happy birthday cooper!

OK, his actual birthday is tomorrow, but Cooper had his party today. He had a lot of his friends over for a space theme birthday party. We rented a bounce house and the kids spent most of their time outside in the yard. Lots of bouncing! Even some of the moms got in on the fun. We had pizza and cake and ice cream and a pinata. The weather was just about perfect.

The bouncy castle.

The birthday boy, waiting for his turn.

Waiting in line for the bouncy castle. The blond looking right at you is Cooper's friend Elise from school, whom he just loves!

The cake. Once again I was up way too late making the cake. Paul had to run out to get more cake mix in the middle of the night because of my silly mistake, but it came out nice.

The planet pinata.

The kids, waiting for their turns to smash the planet pinata.

The moms.

butterfly

The 2nd grade is finishing up their insect unit, and they have a tradition that the kids get their faces painted as butterflies. They asked for a few parents to come in to help with the face painting, so I volunteered. Kestrel wanted to be the first face I painted. I think I got a little better with practice, but Kestrel seemed to like her butterfly.

sunday afternoon

Today was such a beautiful, clear, blue sky day. A perfect day for being outside. I talked the kids into going over to a nearby neighborhood which is quite pretty and has a nice walking/biking path. Kestrel and Cooper brought their bikes, and I walked. After riding on the path for a while we stopped at the park. Kestrel and Cooper love this park because it has the "spinny things" - these poles that you can sit or stand on and spin around. They get them going pretty fast!

bee happy

Kestrel's family project for school was to create a 3-dimensional bug and list three interesting facts about it. She decided she wanted to make a bee. She designed it and made most of it herself. I helped putting some of it together. It sure is a happy bee. She's holding her three bee facts.

"bee facts" by Kestrel (as she wrote them):
*Bees are helpful, they make candles so you can see in the dark, they pollinate flowers to make the world beautiful and honey so we can eat something sweet.
*They live with a big group of bees.
*What makes a bee an insect is they have a head, thorax and an abdomen. They have six legs.

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.

guitar man

Both Cooper and Kestrel have been talking about wanting a guitar lately, so Paul pulled out his old guitar from storage and tuned it. They've both been having fun playing with it, but Cooper especially has been spending a lot of time playing the guitar and making up songs that he sings while he plays. Most of the time he sounds pretty good!

Here's a picture Paul took yesterday on my phone, and a short video I took of him playing and singing a cowboy song this afternoon.



Cooper has shown an interest in music since he was little. I signed him up for a pre-piano class that starts in a few weeks. I'll let you know how that goes.

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!

more from st. pete

Well, of course I had a wonderful time on vacation with my girlfriends. I can't believe its all over. The resort was great, the weather was hot and beautiful, and the company was the best of all. We spent a lot of time in the pool, on the beach, in the ocean and sitting on our balcony. We enjoyed a few nice meals, yummy snacks in our suite, and margaritas by the sea.
Thanks to Amy for taking the pictures, once again.

One of our favorite things was the sunset swim we took on Saturday and Sunday. Here we are toasting the coming sunset with our margaritas! Amy is missing because she's taking the picture. From the left, Marlene, Nancy, Trish, Sally, Dee, me and Joanna.

The St. Pete sunset Sunday evening.

We are standing in front of a mural at Hurricane's, the restaurant we ate at Sunday night. It was the only place we could find still serving after 10pm, but was good nonetheless. Nancy is missing because she was a bit tired (as we all were, I think). From the left, Marlene and Dee are in front, Sally, Amy, me, Trish and Joanna in back.

st. pete

Greetings from St. Pete Beach, FL! Having a great time. Here we are last night at Sterlings, a restaurant across the street from the resort. We had a great dinner celebrating my 40th and Nancy and Dee's 30 something birthdays.

The view from our balcony!

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...

friends visit!

We had a great visit a few weeks ago from my friends Caroline and Bob and their 3 kids. It was so great to see them! Caroline is one of my closest friends from high school (Caroline, Jane and I were a very tight threesome). She lives in Georgia now, so we don't get to see each other very often. They were taking a road trip to visit several friends and family, and stopped by here for a couple of days. They were here right before we left for vacation. I tried to post a blurb about the visit from my phone while we were away but it didn't come through. Caroline just sent me the pictures. I wish I could say I took some of these great shots, but she took them all (except for the one of the two of us, of course).

The kids all got along great. Cooper took an exceptional liking to Nathan and Bob. I think he enjoyed having a couple more guys in the house. They came bearing gifts: a new Webkinz each for Kestrel and Cooper, which was just about the most exciting gifts they could have given them.

Erica, Maya and Kestrel

Bob and the kids exploring one of the sculptures at Meadowbrook.

Me and Caroline

In the flower garden at Meadowbrook. Clockwise from the top: Nathan, Kestrel, Maya, Erica and Cooper

Maya and Cooper in the Dino Dig at the Orpheum Museum.

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.

candles on my cake

40 of them!
Thursday I celebrated my 40th birthday. I had a great day! After a nice breakfast, I decided to treat myself to a manicure & pedicure. When I went to pick my nail colors, the very first color that caught my eye was this reddish color (which is a little unusual because I don't usually go for red nails). I turned the bottle over to see what the color was called (I love to do that because they always have crazy names) and discovered it was called "Candles on My Cake". What are the chances of that? Of course I had to have that color.
Later in the afternoon I met my friend Amy at Body Jam. I love that class! Then Paul and the kids and I went out for a nice dinner at Escobar. Paul handed me a present when he sat down, which I really didn't expect because I thought my trip to Florida in a few weeks was present enough. I opened it to find he bought me a fun new phone. Even though I got a new phone recently, Paul knew I was having phone envy lately. Maybe that's why he decided to get me the LG enV.
What a nice day!
And what's more, this is just the beginning of my celebration. I have my trip to Florida with the girls coming up in a few weeks. Can't wait!
I love birthdays.

Watch out, I'll be sending you text messages.

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.

smore please

Here we are in Cleveland. We left the beach yesterday and drove here to see Paul's Mom, Debra and Jim, and Erica and Gillian. We are at Debra & Jim's now where we cooked out and roasted marshmallows. Earlier today we took the dogs (and kids) to a dog park called "Bow Wow Beach".

Cooper and Uncle Jim. Cooper was a little wary of getting too close to the fire at first.

Love that smore!

Kestrel, Gillian and Erica.