Cottrell Family: May 2014

March 2014

Love that Roman is my cuddle boy. Look how cute he looks surrounded with all those stuffed animals and blankets and pillows! I wanted to crawl in that enclosure right with him.

The weather this winter has been super brutal. Not only have we had record snow fall, but it was just dang cold cold cold!! We had many school cancellations just due to the extreme cold temperatures outside. So since it is pretty much miserable outside, even now in March...why not make a party inside! The boys had a ball sleeping in our tent in the basement! Before we put the sleeping bags in I let them have a ball war inside the tent that Roman thought was super fun and giggled the whole time!

March 2014

2-14-14

Happy Valentines Day 2014

Getting ready for a night our with my one and only! We went to a fun Valentines party with 10 other couples that are our friends. Had fun appetizers and desserts and then played a version of the Newly wed game that was hilarious!!

Feeling sick

Feeling Sick 2-2014

If you are under the weather like this baby of mine...I promise to give you the frosting beater too!

Roman is a bit of a stinker when it comes to taking medicine, so that is why I stated "We CAN do hard things" Hard for him to receive it....and hard for my giving it. The ten days could not come fast enough!

Food Love

Food Loves

February 2014

Love a good tasty Gyro!

I love that cookie face!!

2nd Grade Concert

Hayden's 2nd Grade Concert Night!

February 12, 2014

These concerts are always so fun to attend and see your child's hard work they've done in the class room and during their music classes. The songs were super cute and I love seeing the kids to all the hand actions during the songs. Hayden does very well at school and has such a fun energetic nature about him that it attracts lots of friends. Justin wanted to get up and dance with all his songs!

Pinewood Derby

January 2014

As always the boys had a blast at their pinewood derby this year! Both boys cars won multiple races and everyone loved their designs!

Happy birthday Justin

Happy Birthday Justin Ron!!

Justin turned 5 on January 26th! This boy's smile is contagious and has totally gotten him out of trouble before! I mean really, it is so hard to keep a straight face when looking at this cheeser sometimes! Justin loves Chocolate cake so I made a double chocolate cake with a Hershey cocoa frosting...it tasted just like the melt in your mouth chocolate cake you can buy from Portillos! YUMMY! I still can't believe that in August this year this mini man will be in Kindergarten! I am already preparing for a rough day that day....not for him but for me. I bet a McDonald's run will be in order and a school drive by just so I can look at the brick building and miss him that much more!

Lego Land

LEGO LAND

January 2014

I think the pictures speak for themselves! The kids had a blast with Grandpa Ron and Grandma Mindy!!

Happy Birthday Hayden!

IT"S GREAT TO BE 8!!

Happy Birthday Hayden!!

Love this spunky kid of ours! He is so fun and have a good sense of humor on him. He is my dark haired, dark chocolate eyed handsome boy!

Since this is Hayden's eighth birthday he decided to be baptized as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! We could not be more proud of him and love being his parents! He was really happy to get a new set of scriptures that had silver
lined pages as one of his birthday gifts! He said "Ewwww I love em!" while hugging and petting them. Oh the funny boy he is.

I guess I took the look of the CTR (choose the right) Ring and used it as a the shape/color of my sugar cookies and desserts for the refreshments! Fresh pineapple, and beautiful veggie tray a friend of mine brought, frog eyed fruit salad and lemonade.

Here are two good friends of mine who were big helpers in the kitchen and bringing some food for the event. Love how friends and church member are always there to give a helping hand and show support.

So Glad that both sets of Grandparents could be here for Hayden's special day. Both the Grandpas gave talks for part of the program talking on the importance of baptism and the Holy Ghost.

Nate did a wonderful job at performing the baptism and I know each of my boys will have a great memory of their father being the one to baptize them and support them.

My gaggle of boys and my parents.

Chicago Winters

January 2014

Here is Clay thinking he is the cool kid wearing no coat for a snowball fight with neighbors. The neighbor kids kept telling him he was going to freeze and I knew that if he got cold enough he knew where his coat was so I didn't worry too much about it.

Roman liked making footprints in the snow up and down the driveway.

This kid would never stop trying to get me! He landed a few good shots in the hood of my coat that then traveled down my back....whoa was that a cold shocker!

Illinois winters are brutal and often way too cold to go play much outside. Even when we ventured out to go sledding the snow was the type downhill skiers and snowboarders love; nice and powdery. But with our sleds and a meager hill, we got stuck a lot and had to make our own track to go down on, but it was still playing in fun wet stuff and we had some good laughs from it.

Christmas down south

Christmas 2013

Before we loaded up in the car for the road trip down to Grandma and Grandpa Cottrell's for Christmas, our family had our own little Christmas party which the kids opened presents from us and Gr & Gr Thompson. We took our stockings to Louisiana because Santa would know that we were going to be there for Christmas morning.

Roman did not leave these head phones on for more than 5 minutes but I just had to take a picture because its just too stinkin cute! We love road trips and my boys were troopers

It was a bit on the cold side this winter in Louisiana and we usually put on jackets, but that did not stop Clayton and Hayden from jumping in the cold pool over and over again. I have no idea how their bodies could handle going from the hot tub to the ice cold pool, that would seem like a form of torture to me and they did it to themselves!