Cooper and the Cooped Up

Jeremiah took this photo of Cooper yesterday.  Cooper is a little dog who lives in the yard behind us.  He likes to bark very fiercely at my kids when they play outside.  Then his owner comes outside, yells COOOOOPER!  GET IN HERE!  and Cooper goes inside.  Then his owner says SORRY!  And I laugh or roll my eyes or curse in Spanish under my breath depending on my mood.  Carajo Cooper! 

Unless Wolf is out, then Cooper plays nice.  And in the winter he wears these funny little foofoo sweaters.  (Jeremiah picked the word foofoo to describe them.)  So here is Cooper wearing what Jeremiah says has got to be a most uncool sweater in the dog world.  As if any dog sweater could be cool...

We wouldn't pick on Cooper if we hadn't spent 3 years listening to him act like he wants to rip our throats out if he could just get through the fence.  Jeremiah in particular likes to look at Cooper when he is wearing his sweater, shake his head and say "Man up, Coop!"

Wolf loves Cooper, though. Because he is just Wolf, full of love and compassion for all God's creatures.  Oh, except for rabbits.

Sierra was well enough to play outside for a short time yesterday:

It's so great to feel better when you've been sick!

Jeremiah moved the twin bed downstairs so he could shoot hoops while following the "stay in bed, please" rule:

Sierra and I cleaned her room yesterday.  It took over 2 hours, and when we finished there was one huge garbage bag full of paper scraps, popcorn seeds, markers without caps, and a few little plastic crappy toys I snuck into the bag when she was not looking.  All the stuffed animals are relegated to the dresser top.  Clothes were sorted and she actually allowed me to put some shirts in a "give away" box.  (First.  Time.  Ever.)  Art supplies were collected and placed in a small tub and I am not exaggerating when I say there were probably 300 markers/crayons/colored pencils in various places in the room.  Today she is sorting through that tub of art supplies which should either 1. allow us to get rid of some of them, or more likely 2.  create a new cleanup project in the guest room where she is working.

Jeremiah has watched all 6 Star Wars movies in the past week.  He and Sierra have been going around imitating Darth Vader, saying LUKE.  I.  (breath).  AM.  (breath.)  YOUR.  (breath).  FATHER...

Except they don't say father.  They look at me and say MOTHER and crack up.  Then they say BOOGER and crack up even more...it's getting to be a little wacky here on day 11 of the cooped up family experiment. Oh yea, time to man up and take some deep breaths...it's gonna be another interesting day!