Birthday, part 1

The day started at 7am with presents!

Party at Raintree:

Cookie cake at home:

Some quality time reading Daddy's new book:

And out shooting targets with his new BB gun:

Winter misc

A lego creation:

Snuggling:

At karate, Cooper was recognized for his focus and attention (I know, right?!?) and invited to join the next level of membership: Black Belt Training.  He's thrilled!

Black Belt Training involves 15 extra minutes after class to work on different kinds of skills and weapons.

And a black outfit now (with blue tshirt in this pic):

King Cooper.  Ready to order his servants to clean his room.

Arkansas!

Alan always has an econ conference the first week of January, so Coop and I drove down to Arkansas to visit our friends Henry and Caroline.

Watching Night at the Museum:

Re-enacting Night at the Museum (Henry is the t-rex, Coop is Teddy Roosevelt, and Caroline is the monkey):

Happy New Years!!  (at 9:30pm, don't tell the kiddos):

Watching tv:

The kids and Miss Melissa put on a puppet show (bottom left), Mr. Will ran the lights (just to the right of the pole), and Miss Melissa and Mr. Will's friends (Miss Kerri, Mr. David, and Mr. Jim) were rapt audience members:

Reading Star Wars:

With Henry's lego star destroyer:

The Money Museum

Coop and I met our friend Henry in Kansas City to tour The Money Museum at the Federal Reserve:

The $40 million wall:

Post-Christmas

The rancor (a critter from Star Wars) helping us write thank you notes:

Coop and I watching a Star Wars movie over break (we watched many!):

Our friends Parker and Zachary stopped by over break:

Zac as a witch (with Darth Vader gloves?):

More Chrismtas

Coop got more legos from Aunt Julie:

And.... done!

This is Jordan, my cousin's son, reading a Star Wars book in the same series as Coop:

Playing Star Wars games on the wii:

Gifts:

Talking Star Wars with my cousin:

The kiddos:

Christmas at our house

Coop and I made haystacks (chow mein noodles, butterscotch chips, peanut butter, marshmallows) for Santa:

New Darth Vader jambes on Christmas Eve (to match the Darth Vader tree):

Santa came!  (Coop and I slept on the couch in an effort to catch Santa.  No luck!)

The best gift from Santa:

Coop and his gifts:

Starting on the lego gift from Santa:

Done!

Disney!

While we were in Florida, we took on day to visit Disneyland, focusing, naturally, on the Star Wars part.

Coop's absolute favorite part was building his own light saber:

Sitting on some Star Wars critter (I don't know...):

We took a break in the Star Wars action to see some Indiana Jones stunts:

Then back to the Star Wars area for Jedi training:

Darth Vader!

Coop got to battle Darth Maul: