After having a nice Christmas dinner of Turkey, potatoes, yams, salad, rolls and strawberry jello we headed to the living room to exchange Christmas gifts.

Gift exchange from Ashley to Sharae

From Sharae to Landon, and from Landon to Ashley

Landon slept all day to go to work that night.  He got to do the gift exchange and then everyone said good-bye and he was off to work.

Saying good-bye to Landon.

Landon got a nice I-pod alarm clock from Rae. "I like this, I have still been using my same alarm clock from High School".

Rae gave Bill and movie basket with a movie, candy and popcorn.  Thanks Rae.

I asked Rae for a new picture of her family.  She had some nice pics on her blog so she had one made for me.  She also made in Relief Society an emergency kit for my car.  "I love it Rae"

I love homemade gifts.

Rae opening her Christmas present from Bill and I, she got 2 new PJ sets, one for winter and one for summer.

Bill is explaining the Cook "Cookbooks" to Joe and how over all the years they were compiled together into one nice book.

I am helping Asher put on his new PJ's from mamo and papo.

Asher got a car PJ set and story book that makes car sounds from Bill and I.  Sharae did not want the kids to get alot of toys since they have so many.

Ian loves his toy story PJ's from mamo and papo with the nice activity book to go with it.

Thanks mamo and papo

I am making sure everything fits just right.

Giving a Christmas hug.

Wow!I love it.

getting ready to open mamo and papo's present.

Ashley gave Rae some cuddly PJ's.  They are so cute.

This was definitely a PJ Christmas this year.

Asher admiring the cars on his feet.

Bill and I were worried about getting the right size for the boys.  But they fit perfectly.

Italian chocolates from mom and dad from their trip to Europe.

Dad got Rae some sketcher "shape up" shoes.

A shirt with Paris written on it.  Since we went to Paris we gave the girls each a shirt.

Joe got some nice cuddly PJ's from Bill and I.  Sharae was excited to cozy up with Joe when it is cold.

Hey! Hi Jessie

Ash opening the food storage bag we gave each of the kids for Christmas.  It included all of my homemade canning, such as pears, peaches, salsa, stewed tomatoes, jalapeno jelly to put over cream cheese and eat with crackers-yummy good. Also some dehydrated apples, tomatoes and macayos salsa. 

Last but not least we put in the food storage bag some warm winter hats.  (A friend of Bill's made them for our family, we each got one).

Ashley's Paris shirt.

jess got some cozy PJ's too.

Thanks mom and dad

Landon gave Ashley some of his homemade beef jerky (which he puts special spices on and dehydrates it, his special receipe) and a "life for flight" shirt from Primary Childrens hospital (where he works).  I love it Landon-Thanks.

Jess is excited to have the jerky to eat on their trip to Colorado Springs.

December 18th, Sunday all day and into the night. Our Cook family celebration

We put Chiquita's Christmas outfit on with the antlers.  She walked with her head down like she was being punished.  We took it off after a few pictures and then she was back to her happy self again.

I could not get her to look up for a picture, she was so sad with the antlers on.  She does look like a "little deer".

Sunday December 18th was our family Christmas celebration with the kids, we did lots of fun things.  Here we started playing games the first game we played was called "Scene It". We put the kids to bed after our Christmas dinner and opening presents.

After the kids were in bed we played some Christmas "Minute to Win it" games.  The first one was you had to bounce aping pong balls into three glasses before the timer went off in 1 minute.  Each team had 3 glasses and raced each other. Unfortunately several of us got 2 out of 3 glasses, no one won.  But it was fun trying.

Another game was "bottle caps" you had 1 minute to stack bottle caps on top of the bottle without having the caps fall.  We made couple teams.  for example each couple would take turns stacking the caps on the bottle.  Joe and Sharae won several times.  Ash and Jess won once and Bill and I did not win (just shows how we are slowing down with age)

This is what Bill and my bottle cap tower looked like before it fell-NICE TRY!!!!

Rae and Joe are the BOMB!!

The last game we did was we took a Christmas bulb and a Christmas box and waved it over the ornament to make it roll onto the Christmas "X" marks the spot.  I did terrible.  Again Sharae and Joe had this game mastered.  Joe's theory was to wave the box downward instead of upward to move the ornament and it worked best. 

We laughed and had a good time anyway.  It is fun to think up fun games.  The kids like to play games.

Another game we played was called "LIKEWISE"  you draw 2 cards and if it says doodle then you draw a picture of what you think others would draw.  Sharae and Ashley are truly sisters, they doodled the same picture.  The card said "Legendary Villain."  So they both drew a horse and a stick villain with the same kind of hat.  We laughed so hard because they were exactly alike in detail.

Not only did they doodle the same picture once,  They did it again on another turn.  The card read "Unhealthy snack for kids".  They both doodled potato chips, but the funny part was they drew the chips falling out of the bag.  Who but sisters could do that.  They think the same sometimes.
WE ALSO PLAYED "JUST DANE 3" THAT SANTA BROUGHT THE COOKS.  

It was so nice to have Ashley and Jessie come for a day and 1/2.  Short but sweet. Jessie had been keeping up with the road conditions and anxious to get settled to start his new job in Colorado Springs.

Saying good-bye to Ashley was hard for me.  I just did not get to have her stay long enough.

Ashley and Jessie planned to stay with us on December 17-19.  But there was a storm coming to Colorado so they felt they should leave in the morning  on Monday the 19th instead of early morning Tuesday the 20th.

We did not want them to have difficulty traveling in the snow and fog, so we said our good-byes earlier than planned.

BYE-LOVE YOU BUNCHES!!! and drive careful.

Bye Kids Merry Christmas, Mamo and Papo are so glad you came to see us for Christmas and to be with Aunt Ashley and Uncle Jess.

Sharae and Joe made a special effort to come see Ashley and Jess and to spend some time with the family for Christmas.  We are so glad you came, we had lots of fun.  Drive careful.

Sharae, Joe and the kids left 40 minutes after Ashley and Jess left.  Since Ash and Jess left they figured they should head back home also, Joe had a lot of work to do.  He had been out of town to Boston on a business trip, so he had some things to finish with his work.

Bye, we love you, and Merry Christmas.

we watched till you were out of site.

October 24,2011

Bill and I have been packing now for several weeks getting ready for our trip to Europe.  The day has finally arrived Yeah!!!  Landon took us to the airport and dropped us off on his way to Salt Lake to go to school.  We left SLC at 5:20 pm, we waiting on the run way for 20 minutes due to airconditioning failure, they finally got it working and we took off.  We were looking at a 15 hour flight-I started by looking for 2 to 3 open seats so when it was time to sleep I could lay down.  I grabbed a couple and enc. Bill to do the same. He did not so he had to sleep sitting up.  I traded him later on in the night so he could lay down and rest better.  At the beginning of the flight they served dinner-we had fetucine, salad, roll, cheese and crackers and a brownie for desert.  While we were eating they showed the movie x-men, not my favorite, but something to do on the flight.  We had an ok night sleep, it is always hard to sleep well.  (No pictures to show).  We were just so excited since we have never been to Europe.  We look forward to all the history we will be seeing.  Bill did a great job planning everything.  The only thing I wished I had done was to get more pages in my passport.  We traveled so many places in Latin America that I did not think to do this.  When we got to Paris and checked through customs, the customs clerk said to me "you might have a problem".  It worried Bill and I the whole trip, when they stamp your passport they don't make good use of the pages and stamp right in the middle.  So, your pages run out fast.  Anyway, everything worked out just fine.