We go visit Madeline:

After Madeline came to play at our house, we took the crazy up to her house in Lawrence.  Again, more costumes:

 

Admiring the water feature in their front yard:  

 

Doing crafts: 

 A couple of weeks later, Madeline left this note for Cooper in his school folder:

("Dear Cooper, I had a grait birthday and I thot of you the hole time beecus I loved you.  love, Madeline")

Madeline comes to visit!

Coop really, reeeeaaallly misses his friends from Miss Ann's room, so we invited Madeline over to play one weekend.  Here were Coop's welcome signs:

And Coop staring out the window waiting for her to arrive:

Costumes:

Ice cream:

 The toy closet:

The last bits of summer

Alan and Coop took a road trip to Hays to see the Sternberg Museum:

 
 

 

And they stopped in Lyons on the way home for a hiking tour around Kanopolis Lake:

 

 Coop spent one Saturday afternoon moving out into the hallway and watching the "television" he made out of a cardboard box:

We helped sponsor the Raintree reconstruction project (ie -- wrote a check) and they put Coop's name on the curb!

Some critters:



Ready for first grade!

With his teacher Mr. Joe:

I think the first week went well.  It's always a little hard to know exactly what he does during the day.  Apparently, he spent lots of time that first week reading a book about snakes.  Fair enough.

School

Coop wrapped up his kindergarten year in August.  It was his third and final year in Miss Ann's classroom.  He asked if I could come join him for lunch one day before summer classes were over:

We had grilled cheese sandwiches, grapes, and veggies.  (And milk.  Ick.)  It was pretty impressive to see a room full of twenty-four 3-6-year-olds eat a meal without too much mishap.

Cooper with Miss Ann and Miss Katie (the assistant teacher in the room):

Church Carnival

Our church had an end-of-the-summer carnival in the parking lot.  Tons of fun!

Face painting!

Hot dogs!

Cotton candy!

Trying to dunk pastor!

Getting some help with the basketball game:

Sack races!

Playing

With Simon:

Simon has discovered Scratchy:

Legos!

Summer!

Wowzer!

More Creativity

Coop made himself bird wings:

Shark head:

To go with shark fins:

Coop used the industrial strength twist ties (the orange cables) to give himself more arms so that he could clean his room faster.

Clever, but the process involved sitting down, wrapping the toys in the extra "arms," walking to the toys closet, sitting down to unwrap the toys, and put them away.  Good thing we weren't in a hurry.

Clay Class

The mom of one of Cooper's classmates owns a pottery studio in Lawrence, and she talked us into trying some classes.

 

Alan and I spent most of the time making bowls on the pottery wheel.  Coop tried his hand at it too (with Tierney helping him):

But he really preferred just working with slabs or balls of clay.  He made some turtles, but they didn't survive the kiln (not stuck together well enough).  Here's the haunted mansion he made:

All painted!

Ghost in the window!

Someone gave us a toy pottery wheel, so we tried it.  Not bad for $20, though we didn't actually get a completed project from it:

Goin' fishing

Getting ready:

Waiting:

Got one!

Cleaning the fish (Coop really really wanted to bring home some of the fish they caught, even though they were so tiny it was more trouble cleaning them than it was worth!):

Dipping in ketchup:

Not a fan:

Oh well.  At least we don't have to bring home and clean any more fish!  Win!