Christmas 2009

While not the best picture I have ever taken, I had to include it because I am laughing at the card my sister included with our Christmas gifts. One line read "..because sometimes it's hard to be pregnant, and sometimes it's hard to live with someone who is pregnant". Is there is any gift more priceless than being understood?

Once again, not the most photogenic holiday, but this is a lovely candle and I enjoy burning it.

Our annual tradition continues of making new stockings each year, and I am sad to say that I think those are the same pajama pants I have worn the last 3 Christmas mornings- I have a lot to work on before next December!

His stocking was perfect- literally. Pottery Barn could have sold it with pride.

Perhaps this years' most enjoyable gifts- the marshmallow guns!

(though we do love the swiss diamond!)

Cotter Cuteness

I think it is some kind of rules that all little girls must at some point in their life wear patent leather mary janes!
Good luck saying no to that face!

It's so nice to have family close and spend time together.

The oldest son and the oldest grandson.

The Apple of Love

The Cotter family tells a story which has now come to be known as the Apple of Love. The actual story is quite beautiful as it displays the human ability to forgive and extend love to those who we belive have wronged us. The short version as told by me, is that a young daughter married a cowboy and ran off with him. This caused a great deal of harm and I am sure embarrassement to the family. Some time passed- several years I believe, and the father decided that he needed to extend love to his daughter and so he collected the most beautiful apples he could and sent them to her. She accepted this offering and returned to see her family and great was the joy for all involved. The actual story has much more detail, and so at least once a year the Cotters gather together, a tray of sliced apples is passed around and as we eat the apple slice someone re-tells the story. This year Charla told the story and read parts from the original account which added new details to the story for everyone.
Charla telling the story of the Apple of Love and Sara playing the piano for Christmas carols.

Buck singing "Guard Him Joseph" which has sang in a quartet on Christmas Sunday and then sang as a solo for the talent show portion of the evening.

I told the story of the Nativity using a set we had in my house growing up. I had asked Brielle to help me arrange the characters and soon most of the children were gathered around.

Bill and Marianne made this hilarious video of scottish dancing and you can barely make out Bill playing the bagpipe and dancing in his kilt- I think they stole the show that night!

Chad sang one of his original songs inspired by the Christmases of Cotter's Past. He is very creative and quite the entertainer.

Brooke playing a little song on the piano- she even sang with her song, though the tune and lyrics were unfamiliar to the rest of us, I do love her spunk.

Brielle played a few songs on the piano and is quite accomplished.

We had a wonderful evening at Chad and Sara's home and it was nice to celebrate the holiday season together.

The Worth of a Sole

The theme this year for Young Women in Excellence was- "The Worth of a Sole" and it was a very nice program with each girl taking a moment to share about what one of her shoes represented about her. Hayley and I were in charge of the refreshments and thanks to my very talented sister Tanya, the cake was a huge success.

Hayley spent a lot of time on this grass hill for the temple and it turned out very well. The pictures don't capture all the details of the shoes and how great everything really looked. We tried to have different shoes to represent how different we are all and yet how we are all moving in the same direction. Tanya did an amazing job on the shoes.

The Latest Project

For a while Buck has seen this idea in landscape magazines and has wanted to test it out. Bill and Marianne were kind enough to allow him to experiment in their backyard. I think it turned out quite lovely and some of our cute nieces make it even better.

A picture says a thousand words...

A picture says a thousand words, or so the saying goes. After several races, 10k's, half marathons, 5k's- I realized I didn't have a single picture to prove that I had participated, so I purchased one from the last race on October 24th. This was right after I had crossed the "start" line and my i-pod stopped working. As I ran past the restrooms I was sad the line had been so long and I hadn't been able to go, and I was wondering about all the time I took off from running in August and if it would really matter- which I found out soon enough that it did! However, soon enough I was crossing over the finish line and was on my way home. It will be a while before I will participate in a race again, so I am glad to have this picture to remind me of those races.

A busy Saturday

This was at the park celebrating Charlie's birthday. We took our camera to this party and then never took it out of the bag, so I am glad Marianne sent these pictures over. It was fun to be all together and the weather was very nice. His older sisters seemed to enjoy his presents as much if not more than he did!