Monday, December 8, 2008

Doing Something Right

If you are like me...you have plenty of days that you feel like maybe you aren't getting through to your kids and that you may possibly be ruining them. See my next post above, and you'll understand what I mean. Well today was a kudos day for me (finally) when Connor came home from school with his Thanksgiving list. I want to get a picture of this and post it (many of you know this will probably never happen) but for now (wink, wink) I will list what his paper said:


Make A List

What are some of the things you are thankful for?

Connor wrote:

God
my family
school
home
food
books
me
to be safe
mom and dad


And to top it all off, this is the actual order! I may have listed food a tad bit higher but hey, he's got his priorities. Thanks Connor, I'm thankful for you too!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Halloween: Cooper Style

For Halloween weekend we were lucky enough to kick it with my sister-in-law Mandi, her husband Ryan and their two adorable kids Chris and Max. Here are the kids in all their costume glory! The funny thing was I thought I was all cool by buying some glow necklaces for everyone, just to have Mandi bring a bunch too. We are cool, right?!









Saturday we all headed over to the Nature Center and enjoyed the wonderful weather on the way.
But of course this was all a ruse, (don't even know if I used that word right but I've always wanted to try) because the real reason for the excitement was was being able to watch the BYU football game. And boy we were not disappointed. GO BYU!

Thanks for sharing the weekend with us, Coopers, we miss you already.

Monday, October 27, 2008

What did you call me?

Today while I'm fixing dinner Kaelene randomly comments, "Mommy...Elise drinks milk just like I do."
Me: "Uh huh, except you drink cow milk and she drinks...
Kaelene cuts in: "baby milk."
Me: :"Yup."
Kaelene: (after what looked like some deep thought) "We drink the same milk, Mom!"
Me: "Well, except your milk comes from a COW."
Kaelene: "Yah, Elise drinks the SAME milk." (she then runs off to play)

I'm confused, did my four year old just call me a cow?

Monday, September 29, 2008

Presenting: Elise Rebecca



Elise joined our family officially on February 24, 2008. We

love her very much. Connor and Kaelene (her older brother and

sister) often ask if we get to keep her. She is very sweet and

loves to be cuddled and held. Elise often laughs with (or at)

her siblings and enjoys grabbing at the dog's hair. She is

already trying to do the things everyone else is doing and

lets us know if she is feeling left out.We are excited to see

how she changes as she learns and grows but we hope she

keeps her kind disposition.

P.S. These pics were taken by my good friend, Ann

Eldredge. Isn't she amazing?!


Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Fish Out of Water


For those of you who know my wonderful husband Wade...he is a take charge kind of guy. He knows where he is going and what he is doing at all times. He is a planner, so he can respond with confidence in many situations because he has probably already 'researched' the death out of it. Case in point...if he ever decides he wants to purchase something, he not only knows it is a good price (he's kept his eye on it for at least 6 months) but he knows if we can afford it because he keeps track of every red cent we spend. Yes, every penny. Even if I buy dental floss, it has a category and he can tell you how much we've spent on that category last week, last year, or for the last 7 years. And it's all tallied on his precious Quicken. So going to Germany was no different. He read book after book and web sight after web sight about what to see and how to see it. He polled family members and friends who'd been, what they thought about seeing castles vs museums and on and on. So needless to say, Wade was once again prepared for anything on this trip. But planning to be in Germany and actually being in Germany is another thing entirely. For the first time, Wade was out of his element. He was finally for the first time in our marriage of 9 years, a fish out of water. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the guy completely but seeing him trying to communicate with someone who has no clue what he was saying and he had no clue what they were saying was comical to say the least. No this isn't to say that Wade didn't try to communicate in the native tongue of Germany. Someone said, "Guten tag" ('good day' in german) to him one day and without skipping a beat, he said, "Hola!" Later, I over heard him saying, "Ein Bisschen" to someone. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "I was saying, 'thank you very much' to that nice person." I hated to burst his bubble that he was actually saying, 'a little.' Eventually, Wade just decided that I should just do all the talking because as you well know, 2 years of high school German does make one fluent. Right? Then since I was taking care of all the talking, albeit how elementary it was, Wade decided that he would just enjoy the funny sounds of the german language. Wade noticed that the word, 'verboten' was in bold type most places we went. It means, prohibited, not allowed. Or as Wade likes to think, forbidden. Wade just kept saying the word over and over again. Das ist verboten(that is prohibited, forbitten). Verboten this, verboten that. Verboten that, verboten this. Well, one day while we were in an art musuem an old security guard came up to Wade and pointed to the baby back pack on Wade's back and said, "blah blah, blah, blah blah, VERBOTEN!" It was all we could do to not burst out laughing. Wade looked at me and said, "Well, the guy said 'verboten,' I guess that's that." We were snickering so much we couldn't argue. Verboten had been evoked; the law had been laid down!

Sunday, September 14, 2008


Salzburg was amazing. We loved this imposing fortress on top of the hill. And the fountain was beautiful too. We'll be home tomorrow. Love to all.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

"Achtung, Baby!"

"Look out, baby!" The Alleman's are finally joining the crazy world of blogging. And from no other place than the gorgeous country of Deutschland! You read correctly, we are in Germany and we are having the time of our lives.

Here we are on the backside of the Neuschwanstein Castle. It was built for King Ludwig II and was Walt Disney's inspiration for Disney's fairytale castle.

Well, I must get back to planning my adventures for tomorrow, stay tuned. Auf Wiedersehen!