Dog Tags from Dad

When Evan checked mail today there was a letter to the Cook kids from Bill. Here are the pictures of them taking turns tearing parts of the envelope and then they all closed their eyes as Evan opened it. Inside were dog tags for each of the kids that say "With Love From Dad, US Army, Afghanistan 2010" They loved them and thought they were so cool because they were from Dad. Sarah got very emotional which made me get teary eyed =) We sure do love and miss our hero!!

Pumpkins

Carving Pumpkins

Here are some pictures of the kids carving their pumpkins. It was nice this year with Evan and Sarah being older and being able to pretty much do their pumpkins by themselves. They were all very creative this year and I think they all turned out really good!! I have yet to carve mine...will probably tackle it this weekend...or maybe not =) The three the kids did look perfect!! I'll post their pictures in a separate post =)

Evan's Birthday

On October 18th Evan turned 13!! Crazy, I know!! His birthday was on a Monday so on the Saturday before, my mom and I took him to the mall to pick out some clothes. He got a couple of outfits from Hollister and then one from Aeropostle. We also took him to ToysRUs to pick out a couple of Lego sets...he was in heaven!! Then later Saturday night the kids and I went to ITZ. It's the same concept as Chuck E Cheese's but geared more towards bigger kids. We had dinner at the all you can eat buffet and then played games and rode rides for an hour and a half. As much as I was dreading it, we actually had a lot of fun together =) So Evan thought he'd gotten all his gifts already but we surprised Monday night after his birthday dinner. We had him look for some presents around the house playing the hot and cold game...he found things like socks, underwear, tshirts, etc. Then on the last gift as he was looking for it he heard some saxophone music playing (my mom called his new cell phone) He was right by where it was hidden and it took him like two seconds to find it!! He was so happy he almost cried!! He's been wanting a phone for while now and it was pretty cool to see him so happy!!

Pumpkin Farm

Last week we went to a small pumpkin farm up in the Black Forest area in Northern Colorado Springs. There were animals to pet and feed and this of course was the kids' favorite. There was a little train for Liam to ride on, a hay ride, an alpine slide and then the hay tower to climb on. It was a beautiful and warm day too. We had a lot of fun and we each picked out a pumpkin before heading home =)