Family Christmas Card

Happy Holidays everyone. This has been a great year for the Cottle family. In January, we welcomed Reynolds Andrew Cottle into our home and he has been a great addition! We can't believe that he is almost a year old. He is crawling all over and making pretty meager attempts at taking a step here or there. We think he is adorable and look at him every day and wonder how we could have created such a round ball of joy.

Jane continues to give us all we can handle, and then some. This year has seen her go from adorable little to toddler, to wild and crazy girl. She has grown to place a low value on sleep and a high value on talking, playing, and driving us up the wall! Even though she can make us nuts at times, we sure do love her and can't imagine life without her. She loves to play with her friends and can't live without her dress up clothes.

Andrew and Sarah have pretty much stayed the same. We can't believe that our 10 year reunions are coming up, where did the time go? We had a great time on our trip to San Diego in May and overall have had a low-key year. But sometimes low-key is just what we need.

We wish you all the best and hope you have had a great year!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Santa Claus

We were kind of shocked that Jane sat on Santa's lap after she cried once she saw him at the ward Christmas party. The library had a special story time with Santa and I guess he was nice enough that Jane was eager for her turn. Once she got on his lap she said I want a kitchen for Christmas before he asked her a thing.

We had to get a special picture with Keegan.

I made bread.

I've been talking about making bread forever but have not felt motivated enough to do it. When I was at my parents house I had some of my mothers homemade bread. The quality is so much better than store bought bread and it taste so good. My mother gave me a bag of yeast for Christmas so I decided when my bread ran out that I would take the plunge and do it. It really wasn't so hard and it turned out great. Still not as good as my mom's but way better than store bought. I even made a fanny cal zone that looks a lot better than it tasted, but still presentation has to count for something right? For most this is no big deal but for me it was cause I don't bake or try to make fancy stuff.

Oh Christmas Tree

It was nice to have a little helper this year setting up the tree. Jane was more than willing to hand me branches one at a time as I fluffed them up making an attempt to make our fake tree look real.

Reynolds wanted to help but his skills are less desirable at this point so we found something for him to do.

Eventually I ran out of patience and had to contain Jane as well.

And our finished product

Thanksgiving Vacation

We decided it was time to visit our families since it had been over a year. We made the trek over to Monore, UT to spend a few days with Andrew's Mom and Dad. We had an excellent visit as always. It is always so relaxing to be in their home and enjoy their company. I was so excited that they still had some leaves on the ground because I didn't get my fall pictures of the kids and I knew it would be too late once we got home.

During my photo shoot with the kids my batteries died on the camera and I forgot to replace them for the duration of the trip so I will have to steal from others. My good friend Megan came down with her husband Ross and daughter Anna. We had a great day catching up with them. Jane loved playing with Anna.

As we were all packing to hit the road they entertained themselves by sitting at the top of the stairs and shouting out the colors as the nightlight switch colors.

We made good time to Boise with little fuss from the kids and enjoyed a week with my family. It was great to hang out with my sisters. Although when it's only the four of us I'm generally the butt of the joke. We had a nice Thanksgiving dinner with all the family that lives in Boise. Andrew got to play some football as read in a previous post and also got to go to a BSU game. We enjoyed time away from the kids and even got in a date. The kids did much better than ever excepted on our 12 1/2 hour journey home. We were grateful to arrive in safety as we came home to a foot of snow. Here are a few pictures that my sister got of the kids playing together. Reynolds loved playing in the bus he thought it was so cool to go in and out of the door.

Cooking in the Kitchen

I was trying to make breakfast dinner for the family which means trying to get the bacon, eggs, and hash browns to all get done at the same time. Needless to say I was a little preoccupied. I kid you not when I turned around I was surprised to see the mess that Jane and Reynolds had managed to make. If you notice the grocery bag is full with grocery's from the pantry. Jane will hide them in her secret cupboard (the empty one cause it's too little to do anything with). I guess it kept them out of my hair. I love that they are getting better and better each day at playing with each other.

Turkey Bowl

I will admit I've been totally lame about blogging lately. I have a few pictures I want to post from our vacation. So stay tuned. While you are waiting you can read about Andrew's turkey bowl game that I totally stole from sister blog, Deborah that her husband buck wrote. So if you are into football you can enjoy this play by play of the 15 minutes my sister and I watched to get some pictures.

Andrew Cottle, Jake Hill and I decided to mix it up Turkey Bowl style....Met with some people from Deborah's church at Cody's school and play some two hand touch/tackle football. It was too cold for the kids, game time kickoff was in the low 40's, but the men persisted. Thanks to Deborah for taking the snapshots and for Sarah for watching the kids in the car.....

Here is a sequence, where if you focus on the eyes of Andrew and the others, this would indicate the ball was tossed to the endzone by a very handsome QB but fell through the hands of one Jake Hill. It was a costly 4th down drop for a touchdown and the QB never forgave the inexperienced rookie. In fact, the photographer felt so bad for the intended receiver dropping the ball, she instantly deleted the pic of the ball going through the intended receiver's hands....smart sister!

Good form by the QB but not sure if this was executed to perfection.....most likely Andrew, in the white shirt, shook off his defender ( grey shirt) and caught the rock for an easy first down!
About 40 degrees at kickoff...here you could see the breath of some of the athletes...notice the grass stain on those sexy white leggings, around the knee.....I play for blood!

Here is Andrew scouring the defense for an opening! His teammate is just trying to keep his t-short tucked into his pants.....Even Deborah noticed this oddity on a football field.

Sometimes you have to keep the lil ones happy...Hopefully the lil unknown tyke in the red shirt will not develop into a Terrell Owens or Randy Moss!

Jake Hill looking good with his hands in his pockets......

Andrew is asking the QB, " What in the heck kind of route is that?"

Buck is directing traffic for one of the various trick plays he tried to pull off over the day.....

The good
Got taken out by the big guy.....luckily he did not lay into me like he could have....at this point, it was somewhat two hand touch! I am just glad he did not land on me like he did with a player in softball this year, where he separated the other guy's shoulder.

The bad....good form but bad execution ...watch the late hit on Jake...cheap shot artist...

The ugly....the Daddy throws a pick 6 the other way.......I actually ended up throwing 2 of these and I blame my offensive coordinator trying to force the QB to spread the ball around. Both of the interceptions I threw were to players with questionable hands and the Daddy should have known to throw the ball to our version of Steve Largent/ Andrew Cottle.

(There are supposed to be some video but I could not get them off the blog I'm sure no one is too sad)