halloween 2009

Here are Kestrel and Cooper last night before going out Trick-or-Treating. Kestrel was a cave girl, and Cooper was Anakin from Star Wars the Clone Wars. Kestrel thought up exactly how she wanted her costume, and I made it. It was chilly and windy (the pumpkins wouldn't stay lit). Paul stayed home to hand out candy while I took the kids out. They lasted a little over half an hour before they got too cold and wanted to come home.

The boot covers

Counting out their stash when they got home.

cooper turns 7

Cooper's 7th birthday was Wednesday. We had a little family celebration. Out to dinner, Cooper's choice, at Buffalo Wild Wings. Then cake, ice cream and presents at home. His favorite presents were new Wii games from Granny, his own digital camera from Grammy and Papou, and a new DS game from Kestrel. Lucky kid!

kids start a new school

School started Sept. 8th. For the first time Kestrel and Cooper are taking a bus to school. They are settling in to school well, enjoying the bus and making new friends. A few pictures from their first day:

Kestrel when she just got off the bus after school the first day. Her bus came a few minutes early that first day, so I didn't have time for a picture before school. Kestrel and Cooper take different buses.

Cooper after he got off the bus.

Cooper watching his bus come down the street before school. He was getting tired of me taking his picture!

In front of our house before we headed to the bus stop (which was 3 houses away, but now the bus driver will stop in front of our house).

Moving, etc.

OK - a quick recap of the last few months. Sorry I haven't been posting, but you know, we've had some big things going on.

June: The kids finished school, went to day camp in Champaign, Kestrel participated in swim team for part of the season, Kestrel went to the 4H overnight camp she had been looking forward to for the past year, my friends threw me a very nice going away party, and we moved out of our apartment.

July: Spent a week in Paul's apartment in Rochester, movers came and we moved into our new house July 6th, kids went to the YMCA day camp for three weeks, tried to unpack, met some neighbors, and slowly getting to know our new city.

August: The kids and I spent a week at my parent's beach house (Paul had to work), more day camp for the kids, I had a nice weekend away in Galena, IL with my Champaign girlfriends, and we are expecting our first visitors this weekend (YAY!)

Here are just a few pictures from the last few months (recent to older):

These small pictures (from my phone) are from our week at the beach.

Kestrel is burying Cooper in the sand

The sand castle all three of us worked on.

Feeding ducks on the Erie Canal (in Fairport)

Kestrel at the Indian Acres 4th of July parade

Cooper at the Indian Acres 4th of July parade

Kestrel and her friend Olivia waiting to swim at the swim meet.

Sailing paper boats in the pond that was right by our temporary apartment.

Cooper with his kindergarten teacher, Miss Winters, at their end of the year picnic.

Kestrel reciting a poem when her class had a "poetry cafe". One of the poems she recited was a Kestrel original!

Happy mother's day! Paul came in town this weekend, and this morning he and the kids surprised me with some awesome gifts: several really nice cards, a homemade certificate for a day or night out along with cash for a sitter, a lava lamp and an ice cream cake after lunch. Very nice!


A few pictures from the last month:

Kestrel's Flat Stanley project. She had to take pictures of Flat Stanley visiting a new place, and gather information about the place. She decided to take pictures in Rochester when we were out there over spring break. The project was due last week. Here is the final product:

Cooper lost his second tooth a few weeks ago. He now has a matched set - missing top and bottom in the same place.

spring break, selling a house, birthdays, and so on

A lot has been happening in our lives lately. The kids are on their third week of spring break right now. Right before break we worked hard to get the house ready to go on the market. The kids and I left for Rochester to spend their first week of break with Paul. The house went up for sale while we were gone, and we ended up getting an offer on our house within the first few days. This is a very good thing. The inspection was last week, and so far things are working out. The one down side to this offer is the buyers want to close early May, which is much earlier than the kids and I were planning to move. More on that later.

We had a great time with Paul in Rochester. I took the kids around exploring the city most of the week. We went to the Strong Museum of Play, the Seneca Park Zoo, The Rochester Museum and Science Center, saw Dinosaurs Alive at the Planetarium and even got a peak at the beach and Lake Ontario (the kids had a hard time believing it was a lake and not an ocean). We also had a lot of fun swimming in the pool in Paul's apartment building. We started looking at houses out there but didn't find our house just yet. We stayed with Paul for over a week (stopping to see family in Cleveland on both ends of the trip).

Our moving plans are to stay in this area through June, so that the kids can finish school and attend some camp in June. There is a 4H overnight camp that Kestrel has been looking forward to since last summer so we promised her we would work it out so she could still attend. The folks buying our house were pretty firm that they wanted to close early May, so that means the kids and I need to find temporary housing for May and June. I ended up finding a 3 bedroom furnished apartment in the area that will let us take a 3 month lease. It is an apartment complex geared towards students, but will work out well for our situation. I can't believe we'll be packing up and moving out of this house in less than a month!

Paul was in town with us this past weekend, which was great because we got to help him celebrate his 44th birthday. We had a nice family dinner out and the kids and I had a cake for him (Kestrel insisted we had to get Daddy a carrot cake).

Here are a few pictures from Rochester and Paul's birthday:

At the Museum of Play, inside a giant kaleidoscope

Kestrel and Cooper (below) loved this "tippy room" (as we called it). The floor was sloped down, but all the visual cues made the room look level, so it created a kind of illusion that made you feel really dizzy, and like you were going to fall off the floor.

"On my way to where the air is sweet..."

The Museum of Play had a great Sesame Street exhibit.

Shopping (and cashiering) in a kid sized Wegman's Supermarket

Cooper with the Mastodon at the Museum and Science Center

Kestrel is riding on a hoover chair. It is actually floating on a cushion of air. Very cool!

They loved watching this miniature roller coaster.

We went back to the Museum of Play so we could take a picture of Flat Stanley there. After we got the picture, we discovered this cool city park next to it, so we stopped to explore the park.

Here is Kestrel with Flat Stanley at the beach. For a school geography project, she was supposed to take pictures of Flat Stanley (who is decorated like a Flat Kestrel) in various places around a new city.

We had a really nice day on Friday so we decided to check out the Seneca Park Zoo. .

These Arctic Wolves were our favorite animals in the zoo. They were just feeding them when we were getting ready to leave, so we stopped to watch them. The food was put in a closed box and the wolves were cautiously attacking the box to get at it. It was really interesting to watch the interactions between the two of them, named Niko and Luna.

Paul's birthday cake!

At Jupiter's for dinner

go fly a kite

The weather warmed up yesterday but it was REALLY windy. After school Kestrel was begging me to take them to the park to fly a kite. At first I didn't want to because I thought it would be too windy, and we'd break the kite or something, but I agreed. It ended up being really fun. We brought a couple of the neighbor kids with us and one brought his own kite as well. The kids had fun flying their kites. The wind was strong and I almost felt like we were going to get carried away at one point.

watching the kids

belly rubs!

he doesn't really need a sweater

This winter I've seen several little dogs out and about with little sweaters or coats on, and I always think that's one thing Harrison will never need. Just for fun today Kestrel put her sweatshirt on Harrison. He was a really good sport about it, even though he must have been warm, and even seemed to want to show off a bit.