Decorating for Christmas

After I unceremoniously ended Halloween, Coop was anxious to get out the Christmas tree.  I kept stalling him by promising that we'd do it the day after Thanksgiving.

So on that Friday morning, Cooper popped out of bed at 7:01am, and by 7:15am, he and I were in the basement dragging out boxes of decorations.

First up, the Christmas books:

(That's Alan's first cup of coffee of the day.  First of many.)

I didn't feel like having a battle about getting rid of the zombie in the living room, so we made him festive and called him a decoration:

Hanging a wreath:

Setting up his nativity scene:

Organizing his Christmas village:

And finally, the tree.

Checking out his stash of nutcrackers:

And then, it was 10:30am, and I was out of Christmas decorations.  I tagged Alan, and it was his turn to entertain the holiday-spirited boy:

They played Santa and reindeer, while I relaxed on the couch and listened to Kenny Rogers's Christmas cd.

Happy Thanksgiving

Mom and Dad were able to come up on Wednesday to join Cooper for his Thanksgiving Feast at Raintree.  The children spend all month preparing food for the event -- corn casserole, rolls, cranberry relish, pumpkin cake, mashed potatoes, peanut brittle, dressing, butter (made by shaking cream!).  It's a fun event, and Coop was glad to have his grandparents there.

Back at home, Coop and Grandpa Cecil did some science experiments and played "will it float":

On Thanksgiving day, we hosted Alan's folks, plus a couple of students (one from Baker and one from Washburn) who weren't going home for the holiday.  The only photo I took, though, was of my serving dishes, which I love:

The brown bowl from Grandma Farm's house, the silver tray that Grandpa Farm won at a brown swiss (cow) show, the square plate I bought just because I loved it, the oval serving platter we got as a wedding gift from one of my favorite law school professors, and the big white bowl I found at a garage sale for $1.

They were eventually filled with yummy food, and we had a great day.  Tomorrow, time to dig out Christmas decorations!

Cooper projects

After we finished the giant pirate ship project, Coop and I headed to the store to pick a new model project.  Everything at the store is pretty tame.  He selected an army tank and the only "assembly" included screwing on the six wheels. 

After that massive pirate ship, this was pretty lame.  Finished in about 10 minutes.


My Aunt Kathy made this quilt for me.  It's called the Ella Mae sampler (Grandma Farm's name!)  I love it!

 And it makes a great fort roof, too.

Reading in the Love Sac:

And Cooper "reading" on the couch (with Little Bill).

At school, Coop's class has been listening to books on tape about "Jack and Annie."  Turns out, they're books in the Magic Treehouse series.  We ordered one, and Cooper was so excited when it arrived, he grabbed it and hunkered on the couch for about 15 minutes "reading" it.

(Unfortunately for him, he later lost the privilege of starting the new book that night, which resulted in tears.  But we moved passed that...)

I made Cooper cry.

I suggested that we put away the Halloween decorations.  Actually, I just grabbed a big bucket and started loading up the ghosts and witches and skeletons.  Bad move.  The child loves Halloween.

So I let him pick three things to keep out.  He chose knitted jack-o-lantern coasters, a big orange skeleton to hang in his room, and a foam haunted house that he decorated with stickers.

And he reminded us that we had not yet made a zombie this year.  Remember Big Bill from last Halloween?  Apparently it's now a yearly tradition we've started.  Who knew.

But, it turns out that we're lazy.  No one except Cooper really wanted to find a straw bale and old clothes and put together a zombie.  So we compromised and made a small inside zombie by stuffing old Cooper clothes with newspaper.

Meet Little Bill:

Here's hoping we can put him away before it's time for the Christmas tree...