Some Christmas pictures

Cooper's going through a costume phase right now.  Really since Thanksgiving.  He wears costumes all the time.  Never to school, but definitely on weekends and at night and now, since there's been no school for two weeks, every day.

Here's his fireman costume:

(He was waiting in the yard for Alan to come home.)

And he spent much of Christmas in his pirate costume:

Making sugar cookies with Grandma Joan:

And the cousins got in on the action too.  Zoey helped sprinkle.  Vada mostly watched and ate dried peas.

Christmas village

My sister Kelly was into these Christmas village decorations at one time, but Mom and Dad are ready to move them out of the house.  So mom brought them to Coop.

He loves them.  He's got the whole town arranged.  Usually in the evenings, he takes his toy Santa around to every house to deliver presents.

Notice how every building now has at least one vehicle parked outside?

My favorite is the house with the tractor on the porch.

And the monster truck out behind the newspaper office:

Every now and then the village gets terrorized by a giant cat:

Christmas prep

Reindeer pajamas:

Tortilla snowflake snacks:

A phone call from Santa! (via sendacallfromsanta.com)

And our yearly visit to Santa at our gas station/McDonald's (we're classy like that):

Coop told Santa he wanted "a Santa costume and a small toy for home."

Alan on tv!

Last week, Alan was asked to be a guest on Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano to talk about the economics of Seinfeld project.  It aired on the Fox Business News channel, which we don't get.  But here's the clip of his appearance:

Thanksgiving break activities

We dug out the Christmas decorations:

Each year, I buy an ornament for Cooper.  This year, it was a pirate ornament:

And then the weather was wonderfully warm, so we headed outside to ride in the driveway.

(He's not really sleeping, just trying to avoid the camera.)

And the big trike:

Ok, get out your air quotes again.

"Alan" was "on" the "cover" of Business Week.  Here it is.  Can you see him?

Nope, not the big story about Ireland.  Look closer:

Still can't see it.  Try this:

There it is.  "Seinfeld Returns, As an Economist p26."  That's Alan!

To be fair, it is really cool.  The article's nice, and Alan's quoted talking about the project.  You can read the story here.

And.  AND.  The Today Show is planning to interview Linda about her Econ and Pop Culture class, and CNN will likely be interviewing Alan soon about the Seinfeld project.  And they haven't even finished their book proposal and already a publishing house has emailed to ask about publishing their book.

Note:  I drafted this post a week ago, and I have to keep editing it with the latest news.  Good heavens.  This thing has gone viral.  On Friday, Mr. President Literary Agent Man sent out the book proposal.  Within two hours, a publishing house rep emailed back that she "absolutely loves this" and was going to talk to her boss about it.  Alan's trying very hard not to starting counting his chickens.

Speaking of chickens (and with apologies to Alan for cluttering up this blog post), Red Hen is no longer with us.  We found her dead under a pine tree in the yard, and we buried her under her favorite roosting tree.  Man, she was a tough old bird.