Always laughing

The kids are at such funny ages. They do things daily that make me laugh or just wonder about what is going on inside their heads. Today Jacob threw his shoe out the window while I was filling the car with gas and we almost drove away without it. Elinor was so cute in her earnestness as she was insisting that she saw him throw something out the window.

The other day Jacob saw this picture scroll through our screen saver

and he said, "There me are. I'm have it mine roll in mine hand." His grammar is all sorts of messed up right now but it's pretty entertaining and we usually understand what he needs, so mission accomplished, right?


While we were in Utah, Elinor asked for some ham and a bowl of oatmeal. (Random, but totally normal for our kids.) I asked her if she wanted them separate or if she wanted me to mix the ham into her oatmeal. She thought about it for a minute and then said, "Umm, no. Separate." And I said, "Oh, good. That would be a little bit gross." To which she immediately responded, "Yeah. Only sheep eat that."  Exactly, Elinor. Only sheep.


I was helping Jacob put his Wikki Stik man back together last week when one of the feet dropped to the floor. I reached down and grabbed it and he got really mad at me so I put it back on the floor. (We might be a little overindulgent with this fourth child of ours.) So then he sat down and proceeded to carefully take off one shoe, then the sock, stand back up, grab the little wax foot with his toes (after several tries), take it in his little hand, then pass it along to me, announcing "I'm have it in mine foot!" He was just oh-so-proud of the trouble he was able to save himself by grabbing the wikki stix with his toes instead of having to bend all the way over to pick it up with his hands. Atta kid.

Here's Jacob making himself comfortable across a bucket and into the pantry. Poor Elmo there was a casualty of the effort. The blue blanket is all he really needs for a good nap anyway.

Caleb and Elinor working on Explode the Code (best books ever!). Emi was super helpful today and worked with Caleb so I could do other things.

Lest you think that Jacob was left with nothing to do, here he is hard at work on Emily's piano theory.

Joseph and Jake spent a good hour playing with the dominoes on Sunday morning. Jacob loves to feel that he is a contributing member of the team.

Here is a shot of Emi's desk and shelves. I mostly wanted you to ignore the desktop - I swear we clean it off probably weekly! And that lamp is Joseph's  but we are working on getting one for her. But, I wanted to point out the awesome little piggy bank we found at Saver's the other day (left hand side of lower shelf) and the "I can do hard things" print on the top shelf. My aunt Sharon regularly has free printables on her website so I printed this for the girls' room and the boy version for Jacob and Caleb's room. It is perfect for our family because Joseph and I often tell the kids, "Coopers do hard things!" when they complain. We do it frequently enough that we have heard them reciting it to each other from time to time. It always makes us smile.

While we're on the subject of pictures, those Japanese postcards we hung a while back? We kept having issues with them UNTIL switching to those Command velcro strips for hanging pictures. So, just in case any of you are having a hard time hanging stuff, there ya go. Those Ribba frames (Ikea) are so hard to hang securely, but they are no match for 3m.