some pics from the last couple of months

Happy New Year!

Some winter pics (for our holiday card):

Kestrel on her way to the bus one morning in the fall (our house in the background):

In the Butterfly Garden at the Strong Museum of Play (Veteran's Day):

Kestrel at one of the swim meets early in the season (late October):

off to play hockey

Paul and Cooper just left for Cooper's first hockey practice. Paul got him all decked out in his hockey gear before they left (minus the helmet and skates, of course). He looked so cute! We'll let you know later how it went.

fall soccer, etc.

Oops. It's been a while again, hasn't it?
I meant to post about soccer over a week ago. Kestrel started fall soccer. Last spring her team was just 2nd graders. This year she is on a team with 3rd, 4th and 5th grade girls. She's really enjoying it so far, but just as in the spring, the rain has put a damper on things. Her first game was the Saturday before last. She was a little nervous because they only had 1 practice due to their 2nd practice being rained out. She had fun at the game, though. They were supposed to have a game this past Saturday, but it was cancelled because the field was too wet. Let's hope that's the last of the rain cancellations!

Here's a picture of her before her first game, when her team was warming up (and Cooper in the background).


And just for fun, here's Harrison later that same day flying down the side of our play set. In all the years we lived here Huxley never once attempted to go up it, but Harrison does it a lot. I tried to get a picture of him up in it, but he ran down too quickly. I think he sometimes goes up there to steal a toy the kids have left behind. This time he got a frisbee.

Later this same day Harrison dug himself under our deck, and got stuck. We couldn't get him out, so Paul had to get the shovel and dig him out. Yup, all covered with clay-like mud all deep in his fur. Lucky me I got to hose him off. I still can't get all the mud stains out of my shirt. He did really enjoy being hosed off, though. That's probably why he did it again the next day...

on ice

Friday evening Kestrel performed in the U of I Learn-to-Skate Showcase. This year the theme was "A Night at the Movies". Kestrel's level skated to "It's A Hard Knock Life" from Annie.

Kestrel after the show

with her friend Olivia, who also skated in the show

Cooper, with flowers for Kestrel, waiting for her to come out after the show. He was very proud of his new soccer shirt he's showing off.

Other news:

Cooper started soccer Friday evening, with the Little Illini Soccer Academy. Paul took him to soccer and afterwards they came straight to the show. He had a great time. It was supposed to start two weeks ago but was rained out the first two weeks.

Kestrel had her first Soccer game Saturday morning, with the Youth Soccer League. Her games were also supposed to start two weeks ago but had been rained out. Her team won, 1-0!

ice skating starts again

The new ice skating session started yesterday. It was great to see Cooper going out confidently on the ice. I didn't notice him falling at all. It is such a big difference from when he started last session (which was his first time learning to skate). He's taking the same level he did in the fall, but whereas in the fall most of the kids were around his age or just a little older, this session most of the kids are bigger than him. He was talking to everyone as usual, of course. I noticed him talking to the two teenagers in the class several times.
Kestrel is taking ice skating again as well, but she moved up to Beta, which meets at a different time (unfortunately).

In the picture below, Cooper is on the end in blue.

And here he is smirking as he was coming off the ice...


And just for fun, here's another picture I took of Kestrel this afternoon with Sassy (on the shoulder) and Sandy.

I know I haven't updated this blog in the last couple of weeks, so I thought I'd share a few pictures of what we've been up to.

Tomorrow morning (actually in just a few hours) I leave for my long anticipated trip to St. Pete, FL with my girlfriends.

Cooper at the children's museum in Bloomington (OK - actually Normal) on Tuesday. I needed to get a number of errands done and I bribed him with a trip to the museum if he cooperated. He loves museums!

Kestrel watching Cooper's T-ball game a couple of weeks ago.

Cooper batting at his last T-ball practice a couple weeks ago.

A couple of weeks ago I had to take my car to the dealership in Danville (long story) and Cooper came with me. He kept asking if we could go to a museum when we were there. I guess to him, going out of town often means going to a museum. I kept trying to explain that I didn't think there were any museums in Danville, but he kept begging, "try to find one, mommy, try!" Well, I happened to drive by a small building with a sign that said "Vermillion County Museum" out front, so we stopped. It was just a little museum with historical artifacts from Vermillion County, but Cooper was thrilled. The woman working in the museum seemed surprised we were there, but friendly. Here he is above with an old saddle in the museum.Cooper is standing in front of a mastodon skull in the museum. Its hard to tell from here, but it was huge.

Recently Kestrel's school had "Back To School Night". Her class sang some songs about bugs for the parents (they are studying insects). I know the picture is hard to see because the sun was shining right at me through the window, but I wanted to put it in because it makes me smile. Notice Kestrel is standing out in front of everyone? That wasn't planned. She just wanted to stand front and center, but the rest of the class all shied towards the back. That's our girl!

Have a great weekend everyone! I'll think about you while I'm sunning on the gulf coast...

t-ball

Monday Cooper started Little Sluggers Tee-ball, a pretty low key program run by the small town next to us. They actually started last week, but we were on vacation so Cooper missed the first practice.

Maybe I was distracted because we were on vacation and just barely got home, but for some reason it didn't occur to me that Cooper should have a glove until right before we were leaving to go to T-ball. Duh! I quickly stopped in at Wal-Mart on our way there to try to get a glove. Surprisingly, they didn't have a kid sized glove, only adult gloves. When I asked, the store clerk showed me the only kid glove they had, which was actually a very cheap, plastic, velcro covered thing that came with a velcro ball. I tried to tell Cooper he'd be OK this time without one, and we'd get him one for next week, but he started getting worried that "they" would be mad at him if he didn't have a glove (and I couldn't seem to convince him otherwise), so I got him the plastic-velcro thing and he seemed satisfied with it. However, once we were at the field, he noticed the other kids' gloves and commented that they had real gloves. I felt terrible!

It all worked out fine though. He was a trooper with his velcro glove, and seemed to have fun. I praised him afterwards for doing a great job throwing, and he acted so proud and couldn't wait "to show Daddy!"

And yes, I did go get him a "real" glove, and bought one for Kestrel too so they could play catch together.

more swimming

Saturday Kestrel swam in her 2nd (and final) swim meet of the season.

Kestrel and Olivia

swimmer

Kestrel joined the Pre-swim Team this summer. Meets are optional, and at first she wasn't interested in attending them. The last few weeks she's been hearing the other kids talk about the meets and she decided she wanted to go. So, earlier this week she came home saying she told her coach she would be at the meet Saturday, then told me we had to be in Charleston (an hour drive) at 7:15 am!! We woke up at 5:30 Saturday morning to make it to the meet on time. Kestrel swam in 4 events: The medley relay, 25 freestyle, 25 backstroke, and freestyle relay. I was so proud of her, and every time she came out of the water she said it was really fun. This was my first time attending a meet as well, and I never realized how long they were. The waiting was tough at times, but it was worth it.

Kestrel lost a tooth while waiting for one of her events. She thought that made the meet extra exciting.

Kestrel is waiting for her turn during the relay.

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.

riding

Kestrel is riding a horse named Kelly at our riding lesson this morning.

Kestrel's been riding Kelly the past two weeks. I've been riding Toes the past three weeks. Last week right after I got on him, he started jumping a few times. It scared me! I guess I must have done something he didn't like. No jumping this week, thankfully. We did "barrel racing" at the end of our lesson today, where we trotted around barrels. I thought it was fun, and Toes seemed to enjoy it. Kestrel had a little trouble steering Kelly, who didn't seem to want to trot, around the barrels. We all had fun, though, and everyone laughed when I knocked over one of the barrels. Kestrel loves taking care of the horses, and keeps talking about how she wants to live on a farm when she's grown and ride horses everywhere instead of driving.
I snapped this picture at the end of our lesson with my phone. It's pretty blurry, but I still couldn't resist posting it here.

summer soccer

Kestrel and Cooper had soccer this morning, with the Summer Soccer Club in a nearby town. Soccer started last Saturday, and meets twice a week through July. Kestrel participated in this last year and loved it. It was one of the things she was looking forward to this summer. This is Cooper's first time playing soccer. He was a bit nervous last week before he started, and kept saying "but I don't know how to play soccer!" However, once he got out there with his buddy Ethan he loved it, and now is all excited when he finds out it's soccer day.

I know it's too small to see, but that is Ethan kicking a ball behind Cooper.

gymnastics recital

Kestrel had her annual Spring Gymnastics Recital last Sunday (April 29th). She did great! She's been taking gymnastics classes for the past four years, but just decided she would like to take this summer off from gymnastics, and resume in the fall. Here are some pictures from the recital. Its almost impossible to get a decent picture during the recital, but this should give you an idea of what she was doing.

This was at the end when she got her medal for participating in the recital.

on the springboard

on the bar

on the beam

jumping off the beam (it always gets me a little nervous when they start jumping and tumbling on the beam)

handstand durring the floor routine

Cooper and Mommy watching the recital (Cooper really wanted me to put this picture on the blog)