Spring Break 2011!

27 March 2011

We had a really great Spring Break. Grandma and Grandpa James drove down from Utah and spent the whole week with us. We are so lucky to have a job where we can take vacations at the same times as our kids. We are truely blessed. We are also blessed to have such great kids to spend our vacations with.

We spent a lot of our time catching up on house and yard work. Jared worked hard on the lawn while I fixed up the garden and painted the living room. Grandma played with the kids and Grandpa went on lots of bike rides.

After we got sick of working all the time we went to the zoo. I've been lots of times before but it was always during the summer. I guess that I just assumed that the zoo was always really hot, muggy and stinky. News flash to Sue - If you go in the Spring it's nice and cool and much more pleasant. Lots of other people had the same idea as us so it was crowded, but we had a really good time. We finally got to see the elephant and the rhino. Those exhibits have been closed for remodeling for a long time.

Later in the week we wanted to go camping. Well me and Derek and Grandpa did and we had already decided to kidnap Grandma, Jared and Tyler and make them come with us. I had been to a campground called Inks Lake State Park and wanted to go there. But...I didn't make a reservation in time to get a campsite. We went anyway. Grandpa brought his fishing gear and he and Tyler and Derek tried to catch catfish and bass from the shore using trout power bait.

It didn't work.

Holly wanted to do some fishing too. But since she doesn't like fish, she had her eye on the ducks.

Derek got mad at his lack of success and decided to take his fishing show out on the water. This is him getting serious about catching some dinner. Holly was just excited to be going along for the ride.

The boys got settled in their canoe. The girls got settled too but made sure to bring along an oreman so that they could float around on the lake in total luxury. When dad got bugged by the wiggley dead weight in our boat, we dropped her off at the shore to dangle her fancy feet in the water with Grandma. [spooky voice] Then we all went off to explore the haunted stream of doom. Ooooooo.

Too bad I don't have a video of us trying to get the boats back out of the dead end at the end. Heh, heh. Lots of yelling and bonking and pushing and poking with oars. It was a silly scene.

And what kind of spring break would it be without a little nudity?

I guess Holly got too involved with playing in the water and lost the privilege of wearing pants.

Oh my goodness. I don't think that we expected this much nudity! Look away!

I have this great picture but I'm having a hard time coming up with a good caption. Can you give me some good ideas in the comments?

So So Busy

26 Mar 2011

My goodness it's been a long time since I put up a post. It feels like all I do any more is wake up, go to work, come home, make dinner, watch TV with the kids for a hour (cause I don't have energy for anything else), grade papers, plan my lesson for the next day, and then go back to bed for 6 hours of sleep before I have to start all over again!

However, we did have a wonderful spring break and I took lots of fun pictures that I'm excited to post. Also, I have found time on Saturdays to squeeze in some gardening. The temperatures here are already in the 90's during the day so we're a good month into our growing season. I have tomatos (hanging and in the ground), peppers, rosemary, green onions, onion chives, garlic chives, beans, yellow squash, zucchini, lettuce, basil, thyme, oregano, cilantro, italian parsely, blackberries, and a potato that Tyler planted last halloween (it just decided to start growing in Feb).

Things are going good with the garden this year as far as bugs are concerned (for a change). I got Celebrity tomatoes to help with disease resistance and make sure to spray for bugs every week. I also put toilet paper tubes around the stems of the squash to keep the grubs out. Oh yeah! I also sifted through all of my soil by hand to get all of the scarab beetle grubs out before I planted anything. It was SO gross. I put them all in a pint size mason jar and showed it to the kids. I told them that it was dinner. Heh heh. They didn't belive me - smarty pantses.

My grubs were this big.

If I had found a grub like this I would have died!

However, now I have garden problems that I didn't expect: sunscald and herbicide overspray. I guess it got too hot too fast and the sun burned a bunch of the tomato leaves. At least I think that's what happened. Also, Jared sprayed for weeds in the grass and I think some of the poison got on some of the tomatoes. Now the new leaves are all wrinkly and deformed. Really weird looking. He said he was sorry. P.S. watch out for manure that comes from cows that were fed grass that was sprayed with herbicide to kill weeds. They cows eat the poisoned grass, they poop it out, you buy the poop and then when you put it in your garden it kills your plants. Just an FYI.

Jared is telling me that I have to stop so that I can clean the shower so that he can caulk it. So I guess the fun spring break pictures will have to wait until later.

Jared's Cell Phone Update for Jan 16

Welcome back to Cooperstown, Jared here! I was sifting through my cell phone pictures and found some from the past few months that needed to be shared with everyone. A 1-Gig card just doesn't go as far as it once did!

Here's Holly and Derek playing in our make-shift backyard sprinkler park. Holly had a diaper on, and waddled back in the house after an hour looking like she was wearing a bean-bag around her knees.

Last Halloween we went to the local Pumpkin Farm/Apple Orchard for some family fall festivities. One of the fun activities we did was stuffing scarecrows using clothes and hay bales they had at the farm. Unfortunately, the hay-bales were also sticker-bales and puncture-weed-bales, and there we were without gloves. I pulled out most of the hay (wincing through the pain), while Sue and the kids stuffed the scarecrow. We're not sure what Pam was stuffing.

Some local not-for-profit organization was at the farm too. They were busy 'Partnering Jesus, Kids, and Horses.' We must have gotten there late because we only saw Kids and Horses.

Holly and Jared went Christmas shopping at the Ingram Mall in SA, when Holly was stopped by a shiny display. She was completely entranced by the body-piercing stand. She threw a tantrum when Jared told her she couldn't deface her body until she was at least 4.

Derek doesn't share Ralphie's (from A Christmas Story) passion for Turkey Sandwiches.

We passed through Roswell on our trip to Utah for Christmas. Everything on the main drag is Alien-themed, and there's a dozen souveneir shops and an Alien Museum--all of which were closed by the time we rolled through. McDonald's was open though, so Tyler got his picture taken next to an Official Roswell Spooky Poster hanging in the restaurant.

(Does McDonald's qualify as a 'restaurant?')

Cooper boys bonding on Christmas Day the way Cooper boys do.

Tyler and Derek bonding with Grandpa James the way the James boys do.

This is one of my all-time favorite family pictures.

There, my SD card is MUCH lighter, thank you very much! Nancy's staying with us for a few months to help out with watching the kids until school is out. We feel super-blessed to have her here, and we've been having such fun having her in the house (I don't know she feels about it, I guess we'll have to ask her...sometime...what was I talking about? )

Oh well, Happy January!

Just Relax

10 Jan 2011

I had a pretty rough day today. I didnt' get enough sleep and then all the lessons I'd stayed up all night working on didn't work because my internet at work was broken all day.

At least Holly is happy and relaxed. Shhhhh....she's pretending to be asleep.

P.S. I made this table with some plans I got off http://www.knockoffwood.blogspot.com/. It's a cute website.

Mommy, I Want A Pony For My Birthday!

8 Jan 2010

I saw this rocking horse at the HEB and got it down for Holly to play with while Jared was shopping for some kind of charger thing. She was just so cute that I had to buy it for her. My cutie baby is a little bit of a spoiled princess.

A Christmas 'Package' from Tyler

Every once in a while we poke through Tyler's back pack to see if there's a permission slip or something in there that we should know about. Lately, Tyler's been really interested in collections. He has a bakugan collection, a shell collection, and others. I really hope that helps to explain the following picture.

First of all, this is the classic icon of what a drumstick looks like.
Looks delicious, right? We frankly never considered what a drumstick collection might look like, nor did we ever imagine such a collection would appear so...anatomical.

Tyler's in bed right now, but I expect we might have a conversation with our oldest about art and how his latest piece might be interpreted.

Still, art is supposed to evoke emotion--mission accomplished!

Jared's Cell-Phone Catch-up Medley

I discovered some good pictures and a video on my phone that I probably should have shared a long time ago.

Here's a shot of our two biggest punkins taken at the...well, you can see the sign.

This is the friendly, inviting entrance to the daycare that our precious little princess Holly goes to.

...(the mascot for the high school, middle school, and elementary school in Dilley is the wolf, so the daycare expanded on the theme and calls itself 'Li'l Pups.') There's nothing 'Li'l' about this 5-foot tall ravenous wolf head.

Pam came and stayed with us for a few weeks in October, and one night we all went to eat at Joe's Crab Shack on the Riverwalk. Derek decide to flex his mad dance skillz.

Go DJ! It's your birfday!

Cooler Weather = Less Bugs?

14 Nov 2010

We are all SO SICK!!! Teaching school combined with kids at day care equals really sick Coopers. Holly and Derek both barfed in the car this week. Jared barfed in the bathroom who even knows how many times. EVERYONE has diarrhea. Holly and Jared had really high fevers last weekend Tyler is still on his antibiotic for an ear infection. I am coughing out a lung every 30-40 minutes and in Texas it's still allergy season. We are all in pretty good spirits but our family is like Typhoid Mary (less the typhoid) of course.

Soooo......we didn't go to church again today. We did go for 2 hours last week though and we remembered to fast and I bore my testimony so we're not totally inactive.

It was a little cloudy today before lunch so Tyler and I went out to plant the new lettuce, cabbage and broccoli plants that I bought yesterday as well as some old potatoes that I found in the fridge. I don't know if you can just take potatoes out of the fridge and put them in the ground, but that's what I did so we'll see. The days are cooler now, highs in the 70's so I hope that the bugs have died down a little and I will actually get some good vegetables. I planted some green beans in August that did really well. I got a couple of pounds of beans out of a 4 x 4 foot box.

Here are my lettuce and broccoli plants. The big tomato plant actually planted itself there. One of the cherry tomatos fell off a plant that I had there during the summer and sprouted. Then it survived the attack of the spider mites and virus toting leaf hoppers (without any help from me) and is growing like crazy. We are going to have some super yummy salads in a month if everything goes well. Which I'm sure it won't...

This is my herb garden. The giant plants are basil and some sort of flowering thing that takes 265 days to bloom. It's getting kind of big and I'm not sure I'm going to keep it - not there at least. I have oregano, chives, green onions, parsley, cilantro, mexican oregano, sage and thyme. The green onions are plants that I bought at the grocery store too.

Who Let The Ghosts Out on Halloween Night?

31 Oct 2010

Halloween was really fun for the kids this year. A week ago, we all went to the ward Halloween party where they got to run around in the gym, eat cupcakes, eat gummy worms off of strings and get candy from the trunk-or-treat. Tonight they all got dressed up and went out to the neighbors begging for candy. I stayed home with Ralphie to hand candy out to all the other kids. It was fun to be at home. I just left the door open and put up a baby gate to keep Ralphie in. I could hear all the kids out at the street who were afraid to come to our house because our decoration was so scary. Lots of the neighbors complimented me on how good it looked.

I actually have a better picture where everyone is smiling and looking at the camera but it's blurry. Oh well, you just can't win when you're taking pictures of kids who are waiting to get candy.
A-dore-a-ble!!!!!!
I love my purple bumble fairy so much! The first time I put this costume on her she started dancing and jumping and making "whooshing" sounds. I think she was trying to fly.

Derek got 3 or 4 of these worms cause he kept using his hands. I didn't stop him cause I needed to take pictures ;)
Tyler isn't sad in this picture. He's trying to be creepy.
Same with this one.

Again: candy excitement = blurry pumpkin bucket.

Um...what?

6 Nov 2010

So we were on our way home from the store when Jared came up with this quote. Brace yourself, it's pretty awesome. You might want to sit down...

"If you have any more questions about man's work vs. woman's work, just ask me."