Adventures of the Supersized 6

Who's a Grinch?



It has taken me a while, but I feel that I am finally getting into the Christmas Spirit. I was as my mother in law put, being a Grinch!
With this being my first semester with a laundry list of full time credits I really felt the pressure to get my college experience off to a good start. I have this over acheiver syndrome where I must be the best and do the best at everything. Shockingly I was never like this until I became a mother. Then the need to strive towards perfection became an all or nothing kind of thing. As of the last post soccer season had come to a close and I was trying to focus on school and children's ministries. The school part is now in hiatus mode. I am currently enjoying my 3 week "vacation" from school. I finished with finals last week, and grades were posted today. Although it was not straight A's, it was very very close. (Ok all but one class, and to my surprise, that confounded Algebra was not the one!) No 4.0, but the Dean's list I did make. Santa rewarded me this weekend at the annual Cooke Christmas party! I guess I did make the nice list after all!!

The kids are doing fantastic and are looking forward to jolly cheer and presents as well. I don't think that any of them made the naughty list either. So they will most likely make out like bandits again. They got a taste of it on Saturday when Santa was at the Cooke Family Chrismas party. Noah was all ready to let Santa in on all things Zelda and Nintendo. Madison proclaimed that she was ready to recieve a laptop, MB3 player ("the iPod kind", she says), and she wants her own bathroom. Don't we all sister!? And if Jake doesn't get a football, "He'll just die!". Where did he learn to be so dramatic, oh yes genetics. I think that Annika will be content with the tigger than jumps on it's tail. She sees the comercial on TV and she goes ballistic. In the meantime we are baking and getting decorations and cards filled with wellwishes set out to remind us of the most precious gift of all. The love of Christ. I am no so Grinch-y and feeling the love of the Christmas Spirit!

We had our youth group over last night and held a birthday party for Jesus. Everyone exchanged gifts, and even I got a new coffee cup that I will use and remember how special our little birthday party was. I look forward to what this new year will offer with the youth and the children's ministries. Each one of these young people has such wonderful talent and amazing gifts to offer. I am blessed to have the chance to know each of them.

Speaking of blessings, my family got a special blessing this last week. My neice who is now 20. I vividly remember going to see her in the hospital nursery when my sister gave birth to her!! Anyhow, Ashley gave birth to her first child on Friday. Baby Alex was 5 weeks early, and he weighed in at only 3 pounds 15 ounces, just one ounce away from 4 pounds! He is healthy and breathing independently! Truly another example of God's amazing Grace and Alex is no doubt a little bit of eternal perfection blessed to Ashley!

Well here is to Christmas Spirit!! I hope that God continues to bless what little bit of left of this year and everyone gets to have a little love, joy and family in their holiday hustle!!

No Grinches Allowed!!

Cheers!!


TLM

Well we are still going. Things have calm down considerably since our soccer season has come to an end. Which I am thankful for. School is going good for me. I am finally getting into the groove. I think it was hard to do while I had soccer and that mess going on at the same time. I had midterms going on this last week. There was one last night and I was really nervous about it but I was surprised when I sat down and flew through it. Over all it all went well.

We get some family time now that season is done. We are going to the Newport Aquarium on Saturday, then Jake has his soccer party. Which should be intersting since we will be at a lock in with the youth from church the night before. Family fun day after getting no sleep? Sounds like fun!!

I posted pictures of the kids from soccer in the album section. Check em out. We also have an appointment to get a family portrait done. Which we have yet to have one with Annika. I know we are bad parents. Something tells me that she is not all that worried about it.


TLM

I was in walmart to pick up paint for our youth room at church and they were putting up Christmas banners, and getting the decoration department set up. I haven't even passed out the trick or treat candy and they want me to start buying ornaments!? Crazy!

Things are still in berzerk mode here. This weekend is no exception. We had Pneumonia go through our house. It started with Madie and Noah two weeks ago. By Sunday we had Madie's birthday party and the baby seemed ok during the afternoon. She took a nap, and when she woke she was sounding rough and had a fever. I took her to urgent care and they almost transported her downtown to Children's but I balked about the respiratory therapist that came in and allegedly gave Annika a treatment with albuterol. She hardly tried to keep the mask on her face yet wondered why her oxygen saturation was still at 85%. Hmm.... A new therapist came in a allowed me to assist in holding Annika down so she got to the maximum amount of medication and gee, it worked. They cancelled the transport, the xray showed pneumonia, so we got medication and I was able to take her home. Of course our nebulizer which gets used daily decided after a good 5 years that it was going to poop out. So that Monday in less than 2 hours after the order was sent Children's delivered a wonderful new machine with kits for everyone. I guess it was like Christmas for a respiratory student with three kids with Pnuemonia. So fast forward to today. I am like the mafia enforcer for American Heritage Girls. I am supposed to be the fund raiser chair and there are still people who have yet to turn in their child's paperwork, money, or items. I have 24 hours to close out our sale and submit all of our stuff. Crazy yes. We have tournaments this weekend. Luckily my team (Madie's too) dropped out and are now done with their season, but the boys are still playing. So we have 3 games tomorrow. The bad part is that we won't know all of the times until the first game is played. Oy. It creates a logistical nightmare, but tomorrow should be the only day that it is like this. I also have midterms going on right now. I got through my first one today, in fact we didn't know about it until like 5 minutes into class. I have 3 more on Tuesday, and the last one the following week. Auugghh..!! It amazes me how the human brain can change gears and manange to keep up. I will take a call between my running from one class to another, deal with that and somehow be on top of the next class. I honestly don't know how my brain is keeping this all together... God's design to make us mulit-taskers is being put to great practice on me now.

Aaron and I will be celebrating our 8 year anniversary tonight! Yes 8 years, I can't believe that we have been together for almost 10. Well it will be 10 in April, but who's counting. We are going out tonight with some good friends of ours. It should be a lot of fun. We always enjoy spending time with Tim and Laurel, not to mention a good bottle of wine is almost always involved. Good wine and good company is a great thing to enjoy when one can. This of course sans kids! Thanks Mom and Dad Mundy!!! Mamaw and Papaw are going to take all 4, yes, count them, all 4 of the kids so we can enjoy our evening. That is love.

Well I am going to end of that happy note. I am going to try to scan in soccer pictures so I can post those under the kids albums. Gee....if I can find the spare time.