Leftover early-November photos

At the big Halloween store, we bought skulls that dissolve in water and have three eyeballs hidden inside.  Eyeball soup?

We then took those eyeballs and a few glow sticks for a spooky bath:

Coop voted with us on election day.

1. Coop voted half Republican and half Democrat. Which means he'll fit in well with this family.
2. He mostly voted for people whose signs he'd seen or whose names he could read (sorry Tobias Schlingensiepen). Which means he'll likely fit in well with the vast majority of the American population. 

Coop finally (finally!) finished his US map at school.  This has taken him months.

 He had to trace each state, and then punch it out using a push pin all around the edges, and then glue everything in place.  Whew.

Being silly at bedtime:

Painting a haunted house picture:

Stories

1. We read books at bedtime for about 30-45 minutes.  And then Coop has some lights on time by himself to read.  And then we turn the lights off (which in theory means it's time to go to sleep).

 

I busted him one night huddled by his nightlight still trying to read:

2.  One afternoon, I went outside to find Cooper and heard him crying.  When I asked him what was wrong, he said he didn't know.  And then I asked how long he'd been outside crying.  "Since I killed that big grasshopper."  Ah... I see....

We spent another 30 minutes or so just hanging out on the porch swing not talking while he pondered whatever his five-year-old mind was thinking....

3.  One Friday, Coop's school was closed so Alan took him to the office.  I guess the day went ok.  Coop played with some legos and spent an hour or so talking to the dean.  And apparently (I stayed out of most of the details of the day), Alan just left Coop in his office while he taught class.  Alan came back to this note:

"Ie left the ofes   al bee bac soon."  = I left the office.  I'll be back soon.

In which I confess my baking (decorating) failure

Coop's class had a Halloween party, and he wanted to sign up to bring snacks.  Fine.  I can round up 26 baggies of candy corn.  But no.  That simply would not do.  Coop saw these in a magazine and had to have them:

 

 

He was a big help making the cupcakes.

(That's a lie.  He only wants to lick the batter.)


I tinkered with the decoration instructions a bit, trying to make things easier on myself and on the teacher who would have to deal with 26 preschool/kindergartners trying to eat these things.

Unfortunately, my test run came out like this:

Kind of looks like a muppet.  But definitely not a witch.

I showed Coop, apologized, and suggested we just do witch hat cupcakes:

He agreed, but only because it meant we could save (and eat!) all of the candy eyeballs I had purchased.

My boy loves Halloween, cont.

Grandma Joan sent pumpkin leaf bags:

And with even more allowance money, his newest acquisition was a severed leg.  Great.

 

For actual Halloween evening, Coop dressed in his skeleton costume.  He and Alan went to a kids haunted house at one of Baker's sorority houses. 

The Saturday after Halloween (dressed a pirate), Coop got this sweet Halloween gift bucket from Miss Linda, the cinnamon roll lady from our farmer's market.

She included a cinnamon roll, brownie, and toy skeleton! 

 

That same day, Coop and I headed up to the big Halloween Express store in Lawrence to check out what they had left (for half price!).  Coop was in heaven looking at all the creepy decorations.  I vetoed most (all) of them.

But we did buy a vampire costume to go with his vampire teeth:

Still running errands that day, I took the vampire to Walmart.  First stop: book section.  Vampire picked out a book and spent the entire boring shopping trip reading in the cart!

Maple Leaf 2012

We're getting pretty good at figuring out how to enjoy Maple Leaf and avoid the crowds.  First step: parade Saturday morning.

Cooper, Parker, and Zachary

As Coop was collecting candy from one of the parade entrants, he yelled back to Alan and Michael, who were doing this:

 "Hey fools!  You're missing all the candy!"

Second step: Return Saturday evening to ride rides:

And one more time on Sunday afternoon for donuts made in this fancy machine:

And more rides:

This was the first year Coop was interested in the carnival games.  I'm not a fan.  I wasn't prepared to pay $3 for the chance to win a goldfish that (a) we wouldn't likely win anyway and (b) would probably dead in a matter of days, if not hours.

Be we came upon this shark fishing game.  The sign says "1 shark = $3, 2 sharks = $5."  And then depending on how many sharks you get, you could choose a stuffed animal prize.

I was a little confused.  Is there a time limit?  "No."  Is there a limit on the number of times he can try to catch a shark?  "No."  Ok, so I pay you $5 and he gets to stand there until he catches two sharks.  And then he can trade in those two sharks for a stuffed animal from that pile?  "That's right, ma'am."  So in theory, I could just give you $5 for one of those stuffed animals?  "Um... yeah, I guess so."  If we don't want stuffed animals, can my kid just stand there and fish for sharks for as long as he wants?  "No, I'm sorry."  Fine.  Whatever.