Tumbling Class

Cooper has been taking a Saturday morning tumbling class over the past month or so.  He seems to enjoy it, and it's a great way to burn off energy and ensure a 3-hour nap (for all of us!).

We start with stretches:

Trying to make a "tabletop." 

Walking on the balance beam...

and jumping into the wheel:

A Coop's all-time favorite:  the trampoline!

He took a bad bounce one week, which Alan somehow miraculously caught on film:

Ouch!

But he shook it off, and kept right on running!

It's beginning to look a bit like Christmas...

We got a couple of inches of snow a few weeks ago, so we dug out Cooper's snow pants and snow boots to go play.

Everything's a bit big for him yet, but he seemed to enjoy being out in the snow.

And a present arrived in the mail!

(You should know my default rule:  if it arrives in the mail, you can open it right away, just like you would a phone bill.  Even if it's wrapped as a present clearly meant for Dec. 25.  That's just how the postal servive works, I believe!)

Anyway, it was from Aunt Mary:

It's a personalized Cooper cd (so the singers say "Hey Cooper!" and the songs have his name in them).  Too cute!

And out annual visit to Santa Claus at our local gas station/McDonald's.  Cooper wasn't so keen on sitting with Santa by himself, so I joined the fun.

We're ready for the holiday, I think!  (Except for that pesky Christmas letter that Alan needs to write!)

Fun with shaving cream: a story in pictures

Rock Chalk Jayhawk

A friend at the law school had two tickets to a men's basketball game a couple of weeks ago. I took Cooper, who actually couldn't care a lick about basketball. But he's pretty cute anyway.

We had really great seats, and we were right near one of the student cheering sections, which gave Cooper something to watch. (As mentioned, he didn't have any interest in what was actually going on down on the court.) But he liked the arms-up-in-the-air-for-a-freethrow.

I'm sure we almost got kicked out of the game, but we spent a little time reading:

And Coop loved the big pretzel:

One highlight was a yellow (not red!) fire hydrant on the way back to the car. Cooper wanted a picture so we could show Daddy.

The next morning, the only thing Coop remembered was the trumpets in the pep band and the police officers directing traffic with whistles and flashlights.

Thanksgiving trip to Lyons

Kelly, Sly, and Zoey were in Lyons for Thanksgiving, so we drove down to see them for a day or so.

Grandma Joan had a fun list of things to do.

First up, play-dough barber shop. It was actually "Fun Dough" from Dollar General, which was a little sticky. But Cooper liked using scissors to cut hair.

Then, a jack-in-the-box. About a half-second after we took this picture (right when jack popped up), Cooper broke into a huge grin. It was sweet.

Next up: sugar cookies decorated to look like turkeys. This was the one and only candy corn Cooper actually put on a cookie. The rest he shoveled into his mouth faster than he's ever eaten anything in his life.

Finally, a real life train caboose! A local Lyons realtor owns this little red caboose; it's actually on the corner where we turn to get to Grandma Joan's house, so we see it a lot! And he let us climb on it and walk inside. Very cool.

Thanksgiving in Baldwin

Some of Alan's family joined us for Thanksgiving dinner. Cooper spent a large portion of the time in this box:

He explained that he was a baby bird and this was his nest:

After the meal, Cooper got a hankering for some music, so he dug through his box of instruments and distributed various bells and shakers to everyone.

His face lit up with sheer joy when he said "Go" and everyone actually started playing!

And then Aunt Julie started singing while we were playing, and I swear Cooper almost fell down with excitement! Oh, the control of being the band director!!

Grandma Margaret left a chocolate-marshmallow Santa for Cooper. He devoured it in about 3 seconds.

He didn't get a nap that afternoon, and after all the excitement of the day (and despite all the sugar!), he fell asleep in between the time I kissed him goodnight and the time when I actually left his room.

We're festive! (Finally.)

It appears that we've decorated for Christmas, though it's a bit by accident.

One year for Cooper's birthday (maybe even his first?), my mom asked me what she should get him. He would have been happy with a paper bag, so I suggested something I wanted him to have -- a Fisher Price nativity scene. It's fun to have out for him to play with (or knock onto the floor).
But that's a toy. It's not really decoration.

And then last year, Alan's mom brought us a couple of wreaths. Fake wreaths, which is good, or I would have killed them within days. And I couldn't very well throw away perfectly good wreaths, so I bought a Wreath Storage Bag. When I was downstairs finding the Fisher Price nativity scene, I grabbed the wreaths, too.

And then, after last Christmas, I came home from Lyons with this nativity scene:

My Mom made it (how long ago?) for her mom. It was always on top of Grandma Farm's television at Christmas. And as long as I'm putting up Cooper's nativity, I might as well get out the one that has sentimental value to me.

So now, it's starting to look a bit like we've decorated on purpose.

And then, the final straw -- our friends Michael and Kristen had an extra (fake) Christmas tree they no longer wanted. Yes, we'll take it off your hands, just in case in a few years we might decide we wanted to put up a tree.

BUT the box the tree was in wouldn't fit in our car. So we left the box at Michael and Kristen's house, and just loaded the tree branches into our front seat. Which we then had to unload when we got home.

Since we didn't have a container to store the tree, we figured we might as well just stand it up in the living room.

The tree would look funny just standing in the corner naked, so we dug out our box of ornaments -- "Our First Christmas," "Baby's First Christmas," a yellow digger for Cooper 2008 Christmas, ornaments with pictures of our cats.

And *poof* before we knew it, we had decorated for Christmas!