Christmas friends

Our friends Gus and Eleanor came over one Sunday afternoon.  Cooper Claus was ready with some gifts for them:

And then we did some painting:

Christmas preparations

Christmas tree!

New Darth Vader ornament:

And a karate ornament too:

And now the tree looks like this:

'Tis a Star Wars Christmas, it seems...

 Coop and I made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers and a bunch of candy:

And Coop visited with Santa, who assured him that the elves have been busy making tons and tons of lego toys for this Christmas:

Surgery Recovery

Friends sent Coop a Lego DeLorean:

So we watched Back to the Future while putting it together:

We celebrated Thanksgiving at the church potluck and used the table covers to play hangman:

We made an apple pie:

And did lots of Star Wars reading:

Hernia surgery

Cooper had a hernia that needed surgical repair.  Watching cartoons in preparation:

Selfie:  (The anesthesiologist offered to take the picture for us, but it's much funner as a selfie!)

"Happy juice" on board, ready to go back to surgery:

Off:

In recovery.  Oof.

Headed out to the car:

Smarts and not

The long division problem Coop worked on at school:

Wooden buffalo model:

Um... jumping off couch cushions to pop bubble wrap:

This jump landed in a belly flop and knocked the wind out of him!

Light saber handles that Coop made in clay class:

Some kind of star wars lego creation that Coop free-built:

The Many Faces of Halloween

Tusken Raider (for karate studio halloween party):

Pumpkin carving party:

As a witch and Boba Fett for the church harvest party:

Darth Vader for regular Halloween trick-or-treating:

Sorting through the loot:

Big Weekend

Maple Leaf weekend found us very very busy! 

First up -- the parade:

That evening, we had tickets (and an extra!) to see Circo Comedia, a show at the Lied Center on KU's campus.  Coop invited his friend Madeline, and they both loved the show!  Tons of slapstick comedy, good music, a big of magic.  It was perfect!

We hit Orange Leaf afterward for ice cream.  (And somehow I found myself imagining their first date...)

 We went back to Maple Leaf on Sunday afternoon.  Coop loved this big slide:

My friend Carrie and I went down it with her two kids:

Coop road a few rides with Gus and Eleanor:

And then we retired to the house for pizza and some down time:

More Misc

A robot Coop built from Legos:

Coop did a report at school on Ancient Greece.  One of Alan's co-workers has this ancient Greek helmet in his office, so Coop was thrilled to try it on:

He wanted to mail himself to his friend Madeline:

Coop scared me one morning when I was coming out of the bathroom.  He drew this picture of the event:

And he made this Star Wars birthday card for his friend Madeline and her sister:

Pumpkin carving: