Crazy Life at The Warner's

I tried to update this about a week ago, but it wouldn't let me post so here we go again.

Austin had his first swim meet on Jan 18. He kept asking me all day if it was time to go yet. I was so nervous for his that I forgot the camera, thank goodness Julie brought hers. He swam super fast and I was very proud of him. He swam the 50 m freestyle in 35.68 seconds and only has to take off 5 seconds to qualify for state at BYU. He also swam the 50 m backstroke. He swam that in 42.16 seconds. He told me his legs get more tired with the backstroke. He did super awesome and he loves swimming.

Just an update on the kids.

Avery just started taking trumpet lessons again, his first lesson was on Tues. His other teacher left to go to college so we have been trying to find a new teacher. Travis told me to call Mr. Ferrin and see if he was teaching or knew of somebody. So Avery's new teacher is Mr. Ferrin. At his first lesson he found out why Travis likes Mr. Ferrin so much. Avery loved it. He is still playing indoor soccer and trying to get ready for high school tryouts in a few weeks. He has 3 merit badges that are 3/4 of the way done and then a eagle project and he will have his eagle. He has been working really hard. He likes to help the neighbors and the other day when it snowed he was gone for a few hours plowing out the neighbors. I am proud of him.

Chelsea will start today with a flute teacher. Her name is Sunni. Chelsea is still working hard in school. She wants to tryout for the dance team at the Jr. High this year and so she is working hard in her dance class. She really likes playing the piano and she will just sit down and play sometimes for fun. Reminds me of myself. When spring comes she will be playing soccer again. She loves Young Women's and I am grateful for the wonderful leaders that she has.

Austin has decided to try something new this winter. Last fall he didn't have enough time for swimming and for soccer so he picked it back up this winter. In a short time they moved him from the pre-competition team to the comp team. A week from tomorrow he will swim in his first meet. He is going to do the 50m backstoke and the 50m freestyle. I'll let ya know how he does. He loves playing the saxaphone and is still playing the piano. His soccer team played one session of indoor soccer and in a couple of weeks his coach wants to start training outside. They are going to a tournament in Las Vegas in March. Austin just started in 11 year old scouts and he is going to Tracy with his dad and brother this weekend. He needs camping nights for his merit badge. He is doing awesome.

Brayden thinks he may want to swim also, but first he has to have some more swimming lessons. He is the only one that I didn't every make sure he had lessons. I worried about it a lot with the older kids because of the boat, but I let it slip with Brayden. Oh well, he started this week with lessons. I hope that he loves it. He is also taking piano and doing really good. I think Brayden will be my singer. He loves to sing and is always going around the house singing. The other kids get really sick of it and I remind them that we all have things we are good at and we can't stop people from doing what they love. He loves 2nd grade and his teacher. He is most excited about the fact it is 2008. When he was four he always wanted to know how long until he was baptized. I told him when he was eight. He said that would take forever and I told him to wait until 2008. On New Year's Eve after he yelled out the door he came running to me and said "Mom it's 2008 I get baptized this year." In March he will be baptized and he can hardly stand it. I am glad that he is looking forward to it.

That's the fun stuff going on around here.

Life really is back to normal. Just as busy as ever. It wouldn't be normal if we weren't hopping around here. Good thing we are having lots of fun. I decided to give a recap of the last couple of things that have gone on around here and then we will start blogging better. I am trying to have a routine around here, but I have always hated routines.

First, Austin had a birthday on Dec 23rd. I can't believe that he is 11. Here he is getting ready to blow out his candles.

Then of course Christmas happened. The kids asked for a Wii and that's what they got. They spent a lot of the morning playing with that before we even opened presents under the tree. Avery asked for guitar hero and I think Mark likes it the most. He gets to hear all of the old rock music he used to listen to.





The kids also like to play the sports pack that came with it. Bowling, golfing, boxing and a couple of others. Here is Avery and Austin boxing.

Then after Christmas came the rest of the partying. You know it doesn't stop until Jeff and Wendy show up. I love the progressive dinner and everybody always has great ideas for their assignments. I sure love to hang out with my family.

Then Brayden lost a tooth. He has lost his two bottom ones, but I always get a kick out of the top ones. They sure are more noticeable. He was making me laugh the first few days because he found out he couldn't talk very well.

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.