canoeing

Kestrel with her friend Amy participated in a kids canoe clinic this morning. In addition to the two of them there were three boys at the clinic, around their age. They had a great time being in the canoe by themselves and exploring nature, though they complained the boys kept splashing them and bumping their canoe. Boys!

hello muddah, hello faddah

Kestrel is now at overnight camp for the first time! She is attending the 4-H mini camp (its just two days) that is located about a half hour away. She has been so excited and counting down the days. Two of her good friends from school are in her cabin.

Here she is by her bed in the cabin. She chose the top bunk, of course! She is standing on the bottom bunk so I could take the picture.

Kestrel is with her friends Amy and Alexa outside of their cabin.

The camp looked like so much fun. She told me to leave while she ran off with her friends. I'll be picking her up late Friday afternoon.

a culmination

Cooper's class had their "Project Culmination Event" yesterday. Their class studied communication this semester, so they showed us all the things they were doing related to communication. Cooper's small project group focused on "communication without talking". Here he is with his group, performing "This Little Piggy" in sign language.


One of Cooper's classmates had an end-of-the-school-year party after school today (their last day of school is Monday). Here is Cooper with several friends riding a Barbie jeep. Sitting next to him in the jeep is his good buddy Elise.

american girls

Kestrel and I had such a nice day yesterday! We drove up to Chicago with some friends to visit the American Girl Place. We had a nice lunch in the cafe, saw the American Girl Revue theatre show, and enjoyed visiting and shopping in the store. Thanks to my friend Trish for driving and for taking these pictures.

Georgia, Olivia and Kestrel

Olivia and Kestrel

Georgia and Olivia

Kestrel with Nellie

Kacee and Georgia with Gabriella and Coconut

Olivia with Mia

All of us at lunch

birthday sleepover

Kestrel had a slumber party with 3 of her friends Friday night to celebrate her birthday. They made their own tacos for dinner, danced to High School Musical 2, decorated their own cupcakes, played hot potato (Kestrel insisted they use an actual, hot potato) and watched Ratatouille. The girls slept in the basement. Well, eventually they slept. They didn't go to sleep until after 2am! In the morning they had pancakes before the girls got picked up. Kestrel's first sleepover party was, in her words, "the best birthday ever!"

The party guests: Olivia, Kestrel, Rachel and Amy

cooper and friends

Cooper went to a classmate's birthday party at our local children's science museum. This museum is really small, but Cooper loves it there. They got a little hands on time with some of the resident animals. Here are some camera phone pictures.

Petting Windy the box turtle

Checking out Corney the corn snake

Cooper with his friends Olivia (middle) and Elise (on the right). By the way, Cooper often says he is going to marry Elise when he grows up.

just a little marble slab

We had a nice relaxing labor day weekend. I got to sleep in a bit Saturday morning and then out with Paul and some friends Saturday night. Another nice, lazy, stay-in-pajamas morning on Sunday, and Paul took the kids swimming Sunday afternoon. Kestrel's friend Caitlin stayed over Sunday night, and we took them out for ice cream at the Marble Slab Creamery after dinner. Kestrel always gets her favorite: vanilla with cookie dough. We had just about a perfect day Monday. We drove down to a friend's lake house and we relaxed and ate and watched the kids fish and swim all afternoon.

sweet corn!

The Sweet Corn Festival is definitely one of our favorite midwestern traditions. We went Saturday evening, and brought Kestrel's friend Amy who was spending the night with us. We all ate sweet corn, and the kids had pizza as well. They had a great time climbing the rock wall (Kestrel and Amy), feeding the animals in the petting zoo, taking a pony ride (Cooper's first), playing on all of the inflatables, and winning their own inflatable toys by showing their super strength ringing the bell with the big hammer.
We just love the sweet corn!

kestrel's family

Kestrel started school last week. 2nd grade! Her first homework is to put together an album page with pictures of her family and friends. They are putting them together in a class album. She's been taking pictures of Cooper, Huxley, Sparkle Toe (her hermit crab), and tonight she took this picture of all of us (minus herself). I think its a great picture! I only wish Kestrel were in it.

Speaking of school, Kestrel is loving it so far this year (the three and a half days she's been there). She has Mrs. Ellis for a teacher, and and thinks she is sooo nice. Her good friend Amy is also in her class, and she told me that she and Amy decided that each year is better than the last.

celebrating the 4th with friends

Later in the afternoon we had some friends over to celebrate. Everyone had fun, especially the kids who got a little wild! After eating, drinking and getting wet (from the rain, sprinkler and water balloons) we headed over to Kylla's house to watch fireworks.

An angry mob is demanding more water balloons!

Thanks to Paul for doing all the delicious cooking - and to everyone else for bringing their wonderful creations and goodies. And thank you Amy for taking all the pictures. I handed over my camera and she snapped pictures all afternoon.

buds

My friend Trish took this picture of Cooper and Ethan a couple of weeks ago at Soccer. Cooper's been having a great time at soccer, but he does have a little trouble keeping the sillies at bay durring practice.

park play

Yesterday the kids and I went to Noodles & Co. for dinner ( a Mothers & More fundraiser) and after dinner stopped at a park to play with some friends. This was taken on my camera phone again, as usual. A little blurry, but otherwise a cute shot.

Clockwise from left: Kestrel, Olivia, Oliver, Ethan and Cooper

the start of spring break

The kids are on break right now. Cooper is off this whole week, and Kestrel is off this week and the next two. Kestrel spent Monday at a neighboring town's recreation center for their "Vacation Club". I signed her up for two days this week and three days next week. Of course, Kestrel now wants me to sign her up for a couple more days. We'll see if we can! I know it's great that Kestrel likes to do so much, but sometimes I worry that she doesn't get enough down time. She is definitely high energy!

I am planning to take the kids to Indianapolis for the day tomorrow. We will either go to the Children's Museum or to the Zoo, depending on weather and what we feel like tomorrow morning.

The week after next we will be travelling to Montreal to visit Paul's family for Passover. We're excited as we haven't been able to make it there the last couple of years. I wish we could make it to Boston for Easter, but it doesn't look like that is going to work out. I'm hoping we can plan a trip to Boston this summer, and get the kids to the beach!

Here's a picture of Kestrel and her friend Caitlin selling Girl Scout cookies Sunday. Their Brownie troop had a cookie booth at Wal-Mart and we were there for a few hours.

snowman

We finally got some snow last night! Other than a dusting early in the season, we've really had no snow so far this winter. Until last night. Kestrel spent 2 hours playing in the snow this morning. She and Paul worked on this snowman together. Cooper was playing outside for a little while, but came back in long before Kestrel did. As I write this Paul and Kestrel are both back out there building an igloo on the deck (Kestrel's idea of course). It's great for Kestrel that Daddy loves the snow, too.

Speaking of last night, Kestrel had her friends Amy and Caitlin sleep over. They had fun and were all really good, except that they wouldn't go to sleep, of course. I think I heard them still whispering and laughing at midnight! This was Kestrel's first time having friends sleep over here (besides cousins).

first sleepover

Kestrel went to her first sleepover last night at her friend Amy's house. Their friend Caitlin also spent the night, and it was the first sleepover for all three of them (brave parents). Amy's parents had all of us over for dinner earlier in the evening with a couple of other families, and then we left and Paul took Cooper home to bed (I went out to another friend's get together).
Kestrel was soooo excited for the sleepover. Apparently the girls didn't go to sleep until about 11:30, which doesn't surprise me. She was also thrilled with the "first sleepover" present Amy's family gave her, a Burt Bees cherry lip gloss!
Here is her list, in her words, of why the sleepover was so much fun:

• playing!
• going to sleep
• we were all together
• we got to stay up until after 10:00
• watching a movie
• I ate a stack of three pancakes with syrup and a banana for breakfast

Of course when I came to pick her up, Kestrel kept asking if she could have Amy and Caitlin sleep over at our house. I told her we'd think about it after the holidays!