Family Reunion

Eating Ice Cream is GOOD!

Caitlin and her chocolate face!

What a wonderful week! We left on Saturday the 19th headed for the Great Smokey Mountains of North Carolina. It took us about nine hours or so to get there. The kids were AWESOME on the drive! And they had NO ACCIDENTS! (YAY!) Our first attempt at a LONG trip with them both in undies! I am so proud of both of them!

We stayed at a place called Fontana Village. My family has been going there for family reunions for 29 years now! (Wish I could say I have been to them all, but sadly, I have not!) They have all kinds of things to do there. They put in a new pool which is wonderful! The twins loved it. We played putt putt with them. (Quite interesting to try with 4 year olds!) The family rented a bout one day and two jet skis. We went out on the lake and went swimming as well as playing on the boat and jet skis. (The kids LOVED the jet ski! Even if Jim threw me and Christopher off it!) Jim and I went white water rafting with a large group from the family. We all played cards. My "Aunt" Mary Ann trid to teach the twins how to play war. We all ate dinner together every night. (A big deal since there were over 60 of us there!) We had a family sing-a-long and even went to Karoke. I have to say it really was a GREAT week! I LOVE how close my family is and how we can get together and just spend a week hanging out. Sadly, the week came to an end, and the good-byes began. I hate good-byes. But I know two years from now, I will be back on the mountain with my family again. And that is a good thing. The twins got to meet so many people and this time, they will actually remember them. It is always a joy to see how much everyone has grown and changed. It is also nice to know that no matter how much we grow and change, we can always fall back together as a family and just be together! I love that.

We made our trip home on Saturday the 26th. Again, no problems. No accidents. (I am just amazed at how well they both did on the drive!) So now we are slowly settling back into our lives here in VA. And I am already looking forward to 2010 so I can get together with my family on the mountain!

The Blooms (My mom and me and my sisters, the one third of the Cooks)


The Cook Branch of the Family (There are 4: Bradshaws, Cooks, Rudman and Weaver) Wish I had a picture of the whole gang, but I didn't have a timer for my camera! So I just got the parts, not the whole gang!


The Three Cook Kids (My Mom and Uncles)


Family Olympics

4 Year Pictures

Tuesday evening we drove down to Virginia Beach at Ft Story to have pictures taken by a fellow mommy from tidewatermommies.com (My mommy group) She did an amazing job! I am still reeling from how wonderful the pictures are! I love them! Thanks so much Melissa! They took my breath away! Here are a few samples. All of them can be found on my myspace page. (if you don't have myspace and want to see more, email me and I can send them to you!)



Ft Story is beautiful! If you need a spot to take pictures, I recommend it! The twins had such a good time taking the pictures. For the most part, they were just themselves and Melissa just captured them being four. I have wanted pictures like this for a long time and I am so happy I did this! I really LOVE them! I hope you enjoy them too!

Off To Richmond

So, with Jim leaving today, I took the kids to Richmond to meet up with my friend Traci. It was such a nice way to spend the day! She is visiting from New York and I knew the twins would want to see Makayla. So my friend Polly and I followed each other up to meet Traci. We drove up to Short Pump Town Center. It was wonderful to see Traci and Makayla and Keegan. The kids had such a GREAT time together! We got to participate in the free meal day at Chick-Fil-A by putting cow hats on the kids! They thought it was a riot!

They also got to ride the train....that was the best part for them!




It was sad having to say goodbye. But I am so glad we went up to see them! Here are some pictures from our day together! Enjoy! Traci...we miss you! Love you!

The Twins Turn 4!

Okay, I know this is late and puts my posts out of order, but I wanted to add some pictures from the twins birthday party. We had a pool party for them on June 21st. Everyone had a wonderful time! There was a pool, pizza, cupcakes and gifts! How could we go wrong? The weather was perfect! I am just thrilled we pulled it off again! Here are some pictures from the festivities!

Then the next day we went over to the sign in our neighborhood which had the twins birthday posted on it. I have pictures of the twins in front of the sign every year from age 1 on! It is always nice to see how much they have changed and grown from one year to the next! It always amazes me to see the changes. So here are a few pictures from that. I love the one of them walking holding Jim's hands! My babies are 4! They are growing up so fast!!

I DID IT!!!

I have been going back and forth about cutting Caitlin's hair for a long time. I wanted to wait until after her birthday. That has passed. Then I was going to cut it in the fall. Then I was going to cut it after her birthday pictures. She got her balck eye and that delayed the birthday pictures. I wanted to cut it before we went to family reunion. So...I bit the bullet today and took her for a haircut. We cut about 4 inches off of it. I am happy, but sad at the same time. I know her hair is healthier. But my baby is gone. She looks older! I almost cried while they were cutting it. Who knew I would get so emotional about it? Okay, here are some pics of her new haircut. Hope you like them!

4th of July Weekend

We had a wonderful 4th of July weekend. Friday we watched the parade here in our neighbore hood and then we headed over to the park for the neighborehood celebration and picnic. We had a wonderful time! Christopher got to climb into a fire truck and pretend to drive!

Caitlin modeled on the truck!

She also got a black eye while playing in the park. She was not watching where she was going and she ran right into a little boy riding his bike who was not watching where he was going. End result, a very upset little girl with a black eye! (So much for getting their four year old portraits done this week!)

Then we left the neighborhood and went up to Busch Gardens for the afternoon. We rode some rides and had a good time despite the rain! We met some friends up there and hid the kids under a tree while waiting for the fireworks. We finally gave up though and headed to the car. We had a GREAT view of the fireworks from the Jeep. Christopher still does not like the noise from the fireworks. Strange since he is such a LOUD little boy! We watched the show then headed home with two tired babies! They both passed out in the Jeep.

Here is a wonderful shot of Caitlin's eye on Saturday!

We stayed close to home Saturday and went to our neighbor's for a small BBQ. Unfortunately, that got rained out too! We had a nice quiet evening at home woth the twins in bed EARLY! Sunday was just another quiet day. All in all a great weekend!

Hope your 4th was just as great!

Guess I am here now

So, I figured I would branch out of MySpace and try bloging here. The beauty of this is that family without MySpace can now keep up with the twins and the family too! Bear with me while I get the hang of this and figure out what I am doing!