Coo Coo for Cocoa Beach!

Last week-end the kids had two days off of school for Martin Luther King day. A co-worker of John's offered us his condo out at Cocoa beach. The offer came at a perfect time. A time when we just wanted to "get away". Cocoa is only about 35 or 40 minutes from our house, but it feels miles and miles away from "every day life". Those of you who know me know that the beach is one of my very favorite things in the whole world. I love the sounds and the smells and the beauty. We loved the beaches in Seattle so much and still miss them, and we love Florida beaches in a different way. I just can't even imagine not being able to live close to water now that I have had a taste of it. To me...it is paradise. I could just sit on a beach, stare out into the ocean for hours. I love taking walks on the beach, or playing with my kids in the surf. Most of all, reading a good book on the beach. I also just love the feel of the sand. In fact, John and I have collected sand from about 12 beaches that we have been to since we moved to Florida. I guess we are just "Beach people". So... our week-end was just perfect for us. We loved the great beach front condo. We loved leaving our windows open and hearing the surf all night long. We loved playing on the beach and the pool. The weather was a little cloudy and a little chilly a few of the days, but we just threw on some sweatshirts and continued to enjoy the beach. It reminded us of our beach combing days in Seattle. John and I loved running on the beach. We did lots of running and swimming preparing for our triathlon that is coming up in a couple months. We loved watching the cruise ships go out and come in. We played a lot of games, watched a lot of DVD's, ate yummy treats, went for walks, read books, wrote our names in the sand, played in the surf, and generally just enjoyed ourselves. Cooper could not get enough of the sand and couldn't resist eating a few handfuls. Kinsey was obsessed with writing her name in the sand or spelling it out with shells. Carver was all about the boogie boarding, and Kennedy was all about playing board games. Good memories for sure.

Santa came to Florida

Excited kids, Christmas p.j.s from Grandma Fulks, ready to hang their stocking and head for bed. I made these stockings last Christmas, when I was still pregnant with Cooper. I made Cooper's little stocking and remember it hanging on the hook last year...being so excited to meet him. It was so fun to have him with us this Christmas. He didn't really know what was going on, but he sure loved the paper and the boxes.

The kids all had a great Christmas day. We spent it all alone... in our pajamas, doing whatever we wanted. It was heaven. The kids didn't even come down until around 8:30 or 9:00 (we have trained them well). We did the whole present thing, then had our traditional Christmas brunch which includes breakfast casserole, and monkey bread. We lazed around watching movies, taking naps, and enjoying new gifts. We talked to our families on the phone, and even made a call to my sister Linda on our new "web cam" that she gave us. We gave one to both grandparents, so we should all be set up soon. We love things that make us feel closer to family. We are very grateful for such a nice Christmas day.

Count down till Christmas!

In the Lopez house, there was much excitement for Christmas. We had a fun and busy season full of shopping, and visiting and parties. We went to a fun Christmas festival in our town square of our neighborhood. There is a giant tree in the center of the square and it was so fun to see that every day driving or jogging by.















The week-end before Christmas, we went down to stay with my sister Linda and her husband Randy. They live in South Florida. Andrew, their youngest son, just got home from his mission, so it was so fun to spend time with him. The kids are his biggest fans, and he spent hours playing with them. We all call Andrew "Howard" as Carver came up with that name for him before his mission. He just started calling him that one day...and it stuck. While we were at Linda's house, Linda kept mentioning "Andrew". Finally Carver came to me and said, "mom, Linda said Andrew is here...where is he"? I told him that he had been playing with him all day. Carver looked up at me and said, "You mean Andrew and Howard are the SAME PERSON"? And enlightening visit for sure. We sure had fun eating and lounging and partying with Linda and her family. We came home on Christmas eve.



On Christmas eve, we had a huge Christmas party at our house with seven families. We did the same thing last year, and both years have been so much fun. There are quite a few families here that don't have family close by, and so we just become family to each other. We had more delicious food than I could have imagined. The kids had a huge bingo game, and played football in the back yard. The adults played some fun couples games, then we had a kid gift exchange...followed by a good old game of "dirty Santa" for the adults. You should have seen the amount of "gift stealing" and trash talking going on. It was so much fun. There was still time at the end of the evening to have our own little family "Christmas Eve" and that turned out to be so nice as well. I definitely had some excited kids.







Here is Kinsey and some of her friends at the Christmas party. The party ended up having a little group of kids for each of my kids. Teenagers, tweens, rowdy little boys, and crawling babies. We are grateful for such good friends.

SAY CHEESE! PLEASE!!!!! I'm begging you!

If any of you have ever tried to take family pictures, you can understand when I say that it is only slightly better than pulling teeth. I figured it was time to have an updated family photo. Important...considering we have added a 4th child to the mix. Well, I love photography and take all my own pictures of my kids and occasionally take pictures for other people, so I have the hardest time going to a studio. I like to be able to control the setting, the light, the composition...and make sure our arguments are only within the earshot of just a few passing neighbors. So what is the answer...hmm...THE TRIPOD! Well, I think we got some good pictures with the tripod, but I have to say that the experience was all too comical (at least now it seems that way. At the time it was a little more frustrating that that).

No matter how much warning I give my family, it always seems like the "family picture photo session" is coming as a complete surprise to everyone...and possibly might ruin their lives. There tend to be arguments about clothing and hair and color schemes. Or, if you are Carver... the argument would simply be over the fact that he has to wear "long pants" and shoes. Just kill him now. Though I have to say, Kinsey was in the best mood as she is now old enough to want the picture to be all about her. So in between the "don't touch me" and the "everyone just hold still and pretend you like each other", we somehow got some good shots. And hey, you can't always tell that I have just pushed the button...and sprinted into the picture.

I love this shot. John's trying to make Cooper look at a lone camera on a tripod like it is the most amazing flashing light in the whole world, (boring), Kennedy is sweetly strangling Carver, and me and Kinsey are posing perfectly, oblivious to the others.

I love Coopers face here. He looks like he looked much of the photo shoot. Like he is thinking ..." these are the five people I am stuck with forever"?

Oh how I love that baby face!

Cooper is 10 months old. In no time at all, the first year of his life will be in the past. NO!!!! Cooper is my last baby and I am enjoying every single moment of this experience. I sometimes wish I could freeze him at this age. I love all the "baby" stages, and I just think I am going to be sad to see them pass...for the last time. This boy brings us all such joy. Half the time around our house you can see us all gathered around Cooper as he entertains us with his many noises, facial expressions, tricks, and silliness. It's even cute when he throws his food on the floor (well...not for the person that has to clean it up). We love it all. Cooper took a long time to care about being very mobile (a true blessing and a wonderful thing for a veteran mom). He was just happy kind of sitting and doing his own thing, or slowly scooting around. I could put him in one spot and know that he would stay there. It was AWESOME. Well, in the past month he has wanted to be more mobile and started crawling. Though he is into everything and has pulled the huge bar chairs on top of him a couple of times, pulled two lamps off of tables, and keeps trying to eat the cell phone chargers, and constantly has something new in his mouth (legos last night), it really is cute seeing him crawl. I just love this little baby face. I want to kiss it all day and see that cute smile. What could be better than cute little chubby ball of joy that brings such happiness to everyone. What a blessing. Maybe I could shrink all the kids back down to this size. Okay...maybe not. There is something to be said for a child that can bathe and feed themselves. But I sure enjoy this little boy!

Carver and Madi

For Thanksgiving, my brother Jon, and his wife Jodi came to visit us all the way from Utah. They have two darling girls, Madi is three, and Tyli is 11 months. We had such a wonderful visit with them. We had a great Thanksgiving day full of food and fun. They stayed for a week so we also went to the beach and the pool and shopping and the movies and we played games and just had a great time. We are so glad that they came to visit. I was looking through my pictures the other day and found all these great shots of Carver and Madi. Carver and Madi were literally inseparable the whole time they were visiting. They are the cutest little friends. They may be two years different in age, but you would never know it by closeness of their friendship. I think they played non-stop, even late into the evening for the whole six days they visited. I don't remember one fight or argument. I just love to watch them together and see the love they have for each other. Always holding hands, hugging, or helping each other with something. What a neat thing. Cousins are the BEST!

Highchair Goo

It's been so long since I posted, so I had to ask myself, "what in the world have I been doing". I thought of a few things to answer that, but I have decided that it all boils down to High chair goo. Cleaning it up that is, which leads me to a few other things that have been taking up my time,so I thought I would list them, starting with...cleaning, taking care of a baby, cleaning up after that baby, cleaning up after those other three, getting those three to clean up after themselves, playing with baby, kissing baby, changing diapers, getting homework done, driving to tennis, driving to soccer, driving to dance, driving to piano, going to volleyball games, picking up from volleyball practice, feeding Cooper, cleaning the food off the floor and walls (because of Cooper), doing mountains of laundry...and then doing it again, school projects (a lot this past month), doing stuff for my church calling, enjoying having company for Thanksgiving, running errands, giving lectures on "loving one another", primary presidency meetings, cleaning the kitchen, getting kids to clean the kitchen, making chore charts, reading stories, singing songs, cleaning up piles of toys that Cooper as dumped, changing diapers again, making meals, sometimes making kids get their own meals, scripture study, Family home evening (which sometimes ends up being Family home argument), vowing to never yell again, making enough jewelry to accesorize a small country, having a huge Christmas jewelry party, decorating for Christmas, redecorating (when Coop pulls things down), training for my next triathlon, doing my friends hair for a fancy occasion, carpooling home from school, snatching a few moments with John here and there, drying tears, trying to find one solitary pen or pencil in my house, running the girls to the church for activities (25 min. drive), trying to get the grocery shopping done before the baby melts down, cleaning my floors...again, Christmas shopping, making Christmas cards, going to playgroups, figuring out how to switch from baby mode to teenage mode on a dime, kissing boo boos, listening to girl drama, advising against jumping on the furniture...again, cleaning the goo off the high chair, cleaning the goo off the baby, cleaning the goo off of myself, breaking up fights, making kids mad at me, giving hugs, putting together train tracks, enforcing consequences, witnessing tantrums, babysitting a friends kids, giving baths, cleaning up towels, giving the "no towels on the floor" lecture, getting one particular child to realize that a clean room is something that needs to occur more than once a month, doing bedtime, attempting to have a little "no-kid" time, sending a kid or two "back to bed"...and...cleaning more goo off the highchair.

I know that just about any mother in my stage of life could pretty much write that same paragraph. There are days that I don't feel like I get to sit down. Sometimes everyone wants to talk to me at once. Sometimes I am in the car with the kids all afternoon and into the evening, and sometimes between work and church stuff, me and John don't get to see each other all that much during the week. And truly, most day...by bedtime for the kids, I feel like I have run a marathon and that I need to be "off duty" for a while (too bad that occurs before bedtime and not after). But...I also feel more joy than can be expressed when my tiny baby puts his chubby little arms around my neck, or when he grins at me and babbles some wonderful babytalk. When my 5 year old tells me that he loves my hair and that I am the prettiest mommy ever, or I hear him say a prayer where he remembers to bless everyone and everything under the sun, this also brings me joy. I find true contentment in seeing the amazing students my girls are, and seeing how they deal with the pressures in their lives. I see the good decisions that they make, the good examples they set, the kindness they show, and I couldn't be happier. There are moments when I look around the room and see these five people that belong to me and I know that this is what I want to be doing. Of course I could be snapped out of that dream of contentment by a little "She looked at me weird", or "He's sitting in my spot"...but at least it occurred. I just thought I should write some of this down...because I know that someday when things calm down...I will miss all this craziness (I think). I wouldn't trade my life with my husband and 4 kids for anything. This is the life I always dreamed of...believe it or not. I love these five people so much. Highchair goo and all.

Kennedy's new hair

I guess it was time for a change. After years and years of long hair, Kennedy decided to go short for a while. My friend Amy cut her hair while she was here visiting. We all think Kennedy looks very "sassy". She loves her new hair and is enjoying how easy it is. I guess my little girl is growing up.

A little Swing Dancing with Kinsey (video)

The youth in our ward have recently been learning to dance. A young couple taught them how to swing dance at an activity, and so these kids get together and dance quite often. Kinsey and her friend Clay really got into the "swing" of things, and they ended up being good partners. What a fun thing for all these kids to be learning.

Amy and Amy

Just over a week ago, one of my very best friends came to visit me all the way from Utah. Amy Stevens and I have been friends since our junior year in high school and have stayed close ever since. I get to see her and her family each summer for a month, and so even our kids our close friends. Our oldest daughters, Kinsey and Mia are very best friends and e-mail constantly and spend endless time together in the summer. Amy was able to come and visit me for six days...and she even got to come ALL ALONE. Her five kids and husband sent her off to have a fun week with me. WE HAD such a great time. John pretty much took over everything with the kids and sent us off to play. What a great husband. Amy and I spent a day at Universal (how fun to go to an amusement park without kids...we felt young again), we went shopping, and out to lunch, went to the pool, had a movie night out, had a movie night in...and even got to spend a whole day at the beach alone. As much as I love going to the beach with my kids, I have to say that it was fun to be there without hauling 100 pounds of chairs, towels and beach toys with us. Two beach chairs, two diet cokes, two salads...and that was plenty to keep us occupied all day on the beach. We had absolutely perfect weather and it was so fun to talk and talk and enjoy one of my favorite places ever. I loved having Amy in Florida and showing her around, introducing her to my friends, and letting her be a part of my life. We talked non-stop for most of the time she was visiting. We laughed and laughed about our past escapades together, and about the crazy things our kids do, and just about life in general. I feel rejuvenated as a mom. Every woman can use a good dose of BFF time.

Halloween Hoopla!

What a great Halloween we had this year. We had a Halloween party at church on the 30th, and that was fun for the kids to get to see their church friends and parade around a bit. Halloween night is always amazing in our neighborhood. Here in Florida, or at least in our area, the Halloween decorations are so elaborate. You would think it was Christmas with a spooky twist. I guess it is because we have such great weather right now, so it is easy to get out and make your yard look great. All the houses in our neighborhood have these great covered front porches, so most people sit out and pass out candy. Spooky music can be heard, and even some sound effects from certain houses. It feels like a giant Halloween party in our neighborhood. Very fun for the kids. This year I stayed home with Cooper (he went around for a few houses) and the kids went with John (and Kinsey went to a fun "teen" party with some friends from church). I think the kids got enough candy to feed a small country. Fun was had by all. Kinsey decided to be Minnie mouse this year. It is actually the very same costume that she wore when she was 18 months old. Just fits a little differently.
Kennedy was a "Flapper" from the 20's

The cutest blond vampire I have ever seen. When we got to the Halloween party, everyone kept walking by Carver and saying, "Hey Dracula", or "What a cool Vampire". Carver looked up at me with total surprise and said, " Hey mom, how does everyone know that I'm a Vampire"?

The Vampire tried to bite the Flapper a couple of times. We had to keep an eye on them.

Cooper was a tiger this year. I figured he needed a "tiger mommy", so I dressed up too.

Cooper was all about the lollipops. As he was eating one, he had a look on his face like, "You have been holding out on me mom...all this time you have just been giving me a tasteless binki".

My Triathlon

I DID IT! I competed in my first Sprint Triathlon. It went so well, I beat all my best times, and had a blast with my 8 friends that competed with me. What an amazing feeling to accomplish a goal like this. I have never done anything like this before, never considered myself much of a competitor, and the word "triathlon" has always scared me. I can think of many words to describe this process. First...It was scary (the mere thought of it...in the beginning), and challenging (learning so many new things and getting stronger and stronger), exhilarating (always a great feeling after doing a really hard work-out), and exhausting (I can't tell you how many miles I swam, biked and ran in the past four months. Some mornings my body didn't want to function), and bonding (I grew so close to the girls that I was training with. I trained alone most days, but it was so fun to get together and talk about it and then train on Saturday together), and empowering (the first time we did a tri run-through and I knew I could do all three events together, it was an amazing feeling...felt like I could accomplish anything). If you want to read more about my "journey" to the triathlon, and more about the race, I have written a far too detailed account in my previous post (the long version).

My results:
race time: 1.18.58 ...including transitions(I was hoping to do it in just over 1.30, so I was thrilled)
split times: swim (750 meters) 12.22 min. bike (12.7 miles) 37.52 min.
run (2.75miles) 23.53


Rankings:
4th in Novice division (all the first timers)
4th in overall age division (35-39)
25th overall (out of about 200 competitors)


Me and Sara Rose,( one of my best friends), got to the race bright and early (well, not so bright) to set up our transition area.











All my cute "triathlon pals". L to R - Stephenie Dowdy, Jessica Martinez, Me, Andrea Rediski, Beckie Lowe, Marie Winchester, Traci Bosch, Sara Rose, Larell Lockhart.








And the race begins. Can you see me? I am the one in the orange swim cap.











Only 12.7 miles to go.

I can see the finish line. Yea!!!!!!

All of us "post triathlon" with a few kids and friends. Every one of us finished the race, improved our times, and accomplished a big goal. Yea!

My Triathlon journey..I really did it! (Long version)

Yesterday I competed in my first ever sprint Triathlon (1/2 mile swim, 12.7 miles bike, 2.75 mile run). It was an all women's event. I'm happy to say...I DID IT! I'M ALIVE! IT WAS SO FUN! I can't believe I am saying the words..."it was so fun", but it really was. It is so amazing to be able to achieve a goal like this. Doing something that I never pictured myself doing. I have been exercising my whole adult life, five days a week, and have competed in 5k's here and there, did my first 10K this summer, but a triathlon just seemed like too much. But somehow, me and 8 of my friends were inspired by a friend to do this triathlon. Many of the girls had to learn to swim, a few hadn't been on a bike since they were kids, most didn't like to run, and 4 of us had had babies in the last year. So a group of "athletes" we were not. But motivated we became. Though I mostly trained on my own (except for Saturday's) we supported each other and talked "triathlon" at playgroups, bookclub, church, and through e-mail. I became so close to these woman and loved sharing this experience with them.

I have been training six days a week since mid August (though before then I was running every day), and I really enjoyed the variety of the three different events. I had not biked since I first got married, but I borrowed a road bike from my neighbor (now I want my own) and learned to bike. Though I had some battles with the toe-clips for about a week...we soon bonded. I biked 12 miles pretty much every other day. Soon I added running onto my biking day. The other three days a week I would swim (in our neighborhood pool...advantage of living in Florida...year round swimming) and also run or bike. I trained from 7:30 to 8:30/9:00 every morning after I got the middle two kids to school, but John and Kinsey were still home with Cooper (middle school starts late in Florida). On Saturday's I would sometimes train with friends, and we even did a few mock triathlons to make sure we could do the whole thing. By the time I did the triathlon, I really did feel ready. Nervous about things out of my control...but ready.

The race went so well. The weather was overcast and around 75 or 80 degrees (better than our recent temp of 96..only a few days ago). John and the kids were there to cheer me on, me and my friends had been there all morning getting ready. There was excitement in the air. The race began and I felt confident in every event, and though it was hard and very challenging, it was what I had expected. Swimming in the lake went great (my friends and I had done a practice run the week before) and I actually felt very comfortable out there with almost 200 other women. Me and my friends were in the second wave (We decided to do the Novice category...for first timers) and we started 3 minutes later. We had orange swim caps, and the first wave had pink. As we got into the water and I swam past the first marker, I noticed that I started to pass quite a few pink swim caps, and that was very motivating for me knowing that they had started three minutes before me. My friend Sara Rose and I hopped out of the water ahead of a lot of the "oranges" and started our run to the transition area (1/4 mile barefoot and in a swimsuit). Sara was ahead of me and I was determined to catch up to her. Sara and I are the most evenly matched in the race and so she and I are always neck and neck and have a little friendly competition going on. She happens to be one of my closest friends, and so it was fun to have her near me in the race. If anyone was going to beat me, I wanted it to be her. We got to the transition area and had to put our shoes, shirts and shorts, helmet, and glasses on. Sara was on her bike before me and about 30 seconds ahead. I felt good as I got on my bike and I was determined to catch Sara. I had to pass 25 people, but I caught her around mile 3 ( much to her chagrin), and got ahead a bit. I think both Sara and I pushed ourselves harder because we were competing against each other. The biking was hard, but it felt good and went smoothly. I passed a lot of people and no one ever passed me. I saw a lot of my friends as I looped back and it was so fun to yell out to each other. The transition from the bike to the run is logistically easy because all you have to do is put your bike on the rack, throw off your helmet, and start running. But it is physically the hardest transition. LEGS FEEL LIKE BRICKS. My legs seriously didn't feel like they started to work for almost a mile. Even though I have most experience with running, the run was hard. I think I kept a pretty good pace, but it just seemed so long. The end of the race was a beautiful thing and the feeling of running over the finish line was AMAZING! It was fun to have so many people from our ward there since so many of us were competing. I loved seeing John and the kids at each transition cheering me along. They were the best support. I had hoped to do the race in about an hour and a half. In practice I was a little over that, but I figured I would do a bit better on race day. Well, I surprised myself. I finished in 1.18.58. Just shy of an hour and 19 minutes. I couldn't believe it. Sara was two minutes behind me, my friend Jessica was four minutes later, and then our other friends soon after that. We all finished and everyone did such a great job. Another girl in our ward ended up winning the whole event. She did not train with us and we were not aware of her "abilities", so it was really neat to see how well she did. 1st place over all. Wow. Way to go Laurell. I did end up being 4th place in the "novice" category (probably about 60 to 70 people in that category), and I was 4th place in my age division over all...and would have come in 2nd place in the 20-25 division (okay, so I am 37, but it felt good to know I beat some of those young whipper snappers). And I was 25th out of the whole 200 competetors. My swim time for 750 meters was 12.22 minutes, my bike time for 12.7 miles was 37 minutes, and my running time was 23.45 minutes. Much improved times from my practices. I am just so thrilled with the way the whole race turned out. What an amazing experience. I have never felt like an athlete, but now...maybe a little bit! I am addicted and can't wait for my next triathlon.

Our volleyball player

On Thursday of this past week, Kinsey found out that she made the Avalon middle school Volleyball team. WE ARE SO PROUD OF HER. She had try-outs for 4 days, and she worked so hard. She tried out for the past two years and got so close to making the team, but it didn't quite happen. The school only has one team (opposed to a team for each grade), so there are very limited spots. We are proud of Kinsey for being persistent and never giving up. She is looking forward to the hard work of this season. She has an amazing coach that has played volleyball in college, and even coached a pro-team and Olympic athletes. She wanted to give back to her community by coaching middle school, and Kinsey will benefit.

What's up with those Lopez kids

Kinsey is 13 and in 8th grade (going to high school next year...help). She is an excellent student, and avid reader (rarely do I catch her without a book fused to her hand), and a great help to me (my life changed the minute I had my very own "built-in babysitter", though I do share her). She loves volleyball, church youth activities, and goofing around with her friends. Every day she tells me that Cooper is the cutest baby in the whole world. She is really a great kid and a fun teenager (if those things actually go together).



Kennedy is nine and is in 3rd grade. She is also a hard working and wonderful student. I think Kennedy's teacher would be lost without her as she seems to be the " rememberer " of all details. Kennedy wants to know the mysteries of the universe and will keep asking questions until she finds them. She keeps me on my toes and certainly lets me know what the clock says any time we are running late (like I want to know). Kennedy loves to dance, loves to talk, loves playing with Cooper, and loves to play tennis (she just started lessons), and loves going on vacation to Utah to be with cousins.


Carver turned five this year. He is in Kindergarten now and he is loving it. Carver loves to run, jump, wrestle, climb, pound, and stomp (usually on my furniture). He is playing his second season of soccer and really enjoys it. He loves his baby brother Cooper and is the only one that can get him into a good long belly laugh (which usually includes some of that running, jumping, wrestling and climbing). Carv loves the beach and can't get enough of boogie boarding. He is all boy, but still has time to give me a hug and a smooch and to tell me how much he loves my hair. Gotta love it.


Cooper is almost nine months old. His interests include slobbering, playing with toys, slobbering on toys, eating snacks in his highchair, slobbering on his highchair...and eating some more. He is the joy of our home and he makes everybody smile...no matter what mood they are in. We know that he is brilliant and possibly gifted by the way he says, "A Da Da Da". He is a wonderfully happy and easy baby that loves everyone and gives a ready smile and a little bit of flirting to anyone who pays attention. He is a good sport as he follows his siblings from one activity to another. He loves the pool and started swimming a little on his own by the end of this past summer. Life is fun with Coop and we are so glad he is part of our family.