The Family

Our New Year's resolution is to have a family picture taken, professionally. Not at the end of the year, not at church after tithing settlement and not by a member of the bishopric (not that there is anything wrong with that). And yes Allan is actually wearing a suit. I realized this week that of all of the hundreds of pictures we have taken over the last year we do not have one with the entire family. Sad but true. Given the high price that quality photographers are demanding these days, we are taking donations. There is an account set up at Zions bank under our name if you wish to contribute.

Christmas Day

We woke up Christmas morning with several inches of new snow. This was on top of the other 2 storms in the last 3 days. It was nice to see snow falling on Christmas Day.

The kids have historically been late sleepers on Christmas Day. However this year the 3 were up at 6am. Keanu eventually rolled out around 7am. I thought 6 am was a respectable time for getting up on Christmas morning even if they didn't get to bed until 11 the night before.
Keanu was funny all day. As we were getting ready for dinner he was sitting on the couch in the living room with his blanket and eating a plate full of cinnamon twists while staring at the lights.

The kids asked for fried rice for breakfast and I made it after Round 1 of opening presents.

For those of you who don't know we started a tradition a couple of years ago of opening the presents in rounds. There is a lot of excitement in the morning and it can get a little overwhelming so we open presents throughout the entire day. One year we didn't finish up until almost 9pm. It makes it seem like there are more presents and we never hear 'is that all?' Also pieces to presents are less likely to get lost or accidently thrown out. The kids also seem to like the suspense. Today we wrapped it up (no pun intended) around 2 o'clock because Cynthia had to go into work later on.

We also try and have 1 big present for the entire family that we open last. This year it was a bag of cat food. The kids figured it out pretty fast what it meant. Because we live in a rural area with a lot of mice we have been kicking around the idea of getting one for some time. A neighbor mentioned to Cynthia this week that she had 2 of them she wanted to give away. So instead of getting one kitten we got both of them.

Kalea's Piano Recital

Kalea begged Cynthia for months to take piano lessons and she finally relented and gave it to Kalea as a birthday present last month. Why a child would beg to take piano lessons is beyond me; however Kalea isn't exactly a 'normal' child. She performed her recital at a care center here in Nephi tonight. Since I could not get away from work for 30 minutes and travel the 1/2 mile to watch, (I have had lots of emergencies the last couple of weeks and today was no exception) Cynthia was nice enough to take several pictures along with a short video. Her piano teacher happens to be the primary president as well.

Kai's School Christmas Program

Kai's grade performed a Christmas program last week. The entire grade was part of a choir while several groups of students performed a variety of numbers in between songs. Kai ended up in a group with 5 other boys doing a musical number dressed as reindeer. As I was watching his group performed I couldn't help but wonder if these boys were the 'rowdy' guys of the grade. After the program I was talking with the parent of one of the boys and casualy mentioned it. Her eyes got big and she said, "Yours is wild too huh!"

I'm pretty sure this first picture is of Kai and his lady friend. In this picture she is looking pretty darn happy while she is talking to him. However Kai tried to downplay the picture by elbowing me in the ribs. He says he can't remember her name..yea right

Funny

I thought this was a funny picture because of how serious Cynthia looks. She was explaining to me the flash on the camera was broken and the problems she was having with it earlier in the day. I picked up the camera, said abracadabra, pushed the button and it worked fine.

The Annual Cope Christmas Party

We attended the annual Family Christmas Party tonight. I heard it was some sort of family tradition, but wasn't sure because it was the first year we have been invited. We started off by having dinner which was followed by several well choreographed activities by grandma. She had the kids write Christmas cards to send to the solider overseas and quilt tying to be delivered to the Women's Crisis Shelter. The evening ended in singing Christmas carols at Cynthia's grand parent's home. For the benefit of the neighbors all singing took place inside the home. I was worried there might be a safety issue if the singing was done out in the open.

Several of the kids sang Feliz Navidad with grandma.

Here is proof as to why the singing was done inside.

Thanksgiving 2008 World Tour

The problem with having Thanksgiving so late this year is that it crowds a bunch of holidays close to one another. This year we decided to have our own family dinner the day before. However we decided to invite some neighbors for our Wednesday feast. I had taken Wednesday off and pretty much laid around in bed/couch all day. When it came time to eat I was more tired than normal and even fell asleep on the floor while our neighbors were visiting with us. I am wondering if doing nothing sometime makes you more tired than doing a lot. Cynthia teased me a little and told me that I wouldn't be able to sleep that night. I fooled her. I crawled into bed at 9 and woke up at 7.

We had dinner with her parents on Real Thanksgiving Day. And it was especially nice because only 3 of the 8 kids were there! There was plenty of food, no spilled food, no long lines. On Friday we went back up and made Christmas Tree ornaments. I had planned on riding my bike up and just meeting Cynthia and kids up there. However, I soon became aware how cold and windy it was, plus I haven't ridden in a very long time, so I chickened out. I rode around Nephi and then drove up later.


The kids made gingerbread ornaments on Friday. The biggest problem we had so far is that Keanu will take them off the tree and bite into them thinking they are food.

We also put up the tree, stockings and lights outside. I asked Cynthia if maybe it was time to upgrade and get a bigger tree. She flatly said no. She also said size doesn't matter...

Saturday night Kai's class was singing at the lighting of one of the parks in town. It was followed by the first annual Nephi City Light Parade. Santa was the Grand Marshall. This picture of Santa on a fire truck took me back being 8 years old and living in New Jersey. I remember waiting each year for Santa to drive by our house on top of a fire truck and give us those little candy canes that were usually broken in several pieces.