Family Costume Party

Ursula, Trick or Treaters The Riddler, Christmas Mickey and Mini and Daisy Duck and Toodles-- all from Mickey's Playhouse. 

I love Halloween and a fun costume party.  My extended Cole side is always eager to jump in and party with me.    I made a big pot of White Chicken Chili and we also had Hot Dogs for the non-chili eaters, Liz brought a batch of mom's famous donuts and it was a riot.  We missed some of our usual suspects ( Adam and Christine and Angela and Guy) but it was all good.  For our activity we divided into three teams based on birthday months and made three Halloween type movies and then quickly edited them in imovie and showed them on the big screen.   We had This is Halloween, Daylight Come and I put a Spell on You.

I was Ursula. It was a ton of fun for most of us, except for my almost 2-year-old granddaughters.  Poppy and Lady were not having it. 

I could hear their little brains churning, “ What happened to Grandma?  Where did she go? Ursula sounds like Grandma and looks a little bit like her, but that’s not my real grandma. “ 

Lady and Poppy are usually glued to me.  They are my biggest fans. They usually see me and run to me with screams of delight.  They only want me to hold them, feed them, play with them and I just love it. But during our costume party they glanced at me warily from across the room and basically avoided me the entire night.  

They knew the real me was inside that purple garb somewhere, but they just couldn’t get to it.

Tayla

Wayne and Riddler and Laila and Rapper

All of the Frozen peeps- One Anna and Two Elsa's-- Rooney, Becca and Poppy

Our Skeletons were Liz, Al, Addison and Andrew

Gary came as a Frequent Flyer and got on an airplane as soon as the party ended.

Tayla, Poppy and Lady

Bre in her awesome Day of the Dead Sugar Skull make up and Poppy as Elsa

Three Thors-- Hayden, Jonas and Nano

Alfie as Spider Man

Nano as Fat Thor, Rachel in her Boo Bees shirt and Jamie as Yoda

Casey as the Hulk, Jonas as Thor, Rooney as Elsa and Becca as Anna

We celebrated Poppy's 2 year old Birthday with a cake and a song.  She loves dress ups and attention, so this was perfect.

Addison in his Scary clown makeup ready to cut the cake.

Jenna as Moira from Schitt's Creek

Kasondra and Aaron Cole-- just off their elopement in Scotland came as Unicorns.

Lil Lady as Minnie Mouse...

Tayla as Daisy Duck, Lexi as Toodles, Monson as Mickey and Lady as Minnie

Sophia, Landon and Andrew took on the Trick or Treaters from Nightmare Before Christmas

Megan in her Star Wars Wookie Garb

Nelson as Spider man all mixed up.

Laila's Spooktackular Halloween

Laila's Halloween Girls dance was spook-tacular!  

 Laila kind of looks like a BOY in this. hee hee

 Laila went as a Rapper with  her  friend boy - George.

I got to be a dance chaperone - so that's always a reason to get dressed up and put on a witch face.

ALL of the Officers who put this dance together:

Don't go to Albuquerque

Don’t go to Albuquerque

We have a COLE family story- a tradition of asking- “Hey if we say the prayer without you, will you go to Albuquerque?”  It’s been said for decades. My parents started it and we continue it in family settings as our little inside joke.  

It all started when I was a child.  We had beloved, hardly seen, cousins from Albuquerque- My Aunt Patty and Uncle Jerry’s family.  When we would finally get together with our Albuquerque cousins it was a riot. They fit right in between all of the Utah Cole cousin ages and I recall fondly going to This is the Place Monument and swimming in Grandma Butters' pool. 

  

This prayer memory started when I was 11- so 1973.  I don’t remember exactly and I’m sure my memory has morphed over time as memories do, but I recall us all kneeling down for a big family prayer one night.  We rang the bell and called and gathered, and waited and waited and most of us had knelt down in the living room. My Aunt Patty hadn’t joined us. She was still downstairs. What was taking her so long? In true Cole fashion,  we were done waiting and just said the prayer, did our "forever” hands and sent everyone to bed. Well, Aunt Patty’s feelings were hurt because we didn’t wait for her to pray and by the next morning the Albuquerque Cole’s were all bundled back into their station wagon and driving back to Albuquerque cutting our cousin time short.  Thereafter, if we went to pray and someone wasn’t there we would ask, “should we wait for you or will you go to Albuquerque if we don’t?” and we would laugh and remember. 

Now my Aunt Patty wasn’t always the easiest.  She had what I felt at the time in my teenage mind- overly righteous standards and was hard to please.  I always felt a little bad for my Uncle Jerry and her kids. But I only had a portion of the whole picture.  As I grew older I became less judgemental and more curious and compassionate. Aunt Patty grew up with an alcoholic, abusive father who her mother divorced when Patty was five.  There was a lot of stigma surrounding this in the 1940s. Patty was a convert to the church, she was playing catch up with the doctrine and even knowing primary songs and sometimes she felt less than -- I’m sure of this.  She set really high standards for herself and her children, and she was definitely a flawed human. And aren’t we all? As I would meet with her periodically throughout the next many decades I could see and feel the love she had for all of us, she listened intently and really cared about my answers and she gave herself more love as well.  

But.  

We still told the Albuquerque prayer story. Although Patty had mellowed and grown, we didn’t allow her to change.  We didn’t allow the atonement to work for her. She stayed stuck in our memories as the crazy aunt, who got her feelings hurt and went back to Albuquerque, passing judgment on all of us.   We would say,” Don’t pull an Aunt Patty.”  

My cousin Laurie came today to talk to me about this.  She was really hurt when she found out that decades later we talked about her mom like this in a joking manner- she wanted to clear the air.  I was so grateful for it. I talk a lot about getting out of judgment and into curiosity and compassion and I want to live it more and more- even with the family stories from my past.  

We judged Patty on one of her worst days and not her best. 

We judge others on their worst days and form opinions yet we want to be judged on our best.

I don’t want to be known for my worst moments, hours or days and let that be my legacy.  I want grace and understanding and so I need to give that to all others I meet past, present, and future. 

Okay, we will still tell the Albuquerque prayer story but let it be used as a warning of how important it is to include everyone and make sure that no one feels like leaving for Albuquerque is necessary , and preface it and end it with all of the awesome attributes about his wonderful, flawed woman who was just figuring it all out. 

Pulling an Aunt Patty could actually be an awesome thing.  Something that would mean I’m a good listener and I care about you.  I’m full of love and progressing in the gospel and doing the best I know-how. 

Just wanted to share

Oregon thoughts from the 3rd row

We just got back from a family filled road trip to the Oregon coast.  It was delightful in so many ways and really hard in others. ( 30 hours of driving) 

 So basically it was perfect.

Because of a pregnant Lexi, and trying to consolidate cars and help out Monson’s family, I got to sit in the back of our Honda Pilot,  on the third row, alongside my little 1 year old Adelaide strapped into a bulky car seat on my right and my teenager Laila squished to my left. 

In my head this car trip was going to be no big deal.  I don’t get car sick. My body doesn’t ache. I envisioned long conversations, happy children, singing and laughing together in the car and really how bad could it be?

Am I a mother or a martyr? 

What I learned:   

1.  It’s hard to hear and stay in any conversation with the driver and other adults sitting this far back. Laila just wanted to listen to her music or play games on her phone and Lady isn’t much for talking yet so I listened to a book and I’m grateful for audible. 

2.  One year olds are much easier entertained in a car than when my kids were this age thanks to electronics and The Grinch movie.  We watched it 10 times….at least.

3.  I was so thankful to GET OUT of the car any chance I could just to stretch my legs, and hips and back and get some much needed blood flow going to my legs.  I struggled getting in and out of the car and sometimes found myself in contortionist positions, but I was happy to be released from 3rd row prison.

4. The long car ride, squished bodies, rainy weather, whiny children, lost shoes, fast food, waiting in  potty lines, the Grinch Movie and achey backs are all CIRCUMSTANCES. Circumstances are neutral… they just are. It’s my thoughts that I’m in charge of.  I could be miserable or I could be merry.

I chose MERRY and made the most of it.   

I breathed in this time, smiled, and counted my blessings  knowing it was all going to end much too soon.

Family road trips with 16 people are easy peasy lemon squeazy and difficult, difficult, lemon difficult and I’m down for all of it!

Rockaway Beach Day 4

Our home away from home was glorious-- it was a 4 story town home right on the beach. Hot tub, gorgeous decks with views, bbq, fire pit, a ton of space and slept 18.  It was decorated from the '90's but that made it even more fun.

We loved our beachaccess.  Tayla with day two on the beach stayed away from the water.

Wayne's kites continued to fly high!  and we found some dead jelly fish.  I dared Sophia to pick it up so of course she did.

Andrew driected us all in a movie.  He loves making movies and edits them together with a script and music etc.   This script was about a group of strangers that meet in a house and discover there's a map and a treasure.  Andrew is the "bad guy" and tricks us all to keep the treasure for himself.  It was fun to do this with him.  We had a viewing of the movie Saturday night.  This was Andrew's favorite thing we did.

Laila with the red rain boots on was just to fun...so we had a mini photo shoot.

Rockaway Beach Oregon was where the FIRST Corn dog was created in 1941.  It was called a pronto pup.  They were delicious.  Plus we got to all ride an electric pronto pup!

We loved walking the small town shops and eating at the local places.

Landon gave 4 hair cuts while we had on the U of U Football game.

The Grand kids and Melinda loved the HOT TUB.  We played in it and got really hot then we ran in the rain down to the cold ocean and then we ran back and got back in the hot tub to warm up.  Sophia couldn't believe it.  We laughed and laughed.  This was Sophia's favorite thing we did.

More Photo SHoots!!

Glow sticks taped on bodies and a song to dance for make up a GLOW party.  This was Alfie's favorite thing.

The view from our townhome was GORGEOUS and peaceful and we just couldn't get enough of it.

Truman brought a charcoal mask for all of us to try, so of course we had to get a pic.

Tru and Wayne built a bonfire for roasting marshmallows and we told stories and sang songs.