Weekend trip to Lyons

Cooper seemed particularly nervous about safety, so he strapped on this helmet for the drive to Lyons:

Bedtime usually goes pretty well at Grandma and Grandpa's house, but I need to make a mental note for next time:  either let him play with toys for 30 minutes before bed, or take them out of his room completely.  I went to check on him after about an hour and found this:

He eventually got settled into the Toy Story sleeping bag, and he seemed quite pleased to actually be using it for the first time!

In the morning, we headed to Hutchinson to walk (Alan ran) a 5K race as part of the Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale.

And then on to the Mennonite food:

Cooper loved the cherry moos (pretty much like pudding with cherry pie filling cherries in it) and the zwiebach (rolls).  I don't think he ate his sausage, mostly because he was distracted by the cherries.

The Mennonite sale is a huge deal, held at the state fair grounds.  And they happened to have one of the "rides" open -- a giant slide. You climb three (four?) stories, sit on a piece of burlap, and slide down. 

Coop wanted to go.  (What?  Really?  Wouldn't you rather stand down here at the bottom and pretend that this stick is a trumpet?)  And he didn't flinch climbing up all of the stairs, except to tell me to let go of him because he could climb by himself.

So we went.  (As did Grandma Joan, in the pink.)

Coop fell asleep before we hit the city limits on our way out of Lyons, and he didn't wake up until we pulled into the garage in Baldwin.

And look -- his first kool-aid moustache!

Waiting

Alan ran a 5K race recently.  Coop and I served as the cheering crew.  Our "Go Daddy" sign really helped, I think.

I can't remember what Coop was waiting for here, but I liked the pose (and the reflection in the table).  It has a very "1993 senior picture" feel to it.  (*ahem* not that I would know...)

Cuter, but not in focus:

Cute teeth!

We planted a small pot of sunflowers.  Coop wanted to watch it grow:

Fun with food

We had some green tortillas, so I decided to make a whole meal of green things.  (Too bad I didn't think of this for St. Patrick's Day.  Maybe next year...)

Green quesadilla, green beans, and then food coloring to make green milk and green yogurt.

Yummy corn on the cob:

Our Fred plate:

The best way to attack a cinnamon roll:

We dig chicks.

The boys in matching shirts:

Cooper liked his so much he wore it again the next day.  He when I told him to put on his socks that morning, he put on a pair of Daddy's socks:

Nice look:

And speaking of chicks, here's our brood out and about in the breezeway.  It might look like Cooper is kindly feeding them a cracker, but instead he's stealing one of their crackers and eating it off the floor:

Luckily he doesn't do that with their actual chick food:

And finally, we got their outdoor home ready, which is good because they were starting to stick up the breezeway.  Here it is, in all its glory:

Believe me when I tell you that the only thing that would make it even more ghetto and cobbled together is a strip of duct tape somewhere.  Otherwise, it's chicken wire, cheap plastic netting, fence posts, and wooden stakes.

And here's the inside of the Coop Sweet Coop:

A nesting box (for when they start laying eggs in six months or so) in the lower left corner, hanging food, water up on blocks (hopefully to keep the pine chips and poop out of it), and a perch that Alan made from some logs.  Charmingly rustic, no?

Creativity

Art in 3D:

Making pictures with coins (courtesy of Highlights magazine -- thanks Grandma Joan!):

Crazy train track Cooper and Daddy built:

My friend Thomas has a son Christopher who's a year younger than Cooper (he turned 2 earlier this month).  Thomas posted on his blog some videos of Christopher playing football.  Christopher holds the football like he's the center, Thomas says "hike," and Christopher takes off running.  (Without the football and in the wrong direction, but still he's got the basic idea.)

I got a little nervous after watching these videos.  Not in a comparative parenting kind of way, but just in a "oh crap my kid isn't going to know how play on the playground" kind of way.  The last time I asked Cooper what a football was, he suggested "rock?"  So I figured we better head outside for some sports play. 

We picked a great spring day, took out the kickball (starting basic, and then we'll move up to odd-shaped balls), and played around a bit.  I turn my back for a minute, and see this:

Cooper found a stick and started playing the "trombone."  

So if music is where our talent and interest are, we'll run with it.  Here are Cooper and Parker rockin' their harmonicas:

Easter egg hunt

Last weekend, we hit the local Easter egg hunt at Baker's campus.  It was mayhem.  Way too many kids (and parents), not enough space.  But Coop enjoyed himself:

He wanted to stop to open each egg after he picked it up:

And once he saw the chocolate inside, he was done for.  I think he ended up with three eggs, and three deliciously chocolate treats!

He then convinced us to wait in line for the bounce house.

 

 Bounce house + chocolate = awesome morning!

 

New photos

I took Cooper to Snap Photography to have his three-year pictures taken.  The photo shoot itself was a crazy mess.  Coop was in fine form, if I do say so myself.  He was very shy initially, which I expected. But then he was also relatively uncooperative.  Apparently, he was hungry like I hadn't fed him in days, so we had to keep taking chew breaks, and in one series of shots, he's actually eating a banana. He picked his nose and laughed only at poop jokes. He wanted so very badly to play with anything sitting around the room, including a big box of ab rollers. And he refused to go near a very cute silver/red chair, proclaiming (with real tears) "I HATE red chairs." Alrighty then.

Miraculously, the pictures turned out really well.  These are the ones the photographer chose to post on her blog:

Naptime?

Coop came down from his nap last Sunday looking like this:

I figured I needed to grab the video camera to get the full story.

The Spring Break Edition, part 4 (and final)

After our trip to Wichita, we had a couple of days built in to recover and get ready for the work week.  And we ended up with six inches of snow.

Cooper was a big help in going out to get logs for the fire place.

And shoveling:

He and Daddy had a snowball fight:

(Notice that Cooper's back is turned as Alan's throws.  Cheap shot.)

All of our gear drying off in the house:

The next day, it was a bit warmer, so Alan and Cooper resumed their snowball fight, and took a moment to build a sweet little snowman: