Redmond's Newest Pilates Instructor

Videos: July 24, 2010

This was just a few days before Jonas turned 6 this summer. Holy Cow! This is funny stuff. Or at least it's funny to me....but you can probably tell that by all my off-camera laughing.

Sledding

Photos and Video: December 5, 2010

We actually had enough snow here in town to go sledding a couple weekends ago. Here are some photos and a video of the sledding event. Jonas was fearless.

This is Jonas falling off and being left in the (snow) dust.

I tried really hard to slow us down by dragging my hands. I'm not quite as fearless as Jonas.

Love this video.

Sports Camp

Videos: August 5, 2009

As promised, here is some scooter board action. Hilarious.

Day Off

Layout above: November 12, 2008
Photo and Video below: July 20, 2009

I have Wednesdays off and I usually plan to do something productive like clean the bathrooms but digital scrapbooking is always more fun. It's like knowing you should have a salad for lunch but just make a PB&J instead. {That may or may not have happened today as well.}

I did manage to get Jonas to Sports Camp this morning (more or less on time even). He goes for a couple hours every morning this week. He did a week in July, too. Jonas is liking it for the most part and learning a lot about soccer, basketball, baseball, and volleyball. They even get to do scooter board races. Below are some photos from the July session. Hopefully I can get some other photos and videos from this week to post soon.

Warming up with some passing with dad.

This is one of Jonas' many attempts to shoot the basketball. Even though he does a total granny-shot it is still one of the best simply because he didn't fall down after shooting. Baby steps, right?

Celebrity Sighting & Other Things at Calif. Adventure

Photos and Video: May 30, 2009

Whilst at California Adventure for the day we got to see Guy Fieri. Yes, that's right, the STAR of Davin', Diving to Die (aka: Diners, Drive-ins and Dives) on the Food Network. Jonas loooooves that show. Seriously. He actually requests to watch it. So we thought Jonas would be incredibly excited to see Guy in really life, so close, just a flowerbed away. Oh. Wait. Jonas is extremely contrary so he wasn't excited at all. That didn't stop me from taking some pics and videos though. It seemed a crime not to.

While I wasn't stalking Guy Fieri, I was busy taking photos of Jonas....

....taking photos of me. He thought this was the funniest thing ever! I will be posting some of the photos that Jonas took soon.

Seems that everyone in this photo, including the male ladybug, Francis, is equally thrilled just to be alive and spending the day at Calif. Adventure.

Tuck and Roll's bumper cars was on the verge of being lame except that Jonas loved it so much. The cars were painfully slow.

cue song: I always feel like somebody's watchin' me....

Jonas enjoyed the Pixar Play Parade much more than the parade at Disney. I think it was just a matter of timing, really, and a higher tollerance for waiting around at that particular moment. Jonas ended up getting his groove on while waiting for the parade to start. He was really on a roll with his dance moves until, well, you'll see.

Oh, finally, the parade is starting. I took this photo of Roz from Monsters, Inc. for our friend Melissa. She loves Roz's voice, as do I.

Of course incredibly hairy Sully was in the parade...

...as well as Mike Wozowski, Mike Wozowski, Mike Wozowski !!!

We loved the GRR: Grizzly River Rapids. It was our first ride of the day and then, later, our last ride as well. Both times we got soaked and it was soooo worth it. Jonas thought it was awesome and said so after every giant waterfall we plunged down.

aaaahhhhhhhh.....

spuh-lash!!!!!

This photo was taken at the end of our second ride. It really doesn't show how wet we were...lets just say that the seats were soaked and so were the parts that were on the seats....and our shoes...and a lot of other things. Squish, squish.

The Magic Kingdom

Photos and Video: May 29, 2009

That's right, folks. We made it to Disneyland. This was quite a big deal especially considering this conversation between Tony and I a year or so ago after several of our friends had taken their families to Disney.

Me: So do you think we'll ever go to Disneyland?
Tony: Why would we?

It's not like I was dying to go I just wanted to feel like it was a possibility, however remote. Then we found out that the Foursquare International Convention was going to be in Anaheim this year and that pretty much sealed the deal. Ok, it didn't actually "seal the deal" until we found a better price for tickets since we weren't willing to take out a second mortgage on our house just to pay for Disney tickets.

Sooooo, here's our trip to Disneyland:

Here are the two "first timers" ready to head for the rides. Tony had never been to Disneyland before but I have been twice. The first time was when I was in 5th grade. I went with my mom, 2 brothers and my grandparents. It was to celebrate my oldest brother graduating from high school. The second time was in 1993 with my best friend, Dawn, right after we graduated from high school. Both trips were awesome for very different reasons. This time it was so fun to see how excited Jonas was about everything. He didn't really have a clue what Disneyland was before we got there. He learned really fast that there are so many cool things to see and so many people in line that are going to see them before you. I can't even begin to tell you the number of times Tony and I uttered the phrase "just be patient, it's going to be awhile."

We took the advice of others and got to the park right when it opened and were among the first people to get in line for Dumbo. Jonas didn't really know Dumbo but he knew "that flyin' elephant."

Dumbo flies pretty high and that makes it hard to photograph both people in the elephant. If you click on the pic to enlarge it you can just make out the tiny little bit of Jonas' head that is showing. I assure you that he's in there with me and I was not flying around and around in that elephant all by my lonesome.

After a 15 minute wait Jonas got to experience 20 seconds of joy on his first roller coaster. This ride was described as "a good beginner roller coaster." Yeh, what I think they mean is kids begin to realize they have to wait in line a loooooong time in exchange for a few thrilling seconds.

Weeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

I think the adult to kid ratio on this ride is funny.

Giddy-Up, Urban Cowboy. Gotta love the classic carosel.

Signing Time

Videos: May 2, 2009

Jonas loves getting educational videos from the library. He seldom picks out any other kind of video. His favorite series is Signing Time which teaches American Sign Language. It's pretty cool and Jonas has picked up a lot of signs from watching them non-stop.

The video above is Jonas' performance of Signing Time: Move and Groove. Yes, he is definitely getting his groove on. Even though he seems to just be flailing his arms about randomly, he is actually using ASL signs, albeit pretty aggressively.

This second video is Jonas doing Signing Time: Zoo Train. Both of these videos also accurately show how A) Jonas love to talk and sing and B) Jonas never stops walking around, especially if he is also talking. This is just everyday life for Jonas, and not just because the camera is rolling.

Faux Egg Hunt

Photos and Videos: April 11, 2009
Location: Beautiful Downtown Redmond, OR

We headed downtown the saturday before Easter for a Faux Egg Hunt....you know the kind, where the eggs are just spread out on the ground and it's a chaotic free-for-all? Yeh, that kind. Actually it was a pretty cool event and we happened to see our friend Michelle with her two kids, Jace and McKenzie, down there, too. It was nice to have friends to hang out with before the big "hunt" began.

While we were waiting, Jace and McKenzie tried out their baskets as hats. Very stylish.

Jonas tried to follow suit but for some reason his square basket was not as hip. He kind of looks like a robot or something.

Oh, ooh, ooooooh.....such anticipation.

And the chaos begins!!

After less than 2 minutes all the eggs were gone in Jonas' immediate area and he was a little overwhelmed by the whole event. Most of the kids ran down to another area where someone was dumping out more eggs but Jonas just stood there nervously until we waved him in.

Need to see it for yourself? Here's a little video complete with audio of some dad (no one we know) yelling at his kid to get as many eggs as possible...no pressure or anything. You can also see how non-competitive Jonas is in this type of situation. He's not much for confrontation or conflict. I wonder where he gets that??

Jace and McKenzie were lucky enough to get some candy in their eggs.

Of the 10-12 eggs that Jonas got, he didn't get a single piece of candy. It was even better. He got 3 prize tickets and $26 "Downtown Dollars". {Downtown Dollars can be spent like cash at a bunch of businesses in downtown Redmond. So this was more like a prize for the parents...at least in the Cook household. Score!!}

McKenzie and Jace also got prize tickets and the three of them went to "Prize Central" to pick out some cool stuff. I love that Jace got the giant Easter Bonanza Basket complete with a flowery purse. His mom said the purse was the thing he really wanted in there. What can I say, the boy knows how to accessorize.

The fantastic-ness continued inside Prize Central with a Cupcake-Walk game. For Jonas any game that combines numbers, music and food is a dream come true. He pranced around those numbers for 15 minutes and was nowhere near winning, partly because he thought that he was supposed to go find the number that they called out. Finally the nice girls that were running the game kinda rigged it so that Jonas could win. He was super-excited to pick out a cupcake.

Here is some riveting footage of the Cupcake Walk. Sorry about the poor videography halfway through...I obviously can't do two things at once {talk and hold the camera straight.}

Suh-weeeet!!!

2 Years ago...

April 7, 2007

I am trying to archive my photos and videos today. Of course now I've gotten sidetracked after coming across this video of Jonas from 2 years ago. This will be funniest to people who see Jonas all the time. It's about 2 1/2 minutes long and starts out a little slow but picks up speed when he's trying to put the bottle in the "garage" and gets pretty funny at the end.

Ok, maybe it's only funny to me.

If Jonas Wore Glasses

Photos and Video: March 7, 2009

These photos will forever crack me up. Even thought the glasses are obviously painted on (crookedly by me) this is really what Jonas would look like if he had to wear glasses. A super-cute slightly nerdy look, but maybe the nerdy part is just because they're so crooked. Or maybe the nerdy part is the cloud and rainbow. Hard to tell.

This all came about at church yesterday. We had our annual AWANA Grand Prix car race and carnival day. There were some fun/silly carnival type games and this year we added face painting to the festivities. Tracy O. and I painted faces and the lucky kids were the ones that ended up being painted by Tracy. She really did a superior job. Sadly, my son came to me for his rainbow, Jesus fish and then I talked him into some glasses after Tracy painted glasses on her son Austin. I didn't have my camera at church so I will be indebted to Jamey and Tracy to pass on some pics of Jonas and Austin together in their matching square glasses. It was impossible to look at them without cracking up.

Later that night a dinner I couldn't resist taking some more photos and a video. (And yes, my four year old is still wearing a bib....sad but true. I am happier with less food on the floor and clothes. At least I don't make him take one to preschool with him for snack time.)





This is Jonas' entry for the Grand Prix race. He decided to make a truck, a truck like mine. Awwwe. That's so sweet. Like his bus last year, we put photos in the windows of the truck. I asked which side he wanted his picture to be and he insisted on the passengers side. I thought for sure he would want to be the driver since he asked not too long ago when he would "get to sit in that seat" pointing at the drivers side.


He really lucked out in the race. Even though his truck was incredibly slow, he got third place for speed. I might add that there were only four kids racing in his class. He also got first place for design so he walked away with TWO trophies and ribbons. Woo-Hoo!!! Jonas was soooo excited.

Tony, as you can see, was also into the face painting. I didn't get a close-up of it because of the death-glare I was getting when I started taking photos, but the blue and yellow cross that Tracy painted on was super-cool. Tony was one of only two adults that were cool enough to get their faces painted. (Both adults had Tracy as their face-painter....they had been paying attention.)
I don't really know why Jonas is choking himself with his truck. At least he's super-excited about it.
At the end of the night I had to take a couple more photos before washing off the face paint. Jonas could not believe it when I started washing off his glasses. He got a little teary about it but recovered pretty quickly. That rainbow was a kinda stubborn, though. It took a good scrubbin' to get that off.
Head thrown back in a maniacal {fake} laughing fit.