Grandma and Grandpa Fulks come to visit!

We had such a fun visit with my parents when they came to stay with us the end of January. They got to stay for almost two weeks so we were able to do so many fun things with them. It truly was a "perfect" visit. The kids loved every minute of their time with Grandma and Grandpa, and they were very sad to see them leave. It is hard living away from Grandparents...but we love having them all to ourselves when they come to visit. One night we rented a surrey and rode it around the Board Walk Hotel at Disney. What a fun memory. We were also able to go to the beach, go on a boat tour, do a lot of shopping, walk around Universal, and just enjoy our time together. We had perfect weather with sunshine and in the mid 70's. Nice considering it was dumping snow in Utah while they were here. Gotta love Florida.

My baby is a year old! How did this happen?

COOPER HAD HIS FIRST BIRTHDAY! Yes, my baby turned one a week ago on January 29th. Why did I not post this blog on his birthday...or even a few days later...like so many of my "on the ball" blogging friends"? Well, lets just say that I am not "on the ball" and feel lucky that I remember my name some days. But yes, my sweet baby Cooper, my last child, has turned one. How can this be? Though I love to watch the milestones of all my kids, I have to say that Coop's one year birthday was bittersweet. He is my last baby, and he is just growing up too fast. So many times this past year I just wanted to freeze Cooper in whatever stage he was at, and just enjoy him for as long as possible. I love doing "the baby thing" and I will sadly sadly miss it. But I also love the doing "the toddler thing", so I know there is fun to come but it all just goes too fast.

Cooper's birthday was an exciting day with many fun events. The best event of all was the arrival of his Fulks grandparents in the early afternoon. We have been so excited for this visit from my parents. They are visiting all the way from Utah and will stay with us almost two weeks. How fun that they arrived on Cooper's birthday, just in time for his party. That has got to be a perfect gift for a child (for all of my children actually). Cooper didn't take long to warm up to them, and they were enchanted by all of his new and exciting baby tricks (which consist mostly of clapping, shoving food in his mouth, and climbing on everything).

We had a fun little family party for Cooper. We invited one other family over, and we just did the cake and ice-cream thing. Usually when I give my babies their cake, they just play in the frosting for a bit. Not my Cooper. He dug in immediately, shoving large pieces into his mouth, and continued this for a good 15 minutes. He must have wondered why there was a crowd of people around him laughing at every move he made. Grandpa Fulks got a kick out of the "enthusiasm" that Cooper showed in his cake eating. He truly got "into it". It was very fun to watch. Cooper got lots of fun new toys for his birthday, and it turned out to be such a fun day. We loved having family here to celebrate our sweet boy. They were here a year ago when he was born, so it was very fitting that they be here again.



As I was pondering the magnitude of my last child turning one, I kept thinking back to a year ago when Cooper was born. I had such a hard pregnancy, and a hard recovery from my 4th c-section, yet the time I had in the hospital with that precious new baby was just priceless. All those feelings came rushing back today and I can't believe how much has happened this year. It is amazing how a baby can go from a tiny and fragile little thing, to a chunky, mobile, sweet and funny little boy with his very distinct personality and sense of humor. How blessed I feel to have this boy in my life. We didn't even think we would get a 4th child and tried for a long time for Coop. There were enough problems with getting pregnant, and problems during the pregnancy, that it truly seems like a miracle that we have a healthy and beautiful baby boy. Cooper makes everyone smile. He has such an engaging grin, a darling little language of his own, and lots of "super cute" tricks up his sleeve. He loves his family and lights up when the kids come home from school, or when Dad walks in the room. He wants to be right in the middle of everything and he is so fun to play with. He has been an easy baby and a wonderful sleeper. He eats anything (and everything) that we put in front of him. He loves the water, he loves going for walks in the stroller, and he loves playing swords with his brother (he really does this...and it is so funny). Happy Birthday Cooper. We love you so much.

Here are a few photos of Cooper during this last year.

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".