for the first time, got to the top looked out and turned right back down the stairs!!  It freaked him out.  I didn't think he would be going up again and I didn't try to coax him at all about trying again, but he decided on his own, went up got to the top and did a full on run and jumped off!  This was his strategy for each time he went off the high dive after that!  Clay was quite different.  He would climb up, walk slowly to the very edge of the board and carefully allow himself to slip off the board to the water.  So funny to watch the two different approaches!

Here is Justin who found a love for fast slides!

Just look at the gorgeous Double Rainbow that greeted us when we left the swimming pool.  It was a full arc, so big I couldn't even capture it all with my camera!  

Round them Up!

 Love a good Cattle Drive!  This time I had my very own cowboy on top a black beauty! Nate had fun helping drive the cattle from a grazing area of the farm to the corrals at Seven Springs.  He did admit to being a bit sore a few days after his hard days work but would definitely go riding again.

 Clayton on Blue and Brooklyn on Ernie

 Brooklyn and Hayden                                    Clayton and Grandpa Ron

 Got to love a good pair of overalls!!  The red even matches his coat.

 Howdy Partner

 Grandma Mindy, Clay, Bailey, Boston, Landon, and Hayden

Justin enjoyed mowing at the cows from inside the van.  He couldn't stop giggling, he thought it was so funny.

Declare my love shirt!

Roman and Juliet say 

"I Love My AUNT SOPHIE"

These were the cutest shirts Sophie bought for them!  They fit so nicely that I have put Roman in his tons of times!  Thanks Aunt Sophie!

Sophie is hilarious, has great style and is a phenomenal artist. With all my sisters I wish I could spend so more time with each of them!





Jessa and Trent is on my boys super cool list right now because they gave each of my boys (and Nate) a new automatic flying disc NERF GUN for their birthdays!  Since they all have winter birthdays, two in December and two in January, getting a birthday present early was even that much more fun.   I couldn't fit all the guns in my suitcases even with them all taken apart so Trent being the great guy he is, shipped them for us!  We have had some serious shooting wars at my house lately and I love it! Thanks again Petersons

Watch out!  Ryder is going to get ya!  That kid has aim too!

Clay and his cousin Eli gearing up for some major shooting time!  So much fun with all these kids around!