mid-February

For Coop's and Alan's birthdays, we had photos taken at Shawnee Mission Park.  It was one of those 70-degree February days.  Lovely!

Coop got this snake poster for his birthday.  We had it framed and hung it up in his room:

Speaking of snakes, we gave ours a bath.  She's been having trouble shedding, and the pet store worker said that getting her wet would help.  It did, and she didn't hate it as much as we thought she might!

Speaking of pets, Coop's fish died and we gave away the hermit crabs.  Instead, we bought a leopard gecko!

Super cute!  We haven't quite settled on a name yet, but Klinger (from MASH) is the lead contender.

 The assistant teacher in Coop's classroom drew this picture of him on his birthday.  It's fabulous, so I had it framed!

Birthday festivities, part 2

We had a birthday party at the house for Coop and his friends.  And we hired Mr. John Weaver, a magician, to entertain the troops:

 

I made Coop pose for a sad face picture since his cake had a grammatical error on it:

We fixed it with a chocolate chip:

We moved our tree out of Cooper's room (where it was bending up against the ceiling) to the space by the front door where it has tons of room to keep growing!

Relaxing in a lavendar bath to help ease sore throat pain:

A hair cut, with "product" and a style!

At karate.  Coop's decided he's not having a good time.  Despite laughing and clowning around with his friends, every time he made eye contact with me, I got the grumpy face:

Birthday festivities (part 1)

The weekend before Coop's birthday, we met Ellen and Kent in Abilene and toured the Seelye Mansion.  Coop got to play with the 1904 bowling game in the basement:

Grandma Joan and Grandpa Cecil came up, and we had lunch at the Mexican restaurant:

On his actual birthday, Coop wore his "new" bowler hat and tie, which belonged to his Great-great Grandpa Esau:

And then he got strep throat, so we spent his birthday afternoon at a walk-in clinic and then resting at home with amoxicillin:

On the up side, the assistant teacher in Coop's classroom drew this for him:

Amazing!

Playing

Many evenings look like this in light of the new iPad in the house:

But we took advantage of unseasonably warm January weather to play outside with Gus and Eleanor:

Dirty kids!

Hawaii, part 6

With some wildlife:

IN WITH THE WILDLIFE:

A snazzy new Hawaiian shirt!

At the top of Diamond Head: