Saturday

We made a stop at Dunkin' Donuts.  Coop picked a chocolate frosted donut and a donut with sprinkles.  He and I were to share -- we would each get half of each donut.

Here was the "half" of the chocolate frosted donut that he left me:

We spent about five hours out at Clinton Lake.  Some friends of ours were running in a trail run out there.  Coop and I played down at the beach for about 1.5 hours.  He waded in the water, collected shells, dug in the sand. 

And then we walked some of the trails:

Coop took his ghost costume with us, and he had fun running through the finish gate while everyone cheered for him.

And in the "bad mom" category, check out Coop's souvenir from the day:

Oops.

A quick trip to Lyons

Coop and I headed to Lyons last weekend, originally to attend the MCC sale at the State Fair grounds and to attend Kathy and Gary's 40th wedding anniversary party.  For unrelated reasons, we went to neither of those events, and with tornadoes on the way in, we ended up leaving Lyons earlier than planned.

But we still managed lots of fun things:

Walking on the railroad tracks with Grandpa, Grandma, and Prince:

Easter egg hunt with the neighborhood kids.

Grandpa and Grandma have amassed a collection of 2000 plastic Easter eggs, all purchased during the 90% off after-Easter sales over the past several years.  Grandpa filled them with candy and quarters and threw them in the pasture for the kids to find.

Sorting through the loot:

Grandpa helped Cooper with some t-ball practice:

We cooked hotdogs and had s'mores.

And when we needed to rest, we played "conveyor belt" with Grandma Joan's treadmill.

Happy (?) 100th Anniversary Titanic!

This weekend marked the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's short voyage. Cooper has been obsessed with the Titanic for a while now. Here were his latest research projects from school:

"the Titanic" 

 "the Titanic hit in isbrg" = The Titanic hit an iceberg.

"the Titanic is seenceeng fast" = The Titanic is sinking fast.  Notice the smokestacks and ladders falling off, as well as the life boats around the sinking ship.

"the Titanic" -- It's underwater in this picture, with submarines exploring it and life boats still on the surface of the water.

When Coop realized that this weekend was the anniversary, he insisted on bringing treats to school.  (Actually, he wanted to have a big party at our house and invite all of his classmates, but I wasn't sure I was up for that...)

I opted for cupcakes with a Titanic shaped cookie on top.  Seemed like a safer bet than a cake with half of the Titanic sticking up out of the water...

Not my best work, but not bad.

Cousins photo shoot

My sisters and parents and I met in Denver over Easter weekend with the kids.  We had lots of fun hanging out together, though our attempt at a Cousins Photo was less than entirely successful.  We have one kid who only wants to be silly, one kid who has a pageant-ready smile, and one kid who seemingly couldn't care less about the group photos.  Can you guess which is which?

This looks promising...

This is maybe my all-time favorite scene of the afternoon.  Zoey, with her "ready for her glamour shot" pose, and Vada, refusing to even get on the table anymore and instead playing on the floor in the middle of the room.

And then Girl Who Doesn't Want Pictures and Boy Who's Silly figured out that they could completely derail the photo shoot by refusing to look at the camera at all.

We did get this photo of everyone later in the day.  Zoey's holding up a rock for some reason, but otherwise, this was by far the best picture we managed to get!

Playtime

We visited the Titanic Exhibit at Union Station in Kansas City.  When we got home, Coop turned his laundry basket into the Titanic, complete with Captain Bear and smokestacks.

Oh no!  Ice berg ahead!!

Skeleton-witch-pirate playing with trains?

Swimming in the bath tub.

New (to us, anyway) Thomas trains.  YAY!

Out riding the bike.

Our "noo kor"

"Wee bot a noo kor" = We bought a new car.

On Friday of spring break, after Coop and I got back from Portland, we decided to go test drive a Hyundai Santa Fe.

That's Cooper standing at the table in the background.  You can't tell it, but he's dressed like this:

The mask came off eventually, but I think the overall look helped my negotiations.

We ended up buying the Santa Fe.  Coop was quite taken with the automatic windows and that "this car plays music, Mama!"  Um, yes... yes, it does.

He did a nice job waiting patiently in the dealership while we finished the whole transaction.  For a while, he and I would write notes back and forth to each other.  I would write "Are you hungry?" and he would run over to another table and write his answer ("No.").  I asked if he was sleepy (also no) and what his favorite color was (green).

Here was his question to me:

"Do you want too bee poot in a kav" = Do you want to be put in a cave?  I thought that sounded fun.  Better than his next note, which asked if I wanted to be lit on fire.  Um... no thanks.

Anyway.  Here's the note he wrote to Daddy about the car:

 "The kor is a van theat is green." = The car is a van that is green. 

Indeed it is:

We named him Stanley.  Or, as Cooper calls him, Stan the Van.   (We haven't bothered yet to differentiate between a van and an SUV...)