Crazy Life at The Warner's

So we are mostly back to good health and Avery had his stitches taken out yesterday and life is cruising along. I just realized that Christmas is right around the corner. Good thing my shopping is done and the tree is up. We put the tree up the Friday after Thanksgiving and Kayla was here with Chelsea helping her decorate. The girls had a blast. Kayla said her mom only lets her do a little decorating and then she has to go to bed. She was so excited that she got to help with all of the decorating. I usually decorate the tree in the living room, but I let Chelsea and Kayla do it this year. It looks great. The two of them did a great job. I don't like the snow really, but I sure love it on the Christmas lights outside. I hope that the storm we are getting this weekend will help cover the deer and trees in my front yard. We are going to the Bell Concert at the Conference Center tonight because we couldn't get tickets to the Tabernacle Christmas Concert next weekend. They did the tickets different this year and it was out of my hands. You had to register online and then they held a random drawing for them. Syndy Lambert gave Mark and I two tickets to the concert, but that means the kids can't go. Mom had gotten these tickets for tonight so we thought it would be better to take the kids to something. I love the concert because it really gets my Christmas season started. I love Christmas time and the spirit that you can have when you ponder the real spirit of Christmas and what Jesus being born has meant for all of us. We love all of you and think of you often, but especially at Christmas when we all remember what love is about.

So on Saturday of Thanksgiving we had Avery in the Instacare. He was running a fever and said his throat hurt. You guessed it strep. Then Chelsea told me her throat hurt too. Avery stayed home on Mon and Tues and Chelsea was home on Tues and Wed. About Wed. I ended up on the couch. Mark kept telling me I had hurry and get better. I couldn't keep anything down. It just went right though me. Well finally Mark told me that he was surprising me for our Anniversary and Brandon and Julie were coming on Friday night to stay with the kids. He told me we were going to The Homestead. Finally at about 3:00 Friday afternoon I went and took a shower and got ready to go. It was fun, but I still wasn't feeling terrific. It was really pretty because we had a bunch of snow dumped in the mountains. On Saturday we got up and went to Park City for a little shopping and when we were almost ready to come home Austin called me to tell me Avery had a hole in his nose. He was sledding with Brayden and another boy that was there was snowboarding and the board flipped up and hit Avery in the nose. Brandon took Avery to Instacare (again) and we met him there. He ended up with five stitches and no broken nose (they took x-rays). Austin is also running a fever and I'm sure it's from all the Cooper Thanksgiving fun. Several of the Cooper clan have been sick.


I guess even though we are all a little under the weather that tomorrow Mark and I have been married for 18 years. I think that is a big accomplishment. I love Mark more than I did 18 years ago and I am still glad I made the choice to marry him. We have a "little" bit of craziness at our house with all the boys, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

We had a great time planning, making and eating the traditional Cooper feast. We went to mom's on Wednesday when Wendy was there and pretty much spent the rest of the weekend with each other. On Thursday we did some of our "Black Friday" shopping on line, that was a first. I had most of my shopping done already so I didn't get up early and go shopping at 4:00 am. The kids had the West Valley parade so I went to that and caught up with the girls for breakfast and shopping the rest of the day. I found this really fun thing at Tai Pan. They are called Skookies. You make cookies, personal pizzas, brownies and tons of other things in these little cast iron pans. We made brownies and pizzas in them. The best part of "Black Friday" is going through the ads over and over and over and over again. Jeff said it was way to much of course, but we still do it. We have to get our game plan for the next day. On Saturday we watched the "BIG" game. The game made me nervous, of course, but it turned out the way I wanted it to. Then Sunday, because we haven't eaten enough by now, we had birthday dinner for the November birthdays. It was a great weekend with family. I am super lucky to have the great family that I have. We of course missed Stacy, but we at least got to talk to them on line.

Well several weeks ago we cleaned up the leaves. If you notice the "big boy" won't play in the leaves anymore. Just look for him in the background. If was really fun. The dogs even got in the middle of it all. Avery took the pictures of the dogs and they just sat there. I was amazed at that. We don't like cleaning up the leaves, but playing in them first makes it better. Later that night we left a present on Travis' backstep. He said he wanted leaves for the garden so we took them over.

We have been staying busy at our house. Of course life has slowed down a little bit with soccer being over.

Avery started wrestling at school and he has already had four meets. Two of them he couldn't compete in. He got hurt at wrestling practice last Friday. He slammed his knee on the mat and sprained it really good. He has had a brace on since then and we were told that if it didn't feel better in 7-10 days to take him to an orthopedic. Today he was actually walking a little bit more normal. I think that is a good sign.

Chelsea is dancing and playing the piano and of course working hard to get good grades. She keeps busy with that stuff.

Austin will start indoor soccer tomorrow and he is back swimming again. He really likes it and wants to be on the comp swim team. He will only be able to do swimming when he is not playing outdoor soccer. They conflict too much.

Brayden is staying busy with the piano. He is working hard in school and has a daily review to complete every day. They don't get a grade if the assignment is correct, but if they are prepared. Every day they have to look up some fact on the internet and tell what they learned. He really likes to do that.

I really can't believe that this year is almost over. It has really flown by. I guess the saying, "Time flies when you're having fun" is really the truth.

I guess you are all wondering if we had any fun on our trip to San Francisco. We had a great time, but Mom called me to make sure we were home. On Tuesday at about 9:00 they had an earthquake. We were home by then, but mom reminded me that when Wendy went to San Fran is high school they had an earthquake that day also. At least the one that happened with us didn't collapse any bridges. Well back to the trip. We went to Fisherman's Wharf (Pier 39), drove down the crookedest street, ate yummy food (Mark had crab, yuck), Six Flags, Muir Woods and the Beach.

On Pier 39 they have an area that the sea lions just hang out. We watched them play in the water and sun bathe and make lots of noise. They bark really loud and are fun to watch. This started out our vacation. On Friday after we arrived at our hotel we drove to the wharf and wandered around looking at all the sights.

At Six Flags we watched several shows. As we were watching this dolphin show I thought about Stacy and how much she loves them. I thought this was a cool picture so I had to share it with you.

This is from the killer whale show.

This is from the sea lion show. We went back at night to watch the spooky Halloween show and tried taking pictures, but it was too dark and we were too far away. Both shows were really fun and the kids loved them. Avery took video on his phone and Chelsea took pictures with her phone.

In the middle of these shows we rode some of the rides. Since I love going on the rides (ha, ha) I had a lot of time to sit around. I was bored during on of these times and so I was playing with my camera since I am still trying to learn how to use it. I took this picture of a flower that I thought was pretty.

I have to do something to entertain myself. Well we went to Thomas land and so for Cooper I took this picture.

All the kids had a great time having a ride on Thomas. They had several places for kids to ride little rides. Toontown and Thomas land. While Chelsea and Austin rode the big kid rides Avery took Brayden to the kid towns. Brayden would ride the big rides, but he is not tall enough yet. Avery doesn't really like rides either.

We ran into several looney toons around Six Flags and Avery was really having fun with Donald Duck. I thought this was a funny picture. We had a lot of fun at Six Flags.

Another adventure that we had was to go to the Muir Woods. It is not the big Redwood Forest that people go to, but they had big redwood trees. I was amazed at how tall the trees are. The pictures don't really give it justice. The trees are around 300 feet tall and have been growing for thousands of years.

I was laying on the ground trying to take this picture so you could see how tall the trees where.


The Muir Woods was a really cool place to visit. To get there from where we were you had to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. The kids liked going over the bridges. To get from our hotel to most of the places we visited we had to cross the Bay Bridge. They liked seeing the huge ships and all the sail boats on the ocean.

Another place we went to was Lombard Street. It is the crookedest street. We drove down it three times. I had forgotten how steep the rodes in San Fran really are. Some streets where the cars where parked it looked like they could just roll over and go down the hill. I would hate to live on this street because of the traffic.

So on Monday we went to the beach. The few days before it was about 75 and sunny. On Monday we went to the beach and it was not warm. It was about 55 and cloudy and it had been raining a little bit. I can't believe the kids actually got in the water.

Avery of course got the wettest. The whole reason for going was because they wanted to skim board in the ocean. They tried, but it was a little bit harder than at the lake. The waves are a little bit faster.



By now Brayden was freezing. We spent about an hour there and had a great time. Chelsea and I of course stayed dry.

Well considering that we had to change plans at the last minute we had a great time. It was fun to go back to San Fran again. Mark and I went when Avery was about 8 months old and saw Phantom on the Opera. It has changed a lot since then. Our favorite place to eat was at Boudins. They had sour dough bread. Most of the family had clam chowder in sour dough bread bowls and I had pizza on sour dough bread. We even bought some canned clam chowder and bread bowls to bring home. I was a great vacation.

Austin and all the 5th and 6th graders performed at school for Halloween. They had black lights and white cut up shirts and white gloves. They turned out the lights and did a lot of songs with hand actions. The gloves just glowed. They asked us not to take flash photos during the program so I ended up with a few cool looking pictures during the program.



They sang some songs, just did hand actions to other songs and told jokes. It was really fun. Austin's teacher, Ms. D. (her last name is too hard to spell), is new to the school this year and has done this at her previous school for lots of years. They practiced for about three weeks every day. They worked really hard and it was a great program.

Here are some pictures from the last few games of soccer that we played. I took pictures of Avery and Austin's games since I already had some for the other two kids. Soccer is over until Spring. We will be playing indoor with Avery and Austin, but that is nothing. No practice, one game a week and it's fun. I love the fast pace and the ball bouncing off the wall.

Avery is number 11. He claims he will not play soccer unless he is 11. I guess he thinks that is made other people in the family lucky to wear that number so he has to also.




Austin on the other hand just picked a number when he made the team because 11 was taken. He is number 99.

Well we are headed on vacation, a little bit disappointed, but still on the way. I'm sure it will be fun because we will be together. Our plan was to go to San Diego for UEA weekend. We were going to go to the BYU football game, but that would be hard with people living in the stadium. It sounds like there will be people everywhere. I hope the fires are put out soon and that nobody else looses their houses. On Monday mom asked if we were still going because of the fires. We of course didn't know about the fires. On Tuesday Mark called the hotel and they said that Sea World had been closed since Sunday and didn't know when they would reopen. We talked to the kids and decided that we wanted to go west because we want to play in the ocean. We are still going to California, but we are going to San Francisco instead. We are going to Six Flags, Fisherman's Wharf, ride the trolley, go to the beach and whatever else we can find to do. I will be taking the camera and will have pictures when we get back.

After we went to Brayden's game we had another game to go to. We met Brandon and Julie at the game and I should have had Mark take pictures of us all bundled up. It was very cold. Chelsea said it wasn't too bad, but she was also running around. It was supposed to be another rainy and cold day, but it only sprinkled a few times during the day.





Pretty good balance.
She wanted to be #11, but somebody got to it before she did. So she had to go with number 6. Her team has lost every game this year, but she it getting better as soccer and they had a coach this year that had a least played soccer before. That's what happens in recreational soccer you usually have a parent that just helps and doesn't really know that much about soccer. She has one more game this season and then we get that break until Spring. Oh well there is still piano, flute and dance to work on. She also has school (lots of homework). She has straight A's and is working hard. Good job Chels.

So here's Brayden and his friend Koby.

We went to Brayden's game on Saturday and I knew how to use the burst on my camera. I also knew how to change the zoom lens so I got some better pictures. I will someday be as good as Janae and Stacy at taking pictures, but you work with what you've got.




I like that I can take pictures right in a row so you can see the whole run with the ball and the kick that follows. He is starting to catch onto soccer more and has scored one goal this season. They have one more game next week and then we are done until Spring. Usually I am sorry to see this time come to an end, but with the play added on top of soccer this year I am actually ready for a break.

So Chelsea played her last Jr. High Soccer game on Oct. 1 and I took the camera this time (I finally remembered it I should say). She doesn't like the pictures, but I think they are cute. I didn't know how to put the other zoom lens on and so I had to crop and zoom in on the pictures. I got home that night and Mark gave me a quick lesson on how to work the camera (mini lesson I guess). So here is Chelsea playing her last game. Kearns didn't bring their JV team so Hunter played each other. They were the tucked and untucked teams.

I'm glad that she has had so much fun with soccer. She did really well and played hard and learned a lot.

She made lots of new friends from the team and learned how much fun it is to play with just girls. They make up cheers for each other and have fun being together.

She also picked up a few soccer skills. Thanks to her coach, team and her brother. Remember Avery was the team manager/coach. He helped with the goalies mostly.


And here's Avery playing with the girls. I think he had a good time and liked coaching.

I just have to say that I loved Conference this year. It started off the week before when Mom and I went to Women's Conference and ended with the last session of conference. For several years I haven't been able to watch conference on Saturday because of soccer, but because of weather and not having as many games scheduled I was able to watch all four sessions. I don't have a favorite speaker I just loved all four sessions. I felt the spirit touch me and remind me of some things I could do better with. I love it when conference affects you like that. Good thing I was ready to hear the messages at this time. I am pretty sure that every conference is like that, but I don't always feel like I got anything new out of it. I chalk that up to not being prepared to feel and hear the spirit. I am grateful that I was prepared to feel that spirit. I am excited for the Ensign so that I can read the talks again.

Well I am finally learning how to use the "BIG BAD" camera that Mark bought (and Travis and Robert). I think when soccer is over I may take the class. I think I need to do something productive with my time and I think it's time for me to learn some new things. Anyway, I took some pictures of Chelsea's room and I am letting her put them on her blog mostly, but I am putting one picture on mine. I at first didn't like the way her room was turning out. For a while because of doing it around soccer and play practice we didn't get very much accomplished. We would walk into this room with bright green on three walls and the old color on the other wall, it didn't look very good. By the time we had the purple wall painted and started putting down the floor I started liking it more. The final touch made me love it. All the hot pink. I love Chelsea's room and I like it even better because Chelsea and her dad got to spend time together working on it. She learned how to take off baseboard, she learned how to paint and she learned how to put down a floor. Now if she ever needs to do this for herself she will know how to do it.


I love the room I hope you can tell from this picture how cute it is. She did a great job with her dad.

So I'm a little slow in getting this done, but here you go:

4 Jobs I've had:
1. Right now I am an ESL (English as a Second Language) Aide at Sandburg Elementary. It works out great with the kids school schedule. I work from 9-12:30 Mon-Thurs.
2. Until last December I worked at Unibase (ACS) doing data entry. I did that for 14 years so that I could stay home with the kids.
3. Before I had the kids I worked at Utah Home Fire as a receptionist and I got to work in the same building with Mark.
4. The job I had as a teenager was a hostess at Francesco's in Magna.

4 Movies I Could Watch Over and Over:
1. Gone With the Wind
2. Finding Nemo
3. Princess Bride
4.

4 Favorite TV Shows:
1. Law and Order
2. ER
3. 10:00 News
4. Soccer and BYU Football games

4 Favorite Reality TV Shows:
1. Biggest Loser
2. Dancing with the Stars
3. I don't really watch too many of these shows
4.

4 of My Favorite Places I Have Been:
1. New York
2. Disneyland
3. San Diego
4. I am excited to visit Stacy in Australia so that will sure top the list.

4 Favorite Foods:
1. Orange chicken at Panda Express
2. Pizza
3. Enchiladas
4. Yummy Potatoes and Meatloaf

4 Websites I Check Daily:
1. Blogger
2. Email
3. Wells Fargo (got to check my money)
4.

4 Hobbies:
1. Reading
2. Piano - it is still my stress release
3. Step aerobics
4. Kids - I love to watch them doing the things they love to do

4 Family and Friends I Would Like to Tag:
1. Lana
2. Devin and Julie
3. I think the rest of you tagged everyone else I have on my blog.
4.
Tag your it!!

Well the next crazy thing around here is that AVERY (not mom or anybody else) decided that he wanted a haircut. I was pretty shocked because the hairstyle he wanted was really short after his long hair. For instance I found a picture of Avery at the family campout this year and Julie had french braided his hair. Let's see before.

















































Well I'm sure you get the "picture" about Avery and his long hair. He told me on Saturday that he was going to the neighbors for a haircut. I didn't even think about going along until it was too late. Picture time during the haircut would have been priceless. Apparently the floor was a couple inches thick with just Avery's hair. So instead of the inbetween pictures you can only get the before and after. I am going to get the hang of this blog thing and remember that I need my camera with me where ever I go because you never know what crazy thing will happen. So here are the after shots. Gotta love it. I love his long hair because I love his natural curl, but he is sure handsome like this.
















































He just washed his hair before this picture, but he is actually putting gel in his hair and spiking it a little bit. It sure looks nice. So it will just keep getting crazy around here with a teenager and more teenagers on the way. Stay tuned for the next crazy thing that happens.