happy thanksgiving birthday!

We had a double celebration going on today: Thanksgiving and Kestrel's 9th birthday! We hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house again, with Paul's mom, his two sisters and their families. As always, I made an apple pie and Paul cooked everything else (very delicious). Of course we had a special birthday cake for Kestrel. She was thrilled to get to celebrate her birthday with her cousins.

The cake! We got her an ice cream cake from her favorite ice cream shop, made with oreo and cookie dough ice cream. Also on the desert menu were pumpkin pie and apple pie, of course.

Kestrel requested extra whip cream on her slice!

Cooper, Erica and Kestrel.

The kids' table

Kestrel thanking Cooper for the present he gave her

With her FurReal Kitty

She got matching pajamas for herself and her doll Nellie.

owl play

Today Cooper's kindergarten class had their first performance for parents. They've been studying owls in school and put on two short plays about owls, "Owl Babies" and "Good Night Owl". It seems like just the other day I sat on the same stage watching Kestrel in the same plays with her kindergarten class. Was it three years ago?? This time Kestrel got to sit with me watching Cooper.
Cooper was a sparrow in "Good Night Owl" (but they all wore owl masks). Here are a couple pictures of him up on the stage and a very short video singing a Hoot Owl song at the end.

did you boat today?

Kestrel asked to come with me this morning to vote. They've been studying government in school and she's been very interested in the election. So we got up extra early so we could go before school. Before we left Cooper said he wanted to go too, so Paul brought him along a few minutes later. Good thing we left a lot of time because the lines were long. While we were waiting in line Cooper was saying something about how he wanted to go in the canoe. I didn't know what he was talking about until later, when Kestrel got it out of him that he thought there would be boats there. Apparently, he thought we were saying "boat" when we were saying "vote". Poor guy.