The Cooley Clan: April 2010

April 26, 2010

Jacob makes Toffee

Sunday, April 25th Jacob bugged me all day to make some treat. First he asked if he could make some Salt Water Taffy, then some cookies and finally he asked if he could make some Toffee. I was tired and wanted to rest and read my book, so I told him if he wanted to make it by himself, he is welcome to do it. As you can see, he did it but Rich had to go in and help him make sure it was spread quickly on the pan and monitored the whole thing, but Jacob did a pretty good job all by himself! It turned out good enough to drop off at some of our neighbors' homes as well. Jacob is going to be a good cook when he grows older I can tell. At least he enjoys being in the kitchen...most boys DO NOT!

Space Derby

Get ready for the FINALE...Jacob's rocket hit the finish line and flew off into the grass because it was so fast! I think Qaiden is going to LOVE Cub Scouts when he turns 8 and starts!

The rockets were powered by tightly wound rubber bands that when released, flew along the wires from one end of the wooden board to another.

Saturday, April 24th at 10:00 a.m was the Cub Scout Space Derby at our Stake Center Bowery. Jacob filed his rocket and painted it really well....it looked the best of all the 9 rockets there (with red flames at the tip. Of all the rockets, his made it to the end and beyond!!! None of the other rockets came close to beating his each time! AWESOME ... CONGRATULATIONS Jacob, on a job well-done! (Richard helped him get started so way-t0-go honey!) Jacob did have Taekwondo at the same time, so we were going to have to miss it but he didn't want to since he spent a bit of time filing it down and painting it. I guess it was worth it in the end! All 9 boys got a participation medal for a job well-done!

April 22, 2010

Qaiden's 6th Birthday

April 6, 2010 was Qaiden's Birthday. He turned 6 years old! It's amazing how much he's grown...I love this funny boy! He livens up the party with his sense of humor! He didn't really ask for a party, so we kept it within the family since his great Aunt and Grandma was here visiting. He said he wanted fried eggs on toast for breakfast, grilled cheese with dill pickles for lunch, and mexian food for dinner (we did Beef Fajitas)! For a cake, he said he wanted a fruit cake so I did my yummy Fruit Cream Tart-with blueberries & strawberries on top (see my health blog for the recipe)! It was very yummy and perfect for a light and springy dessert! He got the Mario Kart Wii game for his birthday and some other little toys and candy on his door. He was soooo happy! This is his new favorite game now and he would play it EVERYDAY if I let him. As it is, he is only allowed to play the Wii on Friday's and Saturday's and/or special occasions.

April 10, 2010

Discovery Gateway Children's Museum

Riding a horse is not that hard...I can do it with only 1 hand on the saddle!!!

Aleah...let's Pretend!!!

One fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue fish...

Rachael, Jacob, Qaiden, and Aleah each decorated a COY fish in the Arts and Crafts area!

Luke takes a ride in the wheelbarrow....WHEEEEEEE....

Qaiden plants and harvests his own vegetables from his very own garden!

Rachael rock climbing at the Children's Museum

The Family at Discovery Gateway Children's Museum Entrance

APRIL 10th, 2010- We got a FREE one day family pass to the Discovery Children's Museum at the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City that admitted 6 people. Prices are usually $8.50 each usually, so it was a REALLY nice pass that saved us quite a bit of money! I think we got this free pass from Eagle Bay Elementary...perhaps from one of the kids' teachers???? I can't remember!

Each time we finish reading one of the books of Scripture (Book of Mormon, New Testament, Old Testament, etc) we have a family party. We just finished reading the Doctrine & Covenants as a family about a week ago, so our party consisted of taking the kids to this FUN museum for the day. We got there at about 11 a.m and played till almost 2 p.m. We were hungry, so we walked along the out-door mall to the Food Court and got each of the kids a hamburger and adults a snack wrap from McDonalds. We quickly returned to the museum for more fun until about 3:45 p.m. when Rich and I were too exhausted to do any more activities! The kids had a lot of fun and could've stayed until closing!!! We have now started the Book of Mormon for the 2nd time as a family and I am VERY glad because the D & C was definately hard to keep the kids' attention! The B of M is much more open to discussion and already the kids have had many questions following the beginning of the book! It was definately a fun day!!! When we got home, I made Cauliflower soup and had french bread! Now we are getting ready to play a game with Grandma Cooley and Aunt Edith...Aunt E definately LOVES games!!!

What we did early April...

April 14th Grandma and her sister, Edith left Wednesday morning after Grandparents Breakfast at Eagle Bay Elementary. Grandma and the kids had a nice time together that morning and they left a couple of hours later. Rachael said she had a stomach ache after eating too many sweet muffins and doughnuts that morning and I had already left to drop Aleah off at Preschool in Bountiful, so Grandma had to call Rich who called the school to let Grandma pick up Rachael and bring her home. This is why Rachael is in the picture. Qaiden has afternoon Kindergarten, so he is in the picture as well. It was a nice 1 1/2 weeks with them!!!

You see the flowers that Rich got me for Easter? Aren't they beautiful?! The kids' favorite time with Grandma and Aunt Edith was spent playing games. Here they are playing Quiddler with Rachael. Aleah is hiding behind the flowers! The kids had no school from April 5-9th after Easter/Conference weekend, so we went to the Hess Gym on Hill AFB every morning at 8:30 a.m to workout for an hour. We ran errands and did a little shopping with them. On Friday night we used the kid's eat free coupons they got from school and took everyone to McGraths Fish House for dinner. It was a nice evening...we came home and made some carmel popcorn and watched The Princess and the Frog (we rented from the Redbox).

One of Luke's 1st meals....and WOW did he CHOW down!!! He couldn't get enough of the rice and squash so he thought he'd shovel it in his mouth himself!!! YUMMMMMMMM.........

APRIL 8th...Spring is finally here and because it was so warm outside today, Grandma Cooley, Aunt Edith, the three youngest and myself all went on a LONG hour walk around the neighborhood (around the Oakridge County Club). We just bought this double jogging stroller on KSL.com because our Baby Trend double jogging stroller is completely worthless now...we've had it since we moved to Logan, Utah in 2001 and was a fairly good stroller. I hope this one will last a while because it was the cheapest we could find ($120). We were pretty hot and thirsty when we got home and the two littlest ones (Aleah & Luke) were SOOOOOO exhausted as you can see in this picture. Aren't they cute?!

April 8, 2010

Easter Sunday

Richard's mother and aunt Edith even got some chocolates and we gave Grandma Cooley a nice picture frame (with a grandmother/grandkids thought engraved on it) with a nice 4x6 photo of our children inside. It was a nice Sabbath day with Conference followed by a delicious meal of clam chowder with homemade breadsticks.

Jacob got the book series called- Diary of a Wimpy Kid even though he's already read them all, a cow pooper, a puzzle, a chocolate bunny etc...

Rachael got the Chronicles of Narnia book set, church shoes, lip gloss, a puzzle, a pig pooper- poops out jelly belly's ;) a chocolate bunny, etc...

Qaiden got a Curious George and Duck!Rabbit! books, a cow that poops out jelly belly's :) a Cars game box with bingo cards and other games inside, a Zhu Zhu pet hamster, a chocolate bunny, etc...

Aleah got a Baby Bear book, a coloring book, puzzles, a pig pooper-a toy that poops out jelly belly's ;) a white chocolate bunny, etc....

Luke even got a few wrist-rattle toys from the Easter bunny!

This Easter was special because it was our General Conference (180th Annual) weekend as well! Saturday we watched the morning session and then we had our Easter Egg Hunt in the afternoon before the Afternoon Session of General Conference began. On Sunday, April 4th, the Easter bunny dropped off a few things for us. The following pictures of each of the children show you what they got...each also got a travel toothbrush...

Easter Time!

Aleah's unforgetable SMILE!

We're going on an EGG HUNT...

This year I decided to color coordinate everyone's Easter eggs, so Jacob had 16 yellow & orange eggs to find, Rachael had to find 16 purple eggs, Qaiden looked for all 16 blue eggs, and Aleah looked for all the pink ones. This way they all get the same amount of eggs and we could hide the older kids' eggs harder than the littler kids'. It worked out GREAT! No fighting about who got more or less! I also decided not to put lots of candy inside...only a little bit. Some had grow-em toys that grow in water, some were filled with little fairy stamps (for the girls), they each got a grow-em towel that grew in water as well. One egg had a packet of pop-rocks inside (candy that pops/sizzles in your mouth), some had jelly belly's inside and the big ones had some money inside. Grandma Leah Cooley and Aunt Edith (Leah's sister) drove up from Arizona to spend some time with us and so they hid all the Easter eggs for us! They had a lot of fun!

Funny Kid Moments!

December 20, 2011- We were all in the kitchen making gingerbread and I had just taken out the first batch of the gingerbread boy and girl. As I attempted to scrape up the girl on the spatula, she was too soft and started to fall apart as I quickly placed the mangled mess on the brown paper bag! Qaiden pointed to the messed up cookie and said, "Ladies first!" and "Mom killed her!" It was just so funny I changed from being really upset that I had ruined the cookie to laughing so hard at the random funny comment! I keep telling the boys, "Ladies first", and I guess it is sinking in!

November 2011- I like to recycle plastic containers and so I had just washed out one of them and placed the plastic lid on top the toaster (near the sink) to dry. Jacob went to put some bread in the toaster and while in there, the lid melted! Just a little while later as I was getting dinner prepared, Qaiden sat on the stove counter right next to the hot stove top. I told Q to get down off the counter but he was slow to obey. I had turned off the stove, but one of the burners was still hot and so as Q sat there, his coat was lying on the still hot burner and his inner part of the coat melted. I was a bit angry with him for not being obedient and was pretty frustrated. At this point, I turned to the boys and said, "Ok, and the winner for the 'NO-BRAINER' award goes to...drum roll please...QAIDEN!" I changed from being angry to laughing because of how funny my own comment seemed to me! ;) (Sometimes you just gotta laugh at yourself!)So, whenever we do something stupidly funny, we call it the NO-BRAINER award! It's become quite funny to see some of the silly things we do each day!

May 25, 2010- As the kids got ready for school this morning, I asked Rachael if she remembered to get a leotard for Gymnastics today after school. Qaiden overheard and said "...it's NOT Aleah-tard, it's a Rachael-tard! And I would wear a Qaiden-tard!" Ohhhh the silly things that kids come up with!

Jan 20, 2010- I was in the middle of winding the cord of our kirby vacuum cleaner while singing 'Ring around the rosies a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes we all fall down'...and Aleah just standing there all the sudden dropped to her bottom without bending her knees (looked a little awkward). It was just one of those moments that made me laugh because it was so unexpected!

Who Is... Richard LeRoy Cooley II

With much pushing and proding from Charise and a little from her Mom, I am attempting to briefly answer the question "Who am I?". To begin, I was born to wonderful parents, Richard LeRoy Cooley and Leah Tryon on October 16, 1970 in Little Rock, Arkansas. I am the 2nd eldest of eight children... Nichale, myself, Rodney, Roger, Oralea, Tawnya, Andelaura and Gayla. I moved to Mesa, Arizona when I was about 3 years old and lived there till I was 9 years old. In the summer of 1980 my family moved to Carthage, Missouri where I spent the most important and influential part of my childhood. It was during my time in Carthage that I finished grade school, Junior High and High School. I graduated from Carthage High School in May 1989 and shortly after entered the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, Utah, January 1990. I served an honorable mission to Brasilia, Brazil. Shortly after my mission, I enlisted in the Air Force and was Active Duty for 9 years. My time on active duty in the Air Force was spent in San Antonio, TX (Lackland AFB) for basic training, then I went to Technical School in Dever, Colorado (Lowry AFB) after which I moved to Hill AFB in Clearfield, Utah. I was afterwards, stationed in South Korea (Osan AFB) and was there for 1 year. Then I cross-trained from Munitions (otherwise known as "Ammo") to Computer Maintenance and went to Buloxi, Mississippi (Keesler AFB). My time as an "Active Duty" enlisted member ended in Anchorage, Alaska (Elmendorf AFB), where I met and married my wonderful wife, Charise Alithea Nebeker. Her father worked as the Chief Auditor at Elmendorf AFB and was just around the corner from the Headquarters bldg. where I worked in what was called the RAOC - pronounced rock - (in the basement of that bldg.). We met in June, 1997 at the LDS Singles Branch at the Maplewood Chapel in Anchorage, AK and dated till she went back to Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho. Charise came home for Christmas and we got engaged January 1, 1998 and got married that summer, July 18, 1998 in the Salt Lake City Temple! It was a VERY special day for me! We lived there in Anchorage till 2000 and then moved in to Charise's parents home (10411 High Bluff Dr., Eagle River, AK 99577) for 10 months to save money for school. Thanks to Charise's parents we were able to save a substantial amount for school, which eventually was used as a down-payment on our 1st home. We had just had our 1st baby, Jacob LeRoy, August 26th, 1999 and then we were blessed with a baby girl, Rachael Anne on March 9th, 2001. We moved to Logan, Utah, May 2001 so I could go to school at Utah State University to finally finish my degree in Electrical Engineering that I'd been trying to finish for quite some time and which was VERY difficult to do while working in the military and moving around a lot. I also transitioned from Active duty to the Air Force Reserves shortly after arriving in Logan. I got my Bachelor degree December 2003 and got a job working with the government on Hill AFB as an Electronics Engineer six months later in a three year internship. We moved closer to the base in May of 2004 soon after our third child was born; Qaiden John, April 6, 2004. I was fortunately to get commissioned as an Officer in the Reserves about a year after starting work at Hill AFB and just before going back to school to get my Masters of Engineering in Electrical Engineering. It only took me a year and a half. I am currently a Captain in the Reserves and work as an Individual Augmentee (IMA) in the 508th ASW, which is an Active Duty unit. Our 4th child, Aleah Reese was born on my wife's birthday, February 28, 2007, in Layton, Utah and we had our 5th child, Luke William on September 19, 2009 at Davis Hospital and Medical Center in Layton, Utah as well. Life is going well for my family and we are grateful for ALL of our blessings!!!