100th Day of School

Friday, February 11th, marked Cooper's 100th Day of Kindergarten!  The entire class went from Kindergarten class to complete their 100 Day Memory Book.  In Mrs. Hutchins' class they did a 100 piece puzzle.  In Mrs. Gosset's class they made their 100th Day of School Hat.  Then in Mrs. Glazebrook's class they made a 100th Day Necklace with 100 beads. And then in Mrs. Korder's class (his class) they made a 100 Days of School Pennant.

Fieldtrip to Betty Brinn

Today, Cooper and I went to Betty Brinn Children's Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with his Kindergarten Class.  There were 18 classmates, 10 chaperones, and 1 teacher on the bus.  The kids were very excited for their adventure today. Once we arrived, we sat down for our bagged lunch picnic style before going upstairs for hands on learning.   

Cooper and I shared our adventure in learning with Cooper's classmate, Michael.  We played with the spiral ball tower for awhile.  We were trying to see how many balls we could get going down the tower at one time.  It was a fun challenge for the three of us! 

 Then they headed over to the dance floor.  In the screen above the the floor, they could watch themselves dancing or trying some dancing moves that were being taught by different generes.

 Then it was off to the Move It Center.  This area was set up like a game board, where every couple of steps had an exercise of some sort or a movement exercise to do.  Here, Michael and Cooper are playing minature golf.

 ...and here, Cooper had to rub the hands together to the ABC's while "washing" the hands.  Here the kids were learning good hand washing techniques!

 ...and here Michael and Cooper made their way across the rock wall to move ahead a few more spaces.

 ...and hanging on the net above them before landing on the soft floor below.

 ...but at the end of the game was a chance to go through the huge climber/tunnel/slide at the end of the game board!!!

 Next, we went over to the community helper area where we participated in various activities of our community helpers do for you and I.  Here a group of Kindergartners are working on a car in the "Garage".

 Michael is checking out the under side of the car...

 ...and Cooper goes under to replace the velcro'd muffler.

 ...next, he stopped off at the mail box to mail a few letters.  He also helped sort out the mail before heading over to the ...

...grocery store.  Here, Cooper is helping prepare a tray of food in the deli for someone in need of a quick lunch.
 We had a great afternoon together.  My favorite part was watching him interact with all of his friends while having a good time.  His favorite part was seeing me direct an orchestra playing the theme to Star Wars.  He thought that was pretty cool!

Number 6 Seed WINS Superbowl 45!!!!

The Packers have just beaten the odds and have won Superbowl 45 against the Pittsburg Steelers 31-25 in Dallas, Texas! Randy read in Sports Illustrated back in October that the writer of the article that he was reading picked the Packers to win it all.  Seated in the Number 6 seed in the Playoffs, we beat the Bears to become the NFC Champions and then beat the Steelers in the biggest game of the year! 

Waterpark Surprise

This weekend, we had a little surprise for the boys.  After picking Cooper up from school and Daddy up from work, we headed up to Madison to spend the night at Uncle John and Auntie Andrea's in Madison.  We were headed up to Chula Vista for the weekend and were able to make a pit stop at their house to help break up the drive.

 Cooper was super excited when he found out that we were going to be going to a waterpark, and Brewer was repeating over and over "slides"!  After spending Saturday afternoon in the park, we took a break and went out for dinner at Moosejaw Pizza and Brewing Company.  The boys got the moose hats to wear during dinner and chalkboards to play with while we waited.  After dinner, we went back to the hotel and played games before we all called it a night.

But on Sunday morning, it was back down to the waterpark.  It was really warm and not as crowded as the day before.  Cooper was having a blast spraying everyone in the kiddie area.

 Brewer and Daddy had fun going down the slide before heading off to relax on the lazy river.

 Cooper made sure that his little brother was taken care of...

 and placed right underneath the dumping buckets!

Brewer didn't waste any time spraying his brother though!

 Cooper showed off his swimming skills swimming around in the pool.  While Daddy and Brewer were enjoying the lazy river, Cooper and I went over to the slides.  After going down the green, blue and yellow, I finally convinced Cooper to go down one of the bigger slides.  He finally agreed, so the two of us and a giant double tube started the climb up to the top.  Up on the last step, he turned and said, I can't do this.  I told him, oh yes you can and lets pick a slide to go down.  Down the emerald green slide we went!  He loved it and when we got out, he said let's do it again.  By now Daddy was there and he and Cooper headed back up the stairs!

 And down they came out the orange slide, a.k.a. the toilet bowl.  Although he had a little smile at the end of the ride, he was certain that he was not going to do that one again!

By now, Brewer was done, so we changed into our Packer gear and made the trip back to Madison to get Buster, who had spent the night with Auntie Andrea, Uncle John, and Finney.  Buster was glad to see us again.  He must of had a great weekend playing with Finney, because when we got home, he went to his kennel (on his own) and slept ALL afternoon!!!  It was a busy weekend, but Cooper and Brewer have been nonstop talk of the fun that they had at the waterpark!

Fun In the Snow

With 23.2 inches of new snow, Cooper finally made his way outside this afternoon.  He helped Daddy dig out Gg and Papa and then came home and worked on a path for Buster so that Buster wouldn't run to the neighbors house to do his business.  

 This is Buster's private bathroom or at least we thought so.  That was until Buster realized that Cooper was up on top of the snow, so Buster jumped up and went and played with him.  The drifts did not scare Buster!

 Cooper is walking right under the shade structure...that is how high the snow is.  Cooper was in heaven!

 Buster didn't mind this snow either!  He is a trooper!!!

 Neither Cooper nor Buster wanted to come inside.  But Cooper finally came in when his mitten fell off.  Buster came too...snowballs and all!

Blizzard of 2011

The weather forecast for late Tuesday afternoon said that we would have 1-4 inches per hour in total accumulations of up to 20 inches of snow, plus high winds with blowing snow.  This would be on top of the already 8 inches on the ground, 3 inches from Monday night and would continue to dump more snow Wednesday afternoon. 

Never sure exactly of what will really fall from the sky, we embraced for the worst.  School for Cooper and also for Brewer and I were closed by 1:30 Tuesday afternoon for today....our first SNOW DAY!!!!

Buster woke us up at 1:15am this morning with a need to go outside. As much as we were not pleased to be up at this hour, it was also a blessing in disguise. Randy got all dressed in his snow gear and headed out the front door to dig out the back door. A drift had blown us shut.  After Randy came back in, we discovered the the furnace was not working.  The vents in the back were snow covered and as a result, the furnace shut down.  Back out to dig out the furnace vents.  With the furnace back up and heating us back up, we all settled back down to get some more sleep.

We woke up later to the drifts across the street.  The only time that I have seen snow like this are in pictures from Minot, North Dakota back in 1976.

Mr. Les, across the street, was working on digging his way out. The snow is up mid-thigh at the end of the driveway and he is as tall as Randy is....NOW THAT IS DEEP!

Its a good thing that Randy stopped by the guy across from Indian Trails and picked up a snow blower, otherwise I would be the one out there playing damsel in distress in hopes someone would come over and help us.

Good thing the neighbor to our right (from the street) is a vacant house...at least we had the fence to break up the drift in our backyard.  It is nothing but a straight  drift the entire length of the back yard.

Right now, Buster needs to go out to the driveway to go to the bathroom, the backyard is drifted shut.  Now they are forecasting below zero temps for Thursday and temps to reach the 30's by the weekend.  Fox 6 News reported that we have 23.2 inches of snow!

Before the plows starting going down the street, two snowmobiles went by the house.  Cooper is impressed with all of the "teamwork" to get the snow plowed!!!

First Batch in the New Jar

On Sunday, while Cooper and Daddy were out Ice Fishing, Brewer and I made a batch of Chocolate Chip Cookies for the new cookie jar that I got for Christmas.  Ok, so they were for us to eat to and if might add, they were very yummy.  Brewer kept on saying, "these are good cookies, momma!"