A Long Overdue Update

I’m not sure how many people follow this anymore, but I know there is one particular Ant who has been bugging us for an update for some time. So here goes.

Christmas was fun. We had all of the Cook kids home and Grandpa Graham came to visit the week after Christmas. We also got to spend some time with all of the local Domans. Ben still didn’t quite get the idea of Christmas, but he loved all the attention. We got him his own Little People Nativity set so he could wreak havoc on it and not my porcelain one! Instead of taking the pieces out of the tub, he decided to join them in the tub. :)

Here’s a video from Christmas morning. We got him a train set and my Dad built him a table. Tsunami Ben arrived pretty quickly and destroyed the track we’d set up, so we’ve put that away until he’s a little older. He loves driving cars and trains on the table though and it’s a good height to play with all the Little People toys he got too.

I really really enjoyed being home with him for almost 2 weeks. It gave me a nice taste of what it would be like to be a stay at home mom. Someday, I hope, we’ll make that happen.

Ben was a big help with decorating and getting ready for Christmas. He helped make sugar cookies…

and helped decorate the real tree at G&G Cooks.

We got to meet Ben’s newest cousin, Micah. He is adorable, as expected, because all Cook girls have beautiful babies! He’s pretty laid back too and, in general, a happy baby.

Ben had fun playing in his old baby toys. Although his face in this picture suggests otherwise, he really liked to climb in the bouncer.

Mom and Dad were happy to have all of their kids and grandkids together. Long ago, when we were all kids, Mom made us the best stockings in the world. Our names are cross-stitched and the rest is quilted. They are beautiful. As the family continues to grow, we’ve had to make more. Since everyone would be home this year, we had the ambitious goal of finishing all the “new” ones. Most of them had been started and just needed finishing (Ken, Sam, Ryan, Ben) and Micah’s hadn’t been started. Mom, Dad, and I worked hard and got them all done in record time. Dad even had to build a mantle-extension to hold them all. Micah holds the record for the youngest family member to have a stocking – his was done within 4 weeks of birth. They are beautiful!

Since we aren’t all together that often, we made sure to get a family picture, but I don’t have a copy of it. Someone send me a copy of it please… Here’s a good picture of G&G and the grandsons.

You’ll notice that Ben has his hands up in a “touchdown” position. We started teaching him this in Aug/Sept before the college season started. He loved sticking his hands up and getting our reaction. Well, over the break, we watched a lot of football and Ben learned to say “football” and “touchdown” and would say it anytime he saw a TV. It even got to the point where he would wake up in the morning, grab the remote, point it at the TV, and say “football.” Very cute! He also finds footballs everywhere we go. Of course, the stores right now have football displays all over, but the one that struck me was when we were in the doctor’s office. Ben had a bout of a stomach virus (we all ended up getting it, blah), so we were waiting patiently for the doc. I was showing him a picture of jungle animals on one wall. I was hoping he would say the animal’s names after me, but instead he said “football.” Sure enough, I turned around and saw a concussion awareness poster on the opposite wall. On the top of the poster, there was a group of sports players, maybe 6”x6” in the whole picture, with 8-10 people in it. Sure enough, one of the players was a football player holding a football. He is so perceptive, it amazes me sometimes. :) Here’s a video.

In the video, we’re trying to get him excited about basketball since the football season will be over tomorrow… He has started saying “basketball,” but he just doesn’t get as excited about it as he does about football.

For MLK weekend, we went to visit G&G Maconi and Astrid & Mike in Ocala. We had a nice visit with them. It just so happened that Uncle Les and Aunt Patti were in Orlando for a conference and my parents were there for an academic team tournament, so we all convened for dinner on Saturday at Downtown Disney. It was too short of a visit, but fun nonetheless. This technically was Ben’s first visit to Disney, but there’s still lots to show him there!

Checking out the fish at Rainforest Cafe.

and the dragon at the lego store.

Also in January, we all got a stomach virus. I guess Ben got it at school and it moved through the family. Thankfully, we didn’t all have it at the exact same time – we might not have survived that! We then learned that Paul has a urethral stricture. He’s scheduled for a buccal mucosa urethroplasty to get it all fixed this Wednesday. We pray that it goes well, that recovery is quick, and that the surgery fixes the problem for good.

Ben is finally getting more teeth. #9 started coming in last week, it’s one of his molars on the bottom right. We just noticed #10, top left, coming in yesterday. He didn’t fuss at all with the big molar coming in, but he’s been pretty fussy with the top one coming in. Hopefully they all come in quickly so his poor little mouth can feel better.

In case you haven’t gotten enough cuteness above, here are some more pictures and videos. :)

Ready to go to the store.

I love it when he sits like this, it seems so grown up to me.

Ben liked watching and helping Sam play games on his DS.

He loves hugging his new teddy from GGGG Cook.

Going for his first ride in the Grandpa wagon. Dad built this for Sam when he was about Ben’s age and now it’s passed down to Ben.

Ben sliding down his slide by himself.

Ben commanding his pirate ship and blowing kisses.

Ben was laughing hysterically at this fish-ball in the parmesan cheese container. Such silliness to be had with trash!

Ok, I think that’s a long enough post. I hope that will tide you over for awhile. We’ll try to be better about posting in the future. :)