first Christmases

We celebrated Christmas in Wichita on Saturday the 23rd.  Miss Ally and Juliette joined as well to meet everyone there:

Cooper and Juliette in the hotel pool:

Christmas eve at my house with a pot roast:

Writing a quick letter to Santa:

Magic:

The most aswesomest new lego set ever:

December fun

 Bubble!

A new fountain pen:

And the school spelling bee:

Cooper did great!  He spelled some really difficult words, and eventually missed "malign."  

December starts

Klinger got some new scientific wallpaper for his cage:

Coop performed wonderfully at his piano recital:

And we got our holiday decorations up:

Coop's hat tree is doing double duty as our Christmas tree this year:

New friends, and Thanksgiving

Cooper and Alan have made some new friends.  This is Juliette.  She's a 7th grader:

She somehow convinced coop to dress up with make-up?

For Thanksgiving, Alan and Coop hosted Juliette and her mom Miss Ally:

The annual (the 40th annual!!) Raintree Thanksgiving feast:

Halloween

Step 1. New dress shoes and socks.

Step 2. Pencil drawing of character for inspiration:

Step 3. Appropriately themed jack-o-lantern:

Step 4. Perfect hair cut, jacket, and guitar.  It's Paul McCartney:

Step 5.  Head out with friends:

Siloam Springs State Park

Last weekend, Cooper and I drove to Quincy, IL to meet up with Carrie, Gus, and Eleanor (who now live in Chicago) for a weekend.  We drove to nearby Siloam Springs State Park to hike for a couple of hours.

On the way, we met this guy.  Sitting on a deer (that he was eating) by the side of the road.  We pulled the car up right next to him and watched for a while.  Amazing.

Finally, to the hiking trail:

Reading on the way back to the house:

Mud

Last weekend, Alan, Cooper, and I joined our friends (Madeline and Genevieve and their parents) for a Family Timber Challenge, probably more appropriately called a Family Mud Run.

Here's how we looked at the end:

Along the way, we had lots of obstacles -- hay bales to crawl over, cargo ladders, and this awesome zip line:

And tons of mud.  Just messy slippery mud:

Finally warm, sort of dry, and not even close to clean:

Maple Leaf

Coop and I spent a zillion hours at the Maple Leaf Festival this year.  We went early on Saturday morning (the busiest time) to help our friend Miss Linda, the cinnamon roll lady, work at her booth.

Coop spent some of his money on this tiny ewok (weewok, it was called) and a kid-sized ewok hat:

And an alien hat:

He invited Sacia and Eliza to join us.  

In trouble.  Naturally.

Some spinny ride thing:

The cork shooting game (which Coop was actually quite good at):

Back to the house for Indian food:

School and work and other things

Intent on drawing:

Coop and I had to get fingerprinted (as part of the process to be a licensed foster care home -- so that's kind of exciting!):

Math work from school (area and perimeter of shapes):

Reciting poetry with his friend Eliza.

Using his new drawing app: