Bead It

So, sometimes Emily and I just need a girl's day out. She's the oldest and I worry that I place too much responsibility on her, even though she's still just four. When my mom came to visit (oops, I didn't take any pictures of that!), I decided it was time to do something special for Emily. So the three of us went to Bead It, a local bead store, and I pretty much let her go crazy. She chose a crazy conglomerate of "beautiful" beads from the hundreds of little glass bowls set out throughout the store. Yes, I have taken all three kiddos into the store before and it is definitely an adventure.
This is the masterpiece we ended up with.

 It is a proud addition to her collection; definitely the most expensive piece.

It was a really fun time to spend with Emily as the center of attention. I definitely need to make a bigger effort to spend more one-on-one time with her.

Lovely Pants

So, I whipped together some baby pants out of fabric that I already had for a neighbor who had a baby a couple of weeks ago. I thought they were pretty funky looking at first and I called them my crazypants, but now I think I love them.

front

back

Emily helped by assuring me that she liked them. Caleb helped by sitting on my lap at the machine while I sewed.  The fabric helped because it is lovely organic cotton with both prints by a local designer. Local is always better, of course. :)  They're way better in real life, really.  I kind of hate to part with them. I love how they feel in my hands - like a good quality garment. And I love the panel on the back because I always have trouble telling front from back in home made pants. I just really like them, I guess.

Also, here are some pictures of those kids, whom I also really like.

Outside, the day we took our Valentine's pictures.

Yesterday after church, in a TV daze watching Living Scriptures.

I'm not really sure what to say about this one,
except that I'm sure Emily had something to do with it.

Virtual fun

A while ago the family took a trip to Joseph's lab to see what he's been up to. While I've been to his lab many times, and seen others try the program out, I have never personally looked at his work. This time I put on the mask and swung the racquet. Joseph has told me a lot about what he's been working on - a virtual-reality racquetball court - but I was very surprised by how cool it was. I was fully immersed in this racquetball world, trying to hit the ball at a target.

 Caleb was a little afraid of a mama with no awareness of his whereabouts.

I was happy to keep playing the racquetball game for a while. Luckily, Joseph had activities to keep the kids busy. Emily loved these Hoberman spheres and spent a while figuring them out.

Elinor worked on putting some sunglasses on and climbing this exercise ball that Joseph's coworker uses for a chair.

Caleb snuck a quick workout in. You know how two-year-olds are. Exercise fanatics.

Actually he was pretty freaked out by the treadmill and got off as soon as he could.

It's super cool stuff going on in this lab, and I am excited by how much progress Joseph has made. Hopefully we'll see even more progress this year! ... like enough to graduate?

Happy Valentine's Day!

idea found here.

Children's Park

Yesterday I read about a children's park in San Marcos here, so we decided to check it out today. It did not disappoint! It was a little chilly, but the kids had a great time.

This place was crazy big - how did we not know about it before?

I liked the dragon head and tongue slide.

Hee hee! Elinor's little hair spike just poking up above the train!

All three taking off in the rocket.

 

This was a super neat little music activity that all three kids liked.

 

I challenged Emily to wiggle through this tiny tunnel.

Elinor saw her and crawled through no problem. Can you see her red jacket in there?

They came out here, at this cute little house.

I liked that there were all these little passages for the kids to explore.

Lots of climbing.

I think this was their first time on a tire swing. Elinor loved being able to swing with the big kids.

Check out Caleb's tongue!

 I have a list of things we are hoping to go see before we leave Austin. Even though we just learned about this place, it was a nice kick-off to our efforts to get out a little bit more.

Accident prone

So, I know I have discussed this previously here, but I just want to re-emphasize how exciting it is to have a little boy of Caleb's uh, caliber living in our home.
So, he did fall and scrape a circle of skin off his forehead about a week ago, as shown in this lovely picture:

And another random picture that I'll throw in just because I like it:

Anyway, a couple of days later after the forehead incident, Caleb tripped over a lego truck and hit the side of his bed. I walked into the room to find him crying with blood pouring out of his mouth. He seemed unaware of that though, and was mostly worried about his cheek. That mark showed up later.

And finally, just a couple of days ago, he stepped on a fire ant pile with bare feet. He now has at least fifteen bites on his feet that wake him every hour or so throughout the night because they itch so badly.

I guess it's hard to see, but his feet and toes are pretty swollen. Kind of a gross picture anyway.

So, that has been Caleb's traumatic week -- at least, those were the accidents that left marks. He has had many others, mostly involving head bonking. Sometimes I worry about his mental development being affected by all this. Even for a little boy, he seems especially accident-prone, but he keeps life exciting for all of us.

Happy Groundhog Day!

A long-held tradition in this little family of ours is to watch Groundhog Day on (or close to) Groundhog day every year. Yes, we Coopers like to help the little holidays feel appreciated - Black Friday, Pi Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Groundhog Day are a few of our favorites.

I hope your Groundhog Day found you and your loved ones gathered together enjoying special moments... like ours did. :)

Let's just get it out there.

This little family is growing. And so is my belly. And I just don't  think it is hideable any more, even at 13 weeks. Caleb is convinced it is a little boy named Jacob and Emily is convinced it is a little girl named Sophia. Who knows?

With this new development plus Joseph possibly finishing his program which would also mean a move, 2012 will be an eventful year.

Little things

Tonight Joseph and I went to see Wicked! Thank you to UT for offering $10 student tickets! Thank you also to Joseph for waiting in line for the tickets and surprising me with pre-arranged babysitting. It was an amazing show and a fun night out with Joseph.

We cut Emily's hair on Sunday. It was getting pretty long. It's still pretty long, just the way she likes it.

We also cut Caleb's hair. Unfortunately, crazy swirls and cowlicks + inexperienced haircutters = Caleb looking a little like Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber.

Caleb has suffered so many head injuries since he started moving under his own power. Way more than both of the girls, both in number and severity.
This time he was sitting on a chair on top of a table outside and jumped off, but didn't land it as planned. You can sort of see it in this picture (you may also notice that he is fully immersed in an action-packed game of superhero memory).

Tap siblings.

Come on, Elinor! Big sister is rarin' to go!

catch up

Alright. First blog post of 2012. Has it really been three weeks since we last posted? Sorry Mum.
Joseph covered the big event - Christmas. We travel to be with family every other year, so this was a stay-at-home year for us. It was nice and quiet. We made some fudge for neighbors,

I made matching pj's for the family, 

and we did a quick nativity play.

Really quickly, I loved these extra pictures from Christmas day that were not in Joseph's post.

He will pose for the picture, but he won't pretend he wouldn't rather be doing other things.

Emily picking up the special present she picked out, wrapped, and adorned with bows just for Caleb.

Our little Ellie Bear hugging her new Christmas bear.
While sitting in a cardboard box. Ah, the simple joys of babyhood.

Shortly after Christmas was me and Joseph's 7th wedding anniversary. Seven years!! I still really like him, by the way. We didn't do anything major. I consider this an in-between year. We'll pull out the big guns at 10 years.  He bought me a printer because our other one has been not really working for the last five years. We also went out to dinner with the kids.

Since then we have all been pretty sick. I don't know if it's the cedar fever kicking in, or just a nasty cold, but we've been pretty miserable. Miss Emily did not go to school a single day last week. We're hoping to send her tomorrow, but it's iffy. It has been nice having her at home. She often plays well with the other two.

Laundry basket story time. "Come sit on my lap, Caleb. I'll read you a story."

 And do you remember this picture, from almost a year ago?

04 Feb. 2011

  The princess lessons have continued. Emily is an earnest young teacher.

09 Jan. 2012

And this is Elinor striking out on her own. She pulled the outfit together all by herself!
We call this look gangster-chic.

And I need to head to bed, but I will work hard to blog a little more frequently than my 2012 blogging history suggests I will.