Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

Minneapolis has a lot to see; even though the weather was a little gloomy today, we visited the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. It is a huge garden with more than 45 sculptures in it. The kids and I grabbed a WAC Garden Pack, which is a bag full of activities and scavenger hunt type games in it put together by the Walker Arts Center (aka WAC). It was a lot of fun hunting for the different sculptures and learning little facts about them. The kids weren't too sure they'd like this kind of park, but in the end they had a fun time! They each picked their favorite sculpture and drew a picture of it. Max loved the bunny jumping over the bell and Abi loved the giant glass fish surrounded by real palm trees. I had a great time telling the kids to pose like the sculptures and got a laugh at Max's interpretation of "posing". Super fun day!

This is the famous Giant Cherry on a Spoon Sculpture!

This is a two way mirror sculpture. It was actually pretty cool!

Max's favorite sculpture.

The Crafting Continues!

I love this quote from Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf:

"The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before. . . .Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty."

That sums me up! To stay true to that statement I bribed Abi and Max with blue ice cream from Maggie Moo's in order to get a little extra time to make these fun banners!

My dear friend, Katie, gave me the inspiration for these beauties. I cyper-stalk Katie on her blog to see what creative things she has done for her two cute kids, and the idea was hers. To top it off, Katie's sister is famous crafter, Heidi Swapp! Heidi has an awesome site, House of 3, offering these great monograms I used to make the banners. It was so much fun and so easy! You can bet you will be seeing all sorts of banners pop up at my house! The kids loved watching me put them together and were even more excited when the project turned out to be their names! Guess I didn't need the blue ice cream bribe...oh well, a little treat right before lunch never hurts anybody, especially a Rushton or a Cooper! So go for it! Create something cool today!

The Cooper's New Zip Code

Ok, after a million and a half inquiries of, "Do you have a blog?" I've finally decided to create one. So here it is! The Cooper Family Blog. Here you will find a bunch of stories and adventures of Aaron and Kalli and our two kids, Abi & Max. In the very least you'll be able to catch up with what we are doing in our new home in Oakdale, MN. We moved here from Salt Lake City, UT on June 3, 2009. Aaron accepted a residency position at the Minnestota Children's Hospital, and now we are having a very big family adventure. I'll do my best to post fun pictures of our days in Minnesota as well as pictures of our house. Hopefully I'll do it enough to convince you to come visit us! We welcome all friends and family and will house you here in our new place anytime you want.