Either that or I'm just a really bad mother. Here is Lukey's first black eye. Actually I was no where around when this happened. (Maybe that's the problem, haha.) No, what I mean is that I was not at home when this happened...
A smile!
Kissy Face
Last week I spent Thursday morning in preschool. I completed one of my two required volunteer days at Jackson and Luke's school. They needed a helper in one of the four-year-old classes and here's what I learned.
1. Four-year-olds say things like yes, okay, alright, and sure.
2. Four-year-old boys like to play with knights, and the girls like to play with Barbies.
3. Four-year-old boys know about Darth Maul.
4. These four-year-olds did not mind picking up the toys, and they ran around shouting "emergency, emergency!" the entire time they were doing it. I might try to figure out how to institute this emergency clean-up routine at home.
5. In preschool, cliques have already started forming.
6. Some parents are not afraid to drive through McDonald's and get their kids a McGriddle and chocolate milk to eat for lunch. (I have often thought this would be so easy and fast, but I've never given in to the urge because I was sure the teachers would think I was the ultimate slacker.)
7. The teachers don't really care what the kids have for lunch.
8. I should always remember to send something for Jackson for show-and-tell. It seemed like such a confidence booster for the kids to get to present their thing to the class, and the kids who didn't have anything seemed kinda sad.
9. I think the kids would have been just as happy doing more writing and schoolwork and less playing. I'm just saying...
10. I can be on time if I really try.
Ladies and gentlemen Little Tommy Copeland had a baby. May I present Thomas Eilers Copeland.
Baby T was born on December 27th to our good friends Thomas and Doreen. This was his first visit to our house. He was very sweet and quiet the entire time despite being poked and patted by Jackson and Luke. (Correction: the upper half of his body was quiet the entire time. The lower half was making a lot of racket.)
This one picture reveals that he does in fact have the "Copeland Cranium", but I think it's just the camera angle because I thought his entire head was very well-proportioned. 
The other night Thomas pointed out how pathetic it was that we had spent the evening talking about poopy diapers and health insurance. We used to stay up until the wee hours of the morning talking about movies, books, politics, religion, and music. Now we're comparing sleep deprivation stories and debating whether Mylecon Drops are effective or just have a placebo effect. (Can something have a placebo effect if the recipient doesn't really know that they're receiving medicine?)
Anyway, given how small your world becomes for awhile after having a newborn baby, it's hard to believe that having kids can actually expand your horizons. Just wait until they start asking questions about movies and books and politics and religion and music. That's when it really starts to get fun. Welcome to the club guys!
...so we went to the park. Here are a few pics from our trip to Zilker.
Self-portrait on the train
Watching the birds
Exploring the cave
Using the periscope
Computer time
How does this thing work?
Balloon man
Lately, when we go to Zilker Park, we never even get around to playing on the playground which is fine with me. It's hard to keep track of both of them on that playground and it's always crowded with bigger kids anyway. The boys love to ride the train and explore the cave and that usually wears them out. I have loved the cold rain we've had this past week, but today the weather was absolutely perfect. I feel so lucky to live in Austin!!
Sometimes I click on my blog and think, "So lame. Why doesn't she update this boring blog?" Then I realize it's mine, and I have one more thing to add to my to-do list. Here's what's been going on with us in a nutshell. Jackson has been sick since Wednesday. His fever is gone today but he's still snotty and coughing. The whole "no cold medicine for little kids-thing" has been a pain. So we've just kept the humidifiers going and have been doing Vick's Vapor Rub and cough drops and usually one dose of medicine at night so he can get to sleep.
We cleaned out the garage (AGAIN!) this weekend. Are we the only people who have to clean out our garage like 5 times a year!?! It seems like a constant battle. Anyway, we are parking both cars in there again, so I consider it a successful project. We also went to see "There Will Be Blood" this weekend. It was a pretty amazing movie and Daniel Day Lewis deserves an Oscar for sure. But it wasn't exactly the feel-good-movie-of-the-year or anything as you could probably gather from the title.
Luke isn't allowed to have chocolate again until he moves out of our house when he's 18. He was wide awake and up until about 12:30 the other night, and then woke up again for a little while around 3:30. He's done this several times, and I think I've pinpointed chocolate as the culprit. So he'll be driving before he gets any chocolate from me again. Other than that he's totally cute and sweet. (The mullet is still coming along fine. The other night when our church group was at our house he happened to be wearing a muscle shirt which went nicely with the mullet. Ben Murrie was inspired to start singing "Pour Some Sugar on Me!!" to him. For everyone over the age of 50 that probably doesn't make any sense, but for those of us who remember Def Leppard, it was oddly appropriate.)
We're fairly busy at work with several interesting projects. Our friends at the LAF will be sending us on lots of trips coming up. I'm sure I'll write more about this later, but between now and May we will be traveling to New Orleans, New York, LA, Boston, DC, Mexico City, Paris, Rome, Moscow, and New Dehli. This is what we've spent the day planning and working on today. Mat and I won't be on all those trips personally, but we are planning to split up the international trips where he'll go on half and I'll take the other half. If it works out we'll meet in the middle somewhere (hopefully Italy) for a few days off.
I don't have any good pictures or videos of the boys to share. So I decided to post this really cool commercial instead. Enjoy...
Little Lukey will be 18 months old tomorrow, January 13th. He is such a sweet boy. All of his teachers and babysitters say the same thing, "He is the easiest baby!" It's true. He's very laid back usually, but he does have a very strong independent streak. He likes certain things done his way and if you refuse he gets mad at you personally. For instance one morning I left him in his crib for a few minutes after he woke up because I was trying to finish up sending an email or something. When I finally went in, he was very mad at me. He wouldn't let me pick him up and basically ignored me or fussed at me all day long. I learned my lesson.
He likes to shake his head up and down and say yes. Jackson always shook his head no, so this is a welcome change. He always runs to me and holds onto my legs when he hears a siren. He loves sweets and pizza. He copies everything Jackson does. We have always called him "Baby Giant" because anytime Jackson is playing with something on the floor he comes over and messes it all up like a giant walking around. He loves to fall asleep. In fact he loves falling asleep so much that he liked to do it several times a night up until a month or so ago.
Luke is a big cuddler. He usually loves to be held, and he will pat or rub me while I'm holding him sometimes which makes my heart melt. He loves his little elephant pillow and has to take it with him every morning when he gets out of bed. He's working on a serious mullet, but that's not his fault. We'll get his hair cut eventually, but I just like it long right now. He makes you work pretty hard for a smile, and just forget about it if you're trying to take his picture. But he loves to be tickled and will laugh really hard and then grab your hand to make you keep doing it.
Luke is also very talkative like his big brother. I stopped counting his words awhile back because he's so big on mimicking that he can (and will) say pretty much anything. The other day Mat taught him to say "Five-Oh" after we finished a weeklong marathon of watching Season Four of "The Wire." For those of you who aren't familiar with the show, five-oh is what the drug dealers yell out to each other when one of them spots a cop. We thought it was pretty funny coming from a one-year-old. Hopefully it's not child abuse to use him for our amusement like that.
I think Luke can probably say more than Jackson did at this age, but he isn't quite as clear. Most people probably couldn't understand him, but we do and that brings me to my quiz. Here are 18 of Luke's words to commemorate his 18 month birthday. See if you can tell what they mean. (Answers are listed after the photo.)
1. Mo-chee-yos
2. Te-da
3. Op-joose
4. Go-beffist
5. Dite-co
6. Oje
7. Pip
8. Pap
9. Muck
10. Hode-ee
11. Ope-ee
12. Eh-pane
13. Pee-wo
14. Nana (with tongue twirl)
15. Boo-teee
16. Boke-ee
17. I-kee
18. Yo-yoo
I wish I could type these answers upside-down like in a magazine. :-)
1. More Cheerios
2. Tortilla
3. Apple juice
4. Go to breakfast (as he's pushing me out of the bed, literally)
5. Diet Coke
6. Orange
7. Chip
8. Paci
9. Milk (calls everything milk)
10. Hold it
11. Open it
12. Airplane
13. Pillow
14. Banana
15. Booty (for Pirate's Booty, he loves it!)
16. Broke it
17. Ice cream
18. Love you
The other night Jackson was supposed to be going to sleep. After awhile, he snuck out of his room and down the hall to where Mat and I were watching TV. Wearing this:
HAHAHA. Well, actually, he had one leg in one of the arms and one leg in a leg, and the rest of it was twisted up all around his body. This pirate costume was part of a box of hand-me-downs that we got from my brother's family (I think?) ages ago. It's been in the toy box forever, but he's never really known what it was. We decided to let him wear it to bed, but it was so tight and hard to get on that I can't believe it didn't split up the middle. I'm pretty sure it was meant for a one or two year old. 
Anyway, he wore it to bed and somehow managed to fall asleep with the world's worst crack attack.
Mat left this afternoon to attend two screenings of the film "Fighting Goliath" that he directed last summer. The first screening is in Waco because a lot of the characters in the film are from that area. Tomorrow night it will be screened at the Angelika Theater in Dallas. Here's some of the press we've received around these screenings:
CBS News in Dallas
Video News Story
Waco Herald-Tribune (This is a good article but you have to type in your email address in order to read it.)
Locals Battle Against Coal Plants
Dallas Observer
Fighting Goliath Might Make You a Movie Star
Bloomberg.com - Take this one with a grain of salt since Robert Redford really didn't have anything to do with the fight against the TXU coal plants and the quote attributed to him was actually a line of the voice over that Mat wrote!
Redford Takes on Goliath
Waco TV News
Fighting Goliath Movie Screening
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me an angel in a nativity scene.
On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me two Christmas actors, and an angel in a nativity scene.
On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me three happy campers, two Christmas actors, and an angel in a nativity scene.
On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me four hours driving, three happy campers, two Christmas actors, and an angel in a nativity scene.
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me FIVE pre-cious cousins! Four hours driving, three happy campers, two Christmas actors, and an angel in a nativity scene.
On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me six grandparents, FIVE pre-cious cousins! Four hours driving, three happy campers, two Christmas actors, and an angel in a nativity scene.
On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me seven meals a day, six grandparents, FIVE pre-cious cousins! Four hours driving, three happy campers, two Christmas actors, and an angel in a nativity scene.
On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me eight little children, seven meals a day, six grandparents, FIVE pre-cious cousins! Four hours driving, three happy campers, two Christmas actors, and an angel in a nativity scene.
On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me nine aunts and uncles, eight little children, seven meals a day, six grandparents, FIVE pre-cious cousins! Four hours driving, three happy campers, two Christmas actors, and an angel in a nativity scene.
On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me ten million presents, nine aunts and uncles, eight little children, seven meals a day, six grandparents, FIVE pre-cious cousins! Four hours driving, three happy campers, two Christmas actors, and an angel in a nativity scene.
On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me eleven days off work, ten million presents, nine aunts and uncles, eight little children, seven meals a day, six grandparents, FIVE pre-cious cousins! Four hours driving, three happy campers, two Christmas actors, and an angel in a nativity scene.
On the twefth day of Christmas my true love gave to me twelve happy memories, eleven days off work, ten million presents, nine aunts and uncles, eight little children, seven meals a day, six grandparents, FIVE pre-cious cousins! Four hours driving, three happy campers, two Christmas actors, and an angel in a nativity scene.
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