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.

Misc

Oh no!  An entire army wiped out by a giant python!

Warming his buns on Alan's stove in the morning:

Coop has decided to have his birthday party at a video arcade / laser tag place.  He and I went one afternoon to check it out (and naturally, to play laser tag):

You can tell it's winter when even the snake is seeking out moisture:

Coop attended a half-day-camp about green screen photography and created this:

Fixing the clock on Big Ben!

Legos

One of Alan's Christmas break projects was to go through Cooper's giant bin of random lego pieces and sort them by color:

Coop's been enjoying free-building:

And then he also has decided to get out some of his old instruction manuals and try to re-create the objects (and hopefully save them somehow so they don't once again turn into a big bucket of random legos?):

Happy 2016!

Coop and I visited our friends in Arkansas to ring in the new year.  Coop and Caroline:

At a museum where you were supposed to be drawing part of a snowflake and then seeing how it looks in the mirrors.  Coop opted for faces:

A Frank Lloyd Wright house:

Admiring the view at Crystal Bridges museum:

Christmas Day

Coop spent a not insignificant amount of time setting traps for Santa this year -- all sorts of noisy things in between the fireplace and the Christmas tree:

And naturally, he moved the couch in front of the tree and slept there all night:

Alas, no luck.  Santa made it in and out without detection.  He brought Coop a Lego Millennium Falcon, which he loved!  And gifts from mom and dad were a hit as well:

The finished Falcon!!

Christmas in Lyons

Playdough with the cousins:

Baby Syl!!

Hiking at Horse Thief Canyon:

Sugar Cookies:

And a new grandkid gator picture with the newest grandkid:

Dad spent about an hour looking through photos and telling stories from his time in Viet Nam: