Can An Almost-Six-Year-Old Be Sacrilegious?

Maybe...

Cooper was saying family prayer tonight, and had been upset all day that he didn’t catch a leprechaun on St.Patrick's Day:, and Amelia's trap at school hadn't caught one either. Here's part of his heart-felt and sincere prayer:

“Please bless I will go on my mission to Ireland and use the power of the priesthood to catch a leprechaun and keep him in a box with lots of tough tape until I get home so we can all see a leprechaun.” 

Super happy the age of accountability is 8!

Also, since Amelia has her own blog I feel like I don't ever post pictures of her on MY blog because she tells me, "Mom, people don't want to see the same pictures on my blog and YOUR blog." I asked her what about the people who read my blog and DON'T read her blog? In all seriousness she looked at me and said, "Like there's anyone like that."

GREAT NEWS!

 I'm sure you've heard about my GREAT NEWS, but if not, keeping reading!

I'll start off with a recap of our week:

Last weekend we drove to Blackfoot so I could have a lovely lunch with my friends and attend Judy and Marty's 50th Anniversary shindig. They don't look a day over 30! It was so much fun to see cousins I don't get to see very often, and eat lots of cake! I didn't take a lot of pictures because things were a little crazy. Here are a few I did take:

In case you're looking at this picture and thinking, "Whaaaat....?" Yes, Cooper has his hand down his pants. He'd been playing in the snow, and his bum was cold. So he put his hand down his pants to "warm up my bum." He was dancing in this picture, but didn't want to have his bum get cold again, so he danced AND warmed his bum at the same time. He's such a multi-tasker.

Outside the Jackman's party. Cooper loved the cake (2 pieces and a cookie), and Amelia loved the babies everywhere.

Unfortunately, after our fun weekend, the week went downhill. Amelia caught as nasty bug that kept her home from school three days. She was miserable, I was miserable, and Cooper was very helpful. In addition to Amelia's sickness, I had to teach at school with my professor observing me, which was nerve racking. It was my second observation, but I was nervous because I'd scored high on my first observation, so there was much more room to go down, then up! I'll let you know how it went after I meet with her. By Thursday, we were all in much better spirits. In fact, Thursday and Friday turned out to be flat-out amazing......
 
So, onto my EXCITING AND FABULOUS news, I WON TICKETS FRIDAY TO A BON JOVI CONCERT! I'm still in a bit of shock, really, but not enough to stop smiling and jumping up and down a little bit. When I told Amelia and Cooper, both of them said, "Yay, Mom! When do we go?" Oh my sweet, sweet children, Mommy's going solo on this one. I'm really excited; it'll be my first concert EVER, and it's gonna be BON JOVI!!!!

Cooper's Latest Accomplishment

                          Tying his shoes!

A Random Cooper-ism:

Cooper: Mom, I need to talk to my doctor about Lipitor.
Me: Wait, what?
Cooper: I need to talk to my doctor about Lipitor. It can help with the plaque build up in my heart that accumulates over time.

No more TV for Coop.

Snowmobiling....FINALLY!

Since the first snowflake fell from the sky, Amelia and Cooper have been asking, begging, pleading, whining and wailing to go snowmobiling. Between sickness, wrecking cars, and our busy schedules we hadn't been able to swing it. FINALLY last Saturday the planets aligned, the universe smiled, and we were able to go snowmobiling for a few hours. It was a beautiful day, with a high of 38, so it was nice and warm.

Cooper happy as can be in the snow.

Amelia and her favorite cousin watching TV. Lynnli hung out with us for a bit before we went snowmobiling. She's always a charmer!

Lynnli and Amelia in the sled.

Cooper and Amelia pulled behind the snow machine by Joey. They flipped over once, but before I could run out to them they flipped BACK over without falling out. No harm done, except my heart missed a few beats.

Did I mention Cooper was happy to be outside in the snow?

We did have one small incident. Cooper was riding with Ben on a machine and didn't brace himself when Ben braked. His nose never bled, and he quickly stopped crying so he could scoop up some snow and throw it at Amelia and I as Ben drove past us. 

Thanks to Ben, Joey, Jojo, and Jojo's dad for a fun couple hours. My children no longer beg, whine and plead to go snowmobiling.....now they want to go to the park.

February highlights

As sloooooooow as January was, February zipped right through. March and April tend to get crazy with Amelia and Cooper's birthdays. and my semester ending and a new one beginning. Before we know it, it'll be summer with lots of trips, bike riding, camping and running out energy at the park. Hmmm, that ALMOST sounds like I'm looking forward to summer. I'd better stop before anyone gets the wrong impression!

Here are a few things we did:

Cooper's "thinking about it" pose. Whenever he needs to mull something over, this is what he looks like.

We saw Lynnli so much this month; it was a lot of fun. She and Amelia were watching "Tangled" while she texted on my phone.

Cooper's beloved Avengers shield popped, so I finally had some time to stuff it with batting and resurrect it so Cooper can fight off the bad guys (aka Amelia). She's taken more than one hit to the head.

This picture is on Amelia's blog, too, so some of you will get to see it twice. She has hit the age of being fashion conscious, and simply HAD to have colored jeans and a scarf to tie it all together. I wrapped the scarf first, but she told me it was wrong and re-did it. I'm super happy I have an almost-9-year-old to help me when I have a fashion dilemma!

Lynnli likes Frostys. She did not like that no one would feed it to her fast enough.

Not much is happening. I'm hitting midterm week and scrambling to stay on top of my classes, church calling, the kids activities and school projects and anything else that just happens to come along. Luckily, the kids and I are relatively healthy and looking forward to staying that way for the next ten months!

Valentine's Day 2013

We had a lovely, love-filled, happy Valentine's day. It started with no class for me, which always makes the mornings just a little smoother---and we needed the extra time. Amelia had her first etiquette/dance/dinner with the entire third grade. They were asked to wear their best clothes to school, so Amelia had a difficult time choosing her best dress. On top of that, she and her friends have been worried the last few weeks about who they will be assigned to dance with, and how it will affect the "crushes" in their grade. Apparently, Amelia has four crushes on her. Here she is with Cooper yesterday morning:

Cooper has closed the height difference to 3 inches and the weight difference to 8 pounds.

Cooper was secure in his t-shirt and jeans, because he'd taken a bath the night before with his special man body wash/shampoo, so he smelled like an "awesome boy" for the ladies.

After getting the kids off to school, I came home and hurried to get ready. 35 minutes later I went back to the school and helped in Cooper's class party. It was surprisingly not crazy, and the students were not too sugared up. After the party, I treated myself to a special Valentine sausage biscuit and diet Pepsi before perusing the library by myself.

At dinner, Amelia and Cooper drank from their special light-up Valentine cups, then banished me to my room because they were doing something "special". Half an hour later I was beginning to worry, then they called me out. I came out into a dark living room and a disembodied voice ordered me to turn on the lights. I did, and two adorable children jumped out at me and yelled, "Happy Valentine's Day!!"  I looked around and they had drawn, colored and cut out hearts and taped them to the walls. They brought me over by the dining room and showed me a "Match the Hearts" game they had made as well. I was blindfolded, turned around many times, and then tried to pin the half of the heart in my hand to the one on the wall. I missed completely.  After we all had a turn, we snuggled on the couch to watch a Charlie Brown Valentine.

The flash didn't go off.  I don't really make my children eat in the dark.

Cooper going through all his valentines from his classmates.

                                             Best. Valentine's. Day. EVER.

Groundhog Day and Sledding

Last weekend we celebrated Groundhog's Day by getting breakfast at McDonald's. Amelia and I had sausage biscuits (get it? ground-hog?) and Cooper decided on cinnamon toast. After a lovely breakfast, we bundled up and went sledding with some friends. Afterward, we had a fun visit with Joey, Jojo and Lynnli for a couple hours, then Mom, Dad and Courtney swung by. It was a fun Saturday! Here are some pictures:

Amelia with her hashbrowns that accompanied her biscuit.

Happy to be outside!

Lynnli had fun playing with all the fun new toys, whacking Amelia with Cooper's Thor hammer and teasing Cooper....as long as her parents weren't too far away.

Everyone is finally getting healthy after our loooooong January of colds, croup, pink-eye, and sinus infections. I'm not a fan of summer, but I was awfully happy when Phil saw his shadow on Saturday, which means spring is on its way!