Leftover Halloween stuff

Cooper, dressed half as a monkey, stopped to play piano, which is particularly adorable with the banana sticking out of his pocket:

While Cooper was watching the trick-or-treaters walking around Lawrence, he seemed particularly enchanted with the skeletons. So I picked him up a skeleton costume for 75% off at Walmart the next day.

Dinner in a Pumpkin -- the perfect Halloween meal.

Step 1. Clean out pumpkin.

Step 2. Brown ground turkey and onion. Add brown sugar, soy sauce, cream of mushroom soup, and cooked brown rice.

Step 3. Fill pumpkin. Replace lid. Pop in oven.

Step 4. Scoop out meat and rice mixture, along with the pumpkin. And enjoy:

Family and pets we love

A couple of weekends ago, Cooper and I headed to Lyons to meet up with my Aunt Mary from Texas. Cooper had never met her, but we had a great time talking (and eating pizza):

Prince, Grandpa Cecil, Cooper:

Our new kitty Addie is settling into the family nicely. She spends several nights sleeping on the recliner in Cooper's room:

She enjoyed Alan's Empire State Building costume:

And she joins us for story time before bed, just like our Mikey used to!

Shots, books, and cats.

Showing off his flu shot bandaid:

More importantly, showing off the candy he got after he got his flu shot:

Driving back home from Lyons ("Look, Mama! I'm under a big stack of books!")

About 20 minutes later:

Addie's favorite way to taunt Sydney is to go sit on top of the chair Sydney is under.

Sydney does let Addie come around if she's distracted with food though:

Some random pictures

Ready for a ride:

Eating applesauce with mittens:

Reading:

Playing with a clock puzzle -- he takes out the pieces and sets them down as far from him as he can reach. And then he puts them all back in.

Playing in a Corn Box -- a big tank of corn kernels that we saw at a local pumpkin patch.

Our pumpkin

Digging out the guts, which Cooper decided looked like grass:
Carving the face:

Putting the light in:

Replacing the lid:

Ta-daaaa!

How Halloween went down at our house

Since we've been a family of three, I've been excited to come up with a family theme for our Halloween costumes, at least as long as I can still convince Cooper to wear what I want him to wear. Two years ago, we were a pirate family complete with parrot, and last year we were the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe.

This year started with a hand-me-down monkey costume. I decided that Coop could be King Kong, Alan could dress up like the Empire State Building, which would leave me as the damsel in distress. No problem.

I picked up a big U-Haul box for Alan's building, and Cooper liked playing with the smaller one I bought:

But then *gasp* I couldn't talk him into wearing the monkey costume. Here is the one and only time he had the whole thing on:

I finally bribed him with Smarties to put the top on so we could at least take a picture of him next to the Empire State Building. But he would only stand by the building if I was in it, which left Alan to be the damsel in distress, and he didn't much care for that role. So he took the picture instead:

It's too bad he wouldn't wear the costume out and about. He makes a super-cute monkey:

Instead, he insisted on wearing the little box I had cut for him. So he went trick-or-treating as Small Box from U-Haul.

( Parker's a bear.)

I'm sure people thought I was the laziest mom ever -- I didn't even try to make the box look like something. Oh, well...


As it turns out, Cooper didn't care that much about trick-or-treating anyway. We headed to downtown Lawrence to visit all the businesses, but Cooper much preferred watching all of the costumes go by.

Fine by me. No sense fighting him to go trick-or-treating when I would just spend the rest of the week fighting him to not eat candy!

Check out, by the way, some of Cooper's super-cute friends, all agreeably wearing their costumes:

Gus

Zooey

Christopher

Another cousin for Cooper!!

Vada Mae Zolman
was born yesterday, October 28:

Everyone's doing well, albeit a little tired. Carmen and Toban say she has fuzzy red hair!

Possible professions

After a visit to Dr. Chris, our family dentist:

After an afternoon watching the high school marching band competition:

(Snare drum above, bass drum below. And again with no pants.)

Washing the windows:(If he pays us an extra $5, we let him whitewash our fence, too.)

A nanny?

Either these photos mean our kid has many talents and can be any number of things. Or it means he's easily influenced by whatever he saw last. Let's try to keep him away from watching America's Most Wanted, ok?

A new kitty!

Since Mikey died back in June, we've been contemplating getting a new kitty. We finally bit the bullet when the perfect opportunity presented itself (or herself, I guess I should say!) this weekend.

This is Adelaide, but we call her Addie.

A friend rescued her on a county rode a month or so ago. We think she's about 10 weeks old.

Cooper playing string.
(Note: I realize that an ever-increasing number of my posts involve me saying something like "I don't know why Cooper's not wearing a shirt" or "I have no idea why Cooper's naked." That probably doesn't bode well, does it?)

Getting a treat:

Meeting Sydney:

The relationship between the two cats isn't exactly friendly, but it's not violent either, which I count as a success for now.

(Also note the Australian-cities name theme we've got going -- Sydney and Adelaide! At least we didn't choose Perth!)

A new fun kitty toy:

Cooper's attempt to fit into the cat carrier: