Finally to May!

The first week of May we all went to St. Louis for a week because Steve needed to work down there. While he went to work, the kids and I had a different adventure every day. The first day there we spent the morning with the mommies and kids from the Larson family and the Shaver family. It was such a great opportunity to see them, catch up, receive encouragement, and just have some laughs. That evening the kids and I went to Faust Park where we played in the park, took a long walk, and had a picnic dinner.

patio use

This is the last retroactive update from April! I've ended up drawing this process out a bit, but that's ok with me, and I'm guessing our grandmas are enjoying the extra pictures anyway. These little munchkins were excited to eat lunch outside on April 30th, so that's what we did. Notice the puny little leaves trying to grow on the hedge in the background. It seemed to take forever for them to arrive!


Other highlights of that week included me getting knocked out by a 24-hour stomach bug. ugh! We were supposed to host a neighborhood Bible Study that Thursday morning, but instead I fell ill about 10 pm the night before. Steve had to take that day off to watch the kiddos while I slept it off. He's definitely the hero in this house!

Parents get to visit!

The last weekend of April my parents came up from Oklahoma to visit. It's so great when they come up to see us! We love their visits! This trip was also close to my dad's birthday, so we got to celebrate that while he was here.
Here's the welcome hug from Ava. She literally shrieked with joy and jumped down the stairs when they arrived.
The next day we went to Discovery World to see the Tesla interactive presentation. Due to loud noises and scary portions of the show, it was advised that the kids not attend. So they got to explore the aquarium while the grown ups went to the show.
We also went through the technology displays while we waited. Owen must have opened and closed the retractable roof on the model of the Brewers Stadium about 300 times.
Ava played tic-tac-toe with a computer,
jumped onto a scale,
and laid on a bed of nails! Brave girl!
There was also a really cool exhibit about lightening and thunder that we played with for a while. Here are Pebbles and Bamm Bamm listening to the thunder.
...and just being cute...
Their favorite was meeting back up with Grandma and Grandpa after their show!
Back home we got out the train set that Papa Cooper got the kids last year and set it all up.
Then Owen tackled his Papa.
And ate his Grandma's necklace.
After some time with the train, Ava was ready for cake!
We decided to go for the glory and put the numerically correct amount of candles on Papa's cake. He (eventually) blew out all the candles!

CEF Mailbox Club

This spring Ava started to participate in the CEF Mailbox Club, and she loves it. It's a Bible lesson that arrives in the mailbox. We read the story together, Ava answers the review questions and practices the Bible memory verse, and then we mail the answer sheet back. Once they receive her answer sheet, they "grade" it and mail it back with the new lesson. She loves everything about the process; running in circles with excitement when it arrives, snuggling up to read it together, making a song out of the memory verse, circling her answers, and placing the stamp on the return portion of the lesson. They have lessons for every age kiddo! It's free, and you can sign up online at www.cefonline.com as part of the discipleship ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship. Here's baby girl doing her lesson.

And here is the random cuteness of this post:
Notice the ginormous red welt in the center of Ava's forehead. Poor thing. We run about a boo-boo per day around here. At least it doesn't seem to be bothering her too much.
No caption needed.
Lastly, this is O-boy's bff.
(This update continues to be a part of our April...but I'm about to pick up the pace!)

still in April...

So perhaps I need to pick up the pace of my mission to retroactively update the blog. At this rate, I will never catch up. But in the meantime, here are some promising pictures from the last week of April that Spring was indeed in progress! In general, spring is my least favorite season up here because it is still too cold to really enjoy being outside for long. Plus nothing starts growing until June, so it feels like winter just drags on and on but without the beautiful snow to cheer things up. But on this fine day in April, things were looking very cheery!

typical day at the Coopers

O Boy just adores his dad.
It's pretty sweet to watch them together.
He also adores food.
This is O-man getting ready to go out and play. Sunhat? check. sunscreen? check. portable snack? check.
This is baby girl getting ready to go out and play. She also brings a portable snack. And dresses like she's from another decade.

Spring

As April progressed, some of the days were warm enough to go outside without coats. So exciting!!

They love little Lucy!
Lucy, however, doesn't seem to be returning the vibe.
Maybe because o-boy keeps using her comb without asking first.
On another random note, Owen got these little glasses from one of Ava's party favor bags. He has a love-hate relationship with them. He loves them on, but can't get them on by himself without jabbing himself in the eye. It's complicated.
Peek-a-boo!
I love this little guy.