Fun

Cooper's friend Molly came over to play one afternoon.  She brought an ipad-controlled robot, so Coop got out a remote-controlled space ship for battles:

Dinner at a mexican restaurant:

Alan took Coop to watch the Baker women's basketball team play in the national championship game (for NAIA Div. I).

And a new awesome lego set:

Coop got to join Alan at a brewery tour one evening:

Pranks

April Fool's Day is Cooper's spirit holiday.  Man, he loves a good gag.  Witness what he opted to spend his money on last week:

Alan fooled him, though, on April 1 by freezing his cereal + spoon the night before:

Coop had planned several cute (appropriate) April Fool's Day pranks for that Friday, including an apple for his teacher (with a gummy worm in it) and fake parking tickets to be distributed in the Raintree faculty parking lot.

But then this:

 Sigh.

Finally, new glasses:

More spring break

Coop and I stopped at the Wells Overlook Park, really just a three-story wooden structure on top of a hill that gives you a great view into Lawrence:

Legos.  Always legos:

Coop's karate studio marched in the Lawrence St. Patrick's Day parade:

And he apparently got to sit (drive?) in this 1956 La Dawri (whatever that is?) with Miss Kansas.  My guess (and I'm totally ok with it) is that he was more excited about the car than the girl!

Spring break trip to Omaha

Coop and I used three of our spring break days to drive to Omaha with Gus, Eleanor, and Carrie.

We spent several hours at the Omaha zoo:

Playing poker back in our hotel room:

We also spent many many hours at CocoKey water park resort.  I didn't take any photos there, but the kiddos were sufficiently wiped out to make for a quiet drive back home:

Running Away

This may be one of those posts I have to delete once Coop is internet-savvy enough to find the blog.  But a few weekends ago, he was convinced that he wanted to run away.  Unfortunately for him, it was 20 degrees outside that evening (with a wind chill of 9), so that didn't seem like a wise plan.

Nonetheless, here was his running away outfit:

In his "hobo bags," he had packed the following treasures:

 Costa Rican money (so he'll be set once he makes it that far south), cheese slices and a wooden cage to catch mice (to sell to pet stores for money), and a bunch of things to keep him entertained and to entertain others.

The note he left me Sunday morning:

Thankfully, he settled for walking by himself to Alan's house (about a mile away) once the weather warmed up to 50 degrees.

Vehicles

Coop and I made this tank to serve as his valentines collection box at school.  It was all his vision, but I think we did an admirable job painting camouflage!

With a birthday gift certificate to The Toy Store in Lawrence, Coop picked out these three new cars for his collection:

And here he is posing with a line-up of all of the cars that he owns that he has disassembled (with the screwdriver he's holding).  One is missing from the picture -- it didn't make it back together!

And in completely random news, a friend of mine posted this line of babies on Facebook.  (Coop is second from the right, with the pacifier.)  When I was pregnant, I took a water aerobics class with a bunch of ladies who were all due about the same time.  When our babies were all born, we got together for a "play date" and took this photo:

I would love to line them all up now!!

Creativity

Cooper made this diorama to go along with his report of the Atlantic Ocean:

Our friend Eleanor came over one evening and thoroughly enjoyed painting:

Coop and I saw a One Man Star Wars Trilogy play at Starlight.  It was spectacular!  (And Coop has been busy trying to recreate it ever since!)

And always another magic trick in the works:

NINE!!

Storm Trooper cookie cake for the birthday festivities:

We had his "friend" party at Epic, an arcade / laser tag place in Lawrence:

Air hockey with Madeline:

Kids v. grown-ups laser tag:

Coop requested fruit crisp for the family party back at the house:

New Star Wars bedding (and stuffed snake from his friend Molly!):

And modeling the new outfit from Aunt Ellen, Grandma Marlene, and Kent:

Games

One of the Baker professors conducts war games (it sounded a lot like Risk when Coop described it to me, but I have no idea!) for kiddos.  Coop and Alan had a grand time!

New magic tricks from Aunt Jill:

New legos, magic tricks, and a storm trooper bobble head courtesy of Aunt Kelly's Barnes and Noble gift certificate for xmas:

Coop had the all-time luckiest game of Battleship ever.  Only one (ONE!) random shot that missed (the others were figuring out which way to go after a hit).  He totally smoked me.