Dedication of the Babe

Jackson's buddy Brixton. Next door neighbors in the hospital and next crib neighbors at church.

Baby Dedication night at church. Yes, that is my daughter picking her nose for the family photo. Oh well. I think getting 5 people to all look the same direction AND smile is a tall order.

Jackson and Collin. You know, I know Jackson belongs to God. I know Collin and Katie belong to God. I have the honor of taking care of them and teaching them and training them while here on earth.

Today God lent us a soul.

Tomorrow we must return it prepared for eternity.

Jackson - you are a most precious gift from God to us. We dedicate your life to Him.

What have you been up to?

That is the question of the year. And it's only been, oh, 23 days in 2010. My dear family and friends, I haven't blogged for several reasons. My home computer HATES my blog - it still does the restart thing everytime I try to log on. No spare time, really. If I have a moment of spare time, I probably should throw another load of laundry in or sleep.

New Year's Resolutions: I love to make these, but often break them quickly.
Give up my Coca-cola! - I made it 28 days (these were the 28 days following the birth of Jackson when I thought I was swelling from a high-sodium diet of COKE) with only a sip of the Coke and then completely fell off the wagon. I'm starting fresh tomorrow.

Exercise: I really love to exercise when I just do it, I just need to do it. If I exercise 4 more times in January, I get a prize out of the basket at Jazzercise. I'll do anything for a towel.

Catch up on scrapbooking: I am really behind. March 2008 - you are next. And yes, I do have approximately 1092 pictures from our 7 weeks in Europe and that's after we edited some out. I've only printed 110 so far and nary a one is in a book. Have you seen my dining room table? Probably not, because I've had no one over since December. Well, Sada has seen it and the lady welcoming us to the neighborhood. That was fun to see her eyebrows raise so high, the lady's, not Sada's. Sada's cool with my table looking like it does.

Read my Bible and pray everyday: pray everyday, pray everyday...sorry, got lost in the song. I'm doing a Beth Moore study on Esther now and I love it! But I also have my Daily Bible and the farthest I have made it with continual reading (no catch up days) is from Jan 1 to Feb 19 - the day before Collin's birth 7 years ago! Yep, I'm that bad.

Blog at least once a week: Just to keep the family in Texas informed. I'm missing Texas today.

You know...it's probably best that I do not start to blog at 11:oopm. My random thoughts really start coming out. But my parents will get a laugh and that's what matters. Love you Momma and Daddy!

You know what - we bowled today. We bowled last Saturday too. Why? Coupons. And the kids did their chores. But today, I shocked myself and the family next to us by bowling 2 strikes and 7 spares! What in the world? I was a bowling possessed freak! Um, I took bowling pass/fail at ACU because I was in the gutter most of the time. And it's best to get a Pass in bowling rather than a D.

So in short, I have been up to my ears in laundry and pictures. Next time I blog I will post some pictures. I'm just too lazy to connect the camera to the computer right now. But I have a great bowling ball picture of my Jackson! He's so adorable. And he rolled over today! Back to front! Yep! At 12 weeks! He's a genius!

Oh what fun!

Katie getting a drink from the Frog Prince water fountain at the Schonbrun Zoo in Vienna.
Seeing the peacocks at the zoo.

Panda Bears!

Well, I should be blogging about some current events like putting up the Christmas tree and our 7 week old little Jackson Matt, but I recently went through all 1000+ pictures taken from our trip to Europe. I don't have them all organized yet but here are 3 pictures taken in Vienna at the Zoo (the oldest zoo in the world, it claims). Wow, that was fun! I look back now and can't believe we saw all those amazing places.

Collin and Katie's favorite place in Europe: Europa Park in Rust, Germany

My favorite: any gelato place, Normandy, Paris, Rome, Switzerland!! Oooh too many

Matt's favorite: Berlin, Munich, Paris, Normany, Rome - also too many

Jackson's favorite: Also any gelato place - he just told me yesterday

Blog time is over for now.

Blessings to all my family and friends!

Sorry. Been a little busy. Here is Katie's 4th and other stuff.

Katie turned 4 on November 3.
You might say we are/were a little behind in celebrating.

Luckily our spunky, happy, silly, busy, carefree girl didn't seem to mind. She takes after her mom and likes to drag her birthday out as long as possible.

Thank you Mia for the GREAT 4 year old outfit! We love it!

My dad and mom with the kiddos. Thank you Momma for taking care of us for a whole week!

And thank you Daddy for letting Momma stay take care of us here in OK.

It's hard to see this photo...Katie is the small one in the turquoise dress. This is OC's homecoming. Katie helped crown the king and queen. Actually she carried some flowers and then somehow got the little boy holding the pillow with the crown to switch with her so she could hold the crown.

Luckily some OC students gave Katie her own kid crown and ring and earrings.

Collin thought she was a bit of a showoff, but look at her smiling face.

Jackson Matt

Jackson's arrival was at 8:39am on Monday, October 26. He weighed 7 pounds and 8 ounces and was 20 inches long. Go ahead...check the predictions and see who got closest. It was me! Yip! So I will take that steak dinner sometime soon, thank you Matt!
Surgery should have begun about 7:40am and we had to WAIT a whole hour!! Wow - I wonder what's it's like to not know what time or day you will have your baby - that must be weird.

Katie and Collin had to wait in the parking lot with Pops and Jarre. Mercy was not allowing any kiddos inside the hospital because of swine flu and other illnesses. This news really upset me on Sunday when the nurse called to tell me about the policy. Although I completely understand, I didn't like the fact that Collin and Katie wouldn't see Jackson until he came home.

Thanks Sada for the VERY cute shirts! I love them!

Thank you Catherine - who watched Katie most of the day Monday, so Matt and Pops and Jarre could come be with us in the hospital.

Thank you Stefanie - for picking up Collin from school and doing his homework with him. And THEN picking up both kids the next day and doing more homework and entertaining them.

Thank you Aunt Reese - for driving up from Texas to spend the nights with our kids so Matt could spend the nights with me in the hospital. And thank you for coming to hang out with me while I was in isolation in the hospital.

Thank you Dr. Hager for keeping our baby as safe as possible in my advanced maternal age. You are a great doctor and make surgery lots of fun, really!


Jackson and me - love, love, love him! He is adorable! What did we do before a Jackson was in our life?

On a side note: we have been home almost one week now. Jackson is 10 days old! My sweet Momma is here now to cook our dinner, mop my floors, do our laundry and drive me and the kiddos around wherever we need to go. Thank you, thank you Momma! This leaves me to just concentrate on feeding Jackson and sleeping.

Must go now...baby is calling.

Predictions

Last family photo of 4
And we now move into a zone defense.

PREDICTIONS

Matt - Boy 7 lb 10 oz, 21"
Alyssa - Boy 7 lb 9 oz, 20"
Collin - Girl 8 lb 15 oz, 21"
Katie - Boy 6 lb 7 oz, 18"
Pops - Girl 6 lb 15 oz, 19 1/2"
Jarre - Girl 7 lb 12 oz, 21"
Poppa - Boy 7 lb 11 oz, 21"
Grammy - Girl 7 lb 1 oz, 20"
Colt - Girl 7 lb 2 oz, 20 1/2"
Kristen - Boy 8 lb 1 oz, 20"
Serena - Girl 7 lb 2 oz, 17"
James - Boy 6 lb 5 oz, 16 1/2"

Rhynes and McCooks - you need to get your predictions in or you have NO chance of winning that steak dinner! And you won't be in the baby book. And thus the child number 3 "syndrome" has officially begun...but not by me!

Briefly allowing anybody...

Hello friends and family,
I'm awake at 4:30am on Sunday. The day before the BIG DAY! Because of my last minute surge of hormones and paranoia, I went "invitation only" on the blog. However, some of my older family members are not able to log on or don't have a google account or maybe never got an invitation, so I'm briefly allowing anybody to read/stalk. I mainly have the need to show off Baby McCook arriving in just a little over 24 hours! Yippie!

Pictures and predictions will be posted today - just at a more reasonable hour.

Now...to try to go back to sleep...