Misc

A university-themed diet coke:

Clapping:

Cooper writing a song:

Shrimp!  The boy eats shrimp!

Baby's way of helping to wake up Cooper:

Balloon

As an impulse buy, I grabbed this balloon from Walmart one day:

Turns out, it makes a great baby toy:

Also, check it out -- baby is balancing!!

Even Coop got in on the action:

Star Farce

Cooper spent one week this summer at Theatre Lawrence, working on a Star Farce play (a farcical version of a Star Wars movie).  He was iCPO (the farcical version of C3PO).  He rocked the outfit and the accent and the walk.  And he had tons of lines -- his biggest part yet, he said:

This was at one point in the theatre's history, the person-eating plant from Little Shop of Horrors, but they used it as the Sarlacc (I think?) creature from the Star Wars movies.  Coop was safe from the critter during the play, but demonstrated its danger afterward:

Post-show ice cream at Orange Leaf:

And with his theatre friends:

Pictures

For baby's first birthday, we met his siblings and their foster families at JCP to have group photos taken.  It was sweet to see the siblings together:

Group photos were a bit dicey -- the two-year-old wasn't terribly enthused with the idea.  But baby's pictures turned out pretty damn cute:

Crayon crafting

Cooper and I were looking for a craft project one day, so we dug out a bag of broken crayons that I had been saving for 11 years.

Coop sorted them into colors:

We melted them (with coconut oil and vanilla):

And made lip gloss!

England: Last

Too cool!

Ran into some friends from school at the Tower of London!

Again, much too cool....

England: More (but I don't know what!)

England: The Beatles

The group took a tour of Liverpool to see all of the Beatles landmarks.

Entrance to The Cavern Club, where The Beatles originally played:

Inside:

 With the tour guide:

With John Lennon:

England, part 2

Telephone booth:

Windsor Castle:

Some swans and ducks:

Roman baths:

Roman workers in Bath.  Coop apparently had a lovely conversation about modern day conveniences like airplanes:

Stonehenge!

A re-creation of the same photo from seven years ago:

In the stocks at George's pub:

Also a re-creation (though from the opposite side of the stocks):