DALLAS, Pa. — After a few days of ice and snowfall, the front-yard tribute at the Cookus home in Dallas needed some touch-ups. A few days ago, the snowy dedication took Kellie Cookus five hours to build.
"I started with a Betty White head, and of course, my teenage daughter told me it looked like a puppet. So I added the 'thank you for being a friend,' and that helped a lot. Next thing you know, you know it started getting shared," said Kellie Cookus.
This tribute to the late Betty White is the latest of a decades-long tradition for Kellie Cookus and her family that started at their home in Laflin when her twin daughters were four years old.
"They were watching Nemo 24/7, so I was like, I don't want to make a snowman; let's make something different. And if you or any of my friends know me, I go crazy with anything. It's go big or go home all the time."
Now the snowfall tradition continues at their home in the Back Mountain no matter the time of year, as long as there is snow and a supply of spray paint.
"Got to the point where Facebook started, and all my friends were like, 'What are you going to build now?' And I know it's snowing, and the only happiness is finding what you're going to build in the snow, and it just started going and going and going."
"We have a turkey, as well as a heart for Valentine's Day, so it's anywhere from November to February. There's always something going on, and Christmas tree was a couple of days before Christmas," she said. "It was the beer mug that the garbage guys like that one a lot. It was the time when everybody was stuck in their houses last year with COVID, and I was just to the point where let's make the kind of beer, and they would drive by and honk the horn as I was doing it."
Kellie says this is her way of spreading joy during the dreary days of winter and the pandemic.
"It's something to, you know, bring happiness to this crazy world. If I can do that with snow, then I keep doing it."
Now the Cookus family is looking ahead to the next snowstorm for another opportunity to create a work of art.
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