Africa!

My parents had the wonderful opportunity to spend six weeks in Africa doing a measles vaccination mision for the Red Cross. What an experience! They sent home email after email filled with amazing stories and incredible pictures. It was such fun to live vicariously through them! They saw practically every big and small animal there is to see in Kenya right up close! We were especially jealous of the BIG CATS!!! Thank you so much for sharing this with us guys!!

A Christmas Full of Wonder...from the eyes of a little one

Christmas was such an exciting day!!

Last Christmas was really special having Jadeyn to enjoy, but this one was a blast!!!! He tore his presents open one by one, but would then play with each one for at least 20 minutes or more before he would be ready to open the next one. We have some great videos of his exuberance, especially with his new fishing pole! His favorite summer activity of course is fishing and we can't wait to take him again. Saddest thing though when he took Kevin by the hand, had his fishing pole in the other and lead him to the back door to go fishing! He really thought that we wold head right out to the lake!! He's a pretty cute kid.

His remote control car was a hit too. It has two buttons: backward and forward and it has already ran a few miles around our house. So, he got a fishing pole, remote control car, Lightning McQueen car, Blanket and outfit from grandma Pete, tool set from a neighbor, educational toys from Dr Trudell, Cars story book. Kev got the Dirty Harry Collection and a huge frying pan, and I got my Cricut machine!!!!! Fun Fun! (Yeah the Cricut was one I bought after Thanksgiving and had been hiding it until I could receive it from 'Santa'! We also got a CD set and a beautiful book about my parents recent trip to Africa. Our main present was our TV and BluRay which we have been thoroughly enjoying for a few weeks!!


Jadeyn opened one gift on Christmas Eve. A beautiful fleece blanket made by Grandma Pete.

Waiting on the stairs for Christmas to begin.

The fishing pole! Jadeyn's highlight of Christmas.
He can hardly handle the anticipation for summer!

Enjoying Christmas Goodies!




What's in this present!!?!?!?

We also got to enjoy a beautifully peaceful WHITE CHRISTMAS! The snow began to fall a few days before the big day and kept coming. We even got a fresh dusting on Christmas day itself to make it a Marshmallow World!




The rest of the day was a lazy relaxing one (well, as relaxing as you can get with a toddler!) Jadeyn finally crashed!!!!! He wore his little self out after all the excitement. (so did we!)

Jingle All The Way!

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!

What a wonderful year 2009 has been. Who knew that it was possible for life to just keep getting better.

As you all know, Jadeyn, our little boy, joined the family in April ‘08, so this is our first full year with our little munchkin. He has definitely been the highlight of our year. His little creative mind keeps him into all sorts of fun trouble and he entertains us constantly. He hasn’t stopped us from doing any of the things that we love, in fact he has only increased them.

We camped & fished as much as possible this summer. We discovered that Jadeyn loves the outdoors just like we do, he relishes getting dirty & he LOVES to fish. In fact, one of his first words was fish, right after learning to say ball of course! We explored so many new campgrounds and have loved our new “family tent” which kept us cozy even above 10,000 feet. A summer full of fish, pine needles and fun. Rebecca caught a whopper of a Brook trout in a high mountain lake, which kinda put Kevin to shame, but wow!

We went on several amazing trips this year. We went to Florida’s three National Parks to continue our goal of seeing all of the National Parks in the US. What an marvelous trip! The Everglades were just as breathtaking & mysterious as we expected. Exotic birds & allusive alligators, & the noise of the swamps was amazing.

Biscayne & Dry Tortugas came with some incredible boat rides complete with dolphins & manatees. We’ve stood by our rule that whenever we find a dirt road at a national park: take it. You will never be disappointed! Then of course, we had to stop off at Key West and South Beach!

Hershey’s Park, PA was another fun highlight of our year. We couldn’t go through a whole year without visiting an Amusement Park could we? We flew to Pennsylvania with two of Kevin’s sister’s: Jessica & Stephanie and family, & had such a great time with them. Who knew & entire amusement park could smell like chocolate?

We stayed in Hershey Lodge where when you walk in the door, you just have to smile sweetly & you are given a full sized Hershey bar!! Rides, shows, roller coasters, chocolate & more chocolate!!

Life in the working world has been going very well. Kevin’s optometry practice is doing great. The office remodel is finished and is beautiful. His practice has continued to grow & thrive through the tough economy & he enjoys helping his patients everyday. Anyone need an eye exam: stop on by! Rebecca continues to enjoy working part time for a plastic surgeon/ENT & being able to spend the rest of the time with Jadeyn. Two days at work a week is perfect!

We truly have been blessed with a wonderful year. We hope that all is well with all our friends and family!

This year was great & we enjoy every moment that life gives us.

Merry Christmas!

Kevin Rebecca Jadeyn Dozer & Newt

Thanksgiving 2009

What a Hoot!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Ka-Pow!

Oh, the fun things kids can figure out. Jadeyn has had more fun with this collapsible cup: it has kept him entertained in many ways. Here he has figured out that he can catapult the lid across the room. Bot is he proud of himself!!

When the sun finally shines

After several dismal but crisply beautiful frigid days, the sun finally came out today! Nights well below zero and days not even reaching the teens: we were ready for a little sun. It practically felt like a touch of spring had reached us. Here in the Cottrell household we long for the summer: fishing, hiking, playing in the park, being warm, but most of all we long for camping! We are already planning our next national park trip and the anticipation helps the cold not seen so constant. :)

Don't Zoom In on Me!!

This is a rather long video, but it will make you chuckle. I wanted to catch Jadeyn's morning jibberish on video and discovered something else on accident: he doesn't like you to zoom in on him! He's just bantering away, probably talking about the snow or asking some kind of question. Then I zoom in and boy does he let us know that it bugs him! Kinda cute!

Our lives this past week

This is a photo summary of our lives with our little adventure guy this week!



Jadeyn is already busy picking out items for his Christmas list. He found the ads this weeks FASCINATING! He couldn't put them done and stared and stared at them. Then he would grab our finger and make us point to his favorites!

Dozer has tolerated Jadeyn so well! (We aren't as pleased with Newt who disappears everytime Jadeyn is awake!) Jadeyn loves to rub his fur, but when Dozer tries to escape, Jadeyn with grab onto that fur with his little fists and yank him back down!!

He's a climber. We've already found him in some pretty precarious places. He has now figured out how to help himself to whatever he wants in the fridge!

We got to take advantage of some absolutely gorgeous days at the park this week. Jadeyn loved to swing in the big kid swings by himself and to go down the spiral slide by himself. Occasionally he would end up right side up!

Nachos and sour cream...or wait, is it sour cream and nachos!!

One of our neighbors grows champion pumpkins and won first prize this year! This is his secondary pumpkin, the one that didn't make it to the contest so it had the honor of getting carved. Its big brother, the winner, weighed 1,166 pounds, 13 feet around! We have been able to watch these things grow all summer long so we had to include a photo of the final product!

Broncos Blues

This is Jadeyn's opinion about how the Broncos have been playing these last few weeks!
Double click on the picture for a better look!

Christmas a bit early . . .

We kinda got our big Christmas present a bit early this year. You know how we love movies and football, well, we decided that we needed to improve upon our viewing setup. A new BluRay player and a new TV to go with it! We have sure enjoyed it, but then it came time to mount the thing on the wall. We have a built in entertainment center that limits the size and shape of the TV we can get. Well, the one we got should give us a quarter inch leeway on either side. (cross your fingers!)

Putting up the mounting bracket had to be exact or else the TV wouldn't fit in the hole. Jadeyn was our constant little helper making sure we got the measurements perfect.




Jadeyn's little blue hammer. Check out the concentration in his lips!!

The measuring tape was a favorite. It surprised Jadeyn a few times!

Mr. Studfinder!

Jadeyn is always a bigger fan of the real thing than his toys. It was a constant struggle to get him to be happy with his little blue hammer instead of the dangerous one!

After putting up the bracket we attempted to get the TV up by ourselves. It honestly would have been a piece of cake with three people, but Jadeyn wasn't much help. We could lift it just fine, but couldn't get it onto the bracket. A nights rest brought the answer to Kevin. I was upstairs and heard a joyous "Sweet!" from the living room. My brilliant husband had brough out the car jack, had hoisted the TV up a few inches and within minutes had the TV finished all by himself!!

What a project and we are gunna love the rewards!

We're Goin' To The Zoo!

Denver Zoo - November 8th, 2009
It was free day at the Zoo so we had to take advantage of the beautiful weather and enjoy a day with the animals. Jadeyn LOVES the Zoo and ya know, Kevin and I are rather crazy about it too. It just gets more and more fun the older Jadeyn gets!
Out favorite has always been the big cats. The are such beautiful creatures! We also visited another favorite: the Okapi.




Kevin teases me about how much I love birds and this time we got to fees the birds in the lorakeet enclosure. Fun! Jadeyn got to help too and did pretty well feeding the birds the nectar. Only spilling it once!!

Since there was just the three of us, it was kind of hard to get a family photo.
So here is one attempt:
Kevin looks rather dashing don't you think?

Jadeyn's favorite vantage point came from on top of daddy's shoulders! He was full of sound effects the whole day and made a mess of crumbs and drool on Kevin's head a few times!

The hippos were a hit. Kevin lovingly calls the photo on the right: The Three Backsides! Thanks Kev!

All Pooped Out! Jadeyn wore himself out with all the excitement and pooped out on the way home!