The Nile River

We are learning about ancient Egypt from a book called Story of the World. These pictures are of a model of the Nile River that we built. We planted grass seeds along the banks of the "Nile" and flooded it to see why exactly crops were grown along the banks. We also learned about pyramids and made our own out of clay to add to our model.

Making Meringue

Kyleigh decided she wanted to make lemon meringue pie for a treat for Daddy because it is one of his favorites. I agreed, but told her she had to be in charge of the meringue and pick the lemons off the tree. She did a great job on the meringue. She developed a system to make sure she added the right amount of sugar to the meringue. She wrote the numbers 1-6 on a piece of paper and crossed them off as she added each tablespoon. Our pie turned out great and the fresh Hawaiian lemons really add a new dimension to lemon meringue pie.

Officially the Christmas season...

The tree is up, the house is decorated, and we are eating cranberry muffins. It must be Christmas time! We spent part of the day after Thanksgiving preparing for Christmas and the other part of the day swimming at the beach. The girls were so excited to start decorating we had to pry them away from the Christmas bins to go swimming. Kyleigh got to put the Christmas topper on the tree. It was Katelyn's turn this year, but she said she didn't want to be lifted up that high. Maybe next year. We filled the advent calender with treats and Katelyn has already climbed up on the counter to steal candy from behind the little doors. Holly has already read the girls about 10 Christmas books. We started burning the Christmas candles we got from Jenny last year. We are looking forward to a great holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We got to enjoy our Thanksgiving with the "Portersons." It was our NM reunion holiday. I didn't have my card for my camera to take any pictures of our delicious feast. You'll just have to take my word that it was a delicious feast. I did get my card prior to the after dinner festivities of kickball and ultimate frisbee at Kaliwai park. Thanks to our host's for a great day!

Everyone playing kickball.

Daddy, the scary monster on the park toy.

Katelyn isn't quite tall enough to get a drink.

Kyleigh and her NM friend.

Daddy and Katelyn running for home base.

Remember when...

Between Holly and I we didn't have enough pie pans to make pies for Thanksgiving. We had square pies that year. November 2000.

If you are counting the number of pies... YES, there are more pies than people. It isn't a genuine Cook Thanksgiving if there aren't more pies than people.

Kokee Sunday

Last Sunday we went to Kokee to feel the cold air, play games, and have a bbq. We had a great time. Kyleigh's friend from dance happened to be there so she played with her friend for awhile while Rusty and Katelyn explored and poked mushrooms with sticks. We played catch and soccer. We had a bbq, and realized that the little bbq we bought 10+ years ago needed to be thrown away. A sad day in the Cook family. It was rusted out and the only place a flame was coming through the grill was a big rust hole right in the middle. Rusty had to position our meat around the one flame and rotate it every couple of minutes. We watched the stars come out, but had to leave because we were all shivering and freezing. When we got back to the truck we saw that the temperature was about 54 degrees. What have we become?

Katelyn turns 3!

I can't believe Katelyn is three. Even typing the title for this post I had to remind myself that she isn't two, but three... already. All she wanted for her cake this year was a smiley face cake. Easy enough, even I can handle that. We made it a smiley face party. We had smiley face pancake men for breakfast. We had smiley face pizzas for dinner. Everyone got to make their own pizza face. We even printed an ehow article on how to throw pizza dough and tried our hand at that. We also made our plates into smiley faces. After dinner we had cake and opened presents. What a loved little girl. She was so excited to open all of her presents. Kyleigh was so excited to get her a gift this year. She got her a horse coloring book, wrapped it in two layers of wrapping paper with about a whole roll of tape and helped Katelyn open it. We got her a dance cam, so she can dance in front of the TV and watch herself while she is dancing. For quite awhile now she has claimed "I dot dis for my birday," every time she plays with any toy. Now she can actually say that about all kinds of fun things.
Happy Birthday Katelyn. We love you!