feeling pretty festive

We decorated the tree yesterday. It went really fast once we got started. The kids helped put on most of the ornaments. They had them on the tree faster than I could unwrap them from the storage box. The start on top is a 3-D star Kestrel made for a shcool project last year.

Kestrel's having a lot of fun with her new digital camera. She's taking a lot of pictures and videos and learning how to edit them on the computer. She's been into using the self timer. Here are two self-timer pictures Kestrel took yesterday:

5th night of Chanukah

In front of the newly-decorated tree. Isn't she getting pretty good?

**As I write this Paul is on his way back from a road trip to bring home our new surprise! Check back here soon for more details and pictures...

land of sweets

Friday afternoon a friend had us over to decorate gingerbread houses (made out of graham crackers). Here are the kids' creations! When they were done, they both snacked on their houses, and then Kestrel had fun playing outside in the snow (it had snowed the night before).

happy chanukah

We celebrated the first night of Chanukah at home, and then Kestrel had to go to rehearsal. When we came out of rehearsal, it was starting to snow! Kestrel was excited and screaming, and telling me to look straight up into the snow like she was.

he's got the rad moves

Cooper was pretty focused playing by himself in the family room while I was cleaning up in the kitchen. Eventually he started playing with his electric drum pad. At one point I looked up and saw him dancing to one of the rhythms on the drum set. I just had to grab my camera. At first he had no idea I was recording him. Check out the hip action at 00:19!

I took Kestrel to see the Nutcracker Saturday evening. It has become a special Mommy-Kestrel tradition we do each year. Kestrel's friend Caitlin was performing again this year, this time as one of the mice. Very cute! Kestrel was tired of course from the night before (which she wouldn't admit), but we had to go this night because we couldn't miss seeing her friend.

Here are a couple camera phone pictures I took before the show.

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

happy birthday kestrel!

Today our girl turned 8!
She had quite a special day. This morning we gave her a new pair of earrings, her first pair after getting her ears pierced. She proudly changed her earrings for the first time this morning so she could wear them to school, where she brought cupcakes to share with her class.
Between her dance classes this evening we went out to Jupiter, a new place that opened up near us, for pizza and chocolate cake.
Later at home we opened the rest of her presents. She got some really great gifts from family, especially from all of her grandparents.
She got sung to many times today: at home, at school, at both dance classes, and at the restaurant. What a day!

This "slice" of chocolate cake was not only big enough for 8 candles, but it generously fed all four of us.
Sooo excited about her birthday!
Cooper is getting a big "thank you" hug.

Kaya makes her 3rd blog appearance, this time on horseback!

more from the weekend

A few more pictures from the weekend. Paul's Mom is leaving today, the rest of the crew headed back yesterday.

Cooper had a great time singing, dancing and playing guitar with Uncle Arthur.

All the cousins right before they hit the road.

Kestrel and Gillian - its hard to say goodbye!

happy thanksgiving!

Another successful Thanksgiving was had by all! We hosted again this year, with Paul's mom Carol, Debra, Jim, Erica, Gillian, Aida, Arthur, Lila and Levi all making the trip here. As always, Paul did most of the cooking. Kestrel, Cooper, Erica and Gillian created the salad, on their own with no adult involvement at all. Levi made the mashed potatoes.

Kestrel and Cooper serving their special salad creation.

The kid's table! From left, Erica, Lila, Gillian, Kestrel, Cooper and Levi

My contribution to the meal - apple pie!

Erica, Lila and Gillian

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.

happy trails

Here's Kestrel with Kelly the horse following our riding lesson this morning. Kelly is her favorite horse for lessons. Today I rode Boots, a very pretty mare. She's a nice horse despite her tendency to want to stop abruptly without warning (hopefully NOT when I'm up in a two-point). I never really had any experience with horses prior to starting riding lessons, and I'm enjoying the fact that each horse has his or her own personality, and his or her own quirks. We had to miss our lesson last week because I woke up sick, sick ,sick, but it was fun to go back today.

Some other news: Kestrel got a part in a local production of the musical "Miracle on 34th Street". Her part is one of Judge Harper's Grandchildren, and she'll also be a caroler. It's a small part, but still she gets to be on stage! Her friend Zanden is also one of the grandchildren. She's very excited and I think it will be a fun experience. Performances run from Dec. 14th through Dec. 22. For more information you can go to http://www.brightlightstheatre.org/public/.

happy halloween

After Kestrel got home from school yesterday we got to work carving our pumpkins. Paul got home a little early and joined us, so we ended up each carving a pumpkin. Afterwards, Paul roasted the seeds while the kids and I put up the Halloween decorations. They were pretty excited about decorating this year, and we got some new decorations -- the graveyard! Of course we still had the singing/screeching cat from last year at the front door to surprise the trick-or- treaters.
We ordered pizza for dinner, which has become one of our Halloween traditions. Paul stayed home to hand out candy while I took the kids out trick-or-treating with some friends from Kestrel's Brownie troop. They had a great time, though Cooper was getting tired trying to keep up with the big girls who were zipping from door to door.
You'll be happy to know our candy basket is now fully restocked to last through the next year!

Our pumpkins. From left - Kestrel's, Cooper's, Dad's and Mom's.

halloween funfest (or, halloween part I)

Tonight I took the kids to the mall for the annual Halloween Funfest. Yes, it was pretty much the same as last year with too many pushy people and long lines, but they really wanted to go again, and didn't believe me when I said they didn't have that much fun last year. Besides, there was a costume contest, which was just way too enticing for Kestrel. I figured they are only kids for a short time so if they wanted to go, I would take them.

They both participated in the costume contest. Cooper as the Black Power Ranger didn't win anything in his group (crazy judges), but Kestrel got called up as one of the top 10 in her group. She was very proud!

Power Ranger and Scarecrow - on our way out to the mall.

Kestrel on stage with the top 10 costumes!

Her top 10 prize was a token for the carousel. I bought one for Cooper so they could have a ride together.

goin' buggy

The 2nd grade at Kestrel's school performed their music program last night, titled "Goin' Buggy". It was very cute and was all about bugs demanding respect. They had studied bugs in science all first quarter. Kestrel was Little Miss Muffet. The way she described it, she was the only bad guy in the show. The rest of the kids were various bugs. Kestrel did a great job with her lines.

Here is a very short clip I took while she was saying her lines. I missed the beginning, but at least you get to hear her famous "eeek".

with baby

I meant to post this a while ago. This was October 9th, during Kestrel's fall break from school. I meet up with a group of my mom friends every once in a while for breakfast and Kestrel came with us a couple of times while she was out of school. These were taken at Panera, and she's holding my friend Erika's baby Oscar. I just thought they were cute!

leaves

It finally feels like fall! We were at the park yesterday and Kestrel found some leaves she could make into a leaf pile (we don't know the other girl in the picture).

Today it was about 30 degrees cooler. The kids and I bundled up in coats and hats and took a long walk around the neighborhood late afternoon. Actually Cooper road his bike but Kestrel and I walked. Kestrel was having fun searching for colorful leaves.

roller kids 2

We went back to Skateland Wednesday evening. When we were there Saturday afternoon the kids each won a free family pass for Wednesday evening and were excited to go back. It was nice because there were only a few people there so the rink was pretty empty. Cooper was definitely getting better with his skating!

Both of the kids entered the race. They stop the skating and have a race for anyone who wants to participate. Kestrel has been wanting to enter the last several times she's been there, but keeps missing it. This time she went right out there and so did Cooper. Usually they separate the girls and boys, and have them race within their age group. However, there were only 2 young girls, so Kestrel raced against a girl who looked about 5 (but could skate pretty well). Kestrel won, and they gave her a card for a free soda. After the race Kestrel noticed that the other girl looked sad, and Kestrel felt badly for her. She said to me "I would be sad too if I was little and had to race against a big kid like me. I'd think it wasn't fair." So then Kestrel went up to the girl and gave her the prize for a free soda, and told the girl "you deserve it". The girl looked happy after that!

Cooper was the littlest boy there, so he had to race against a boy who looked about 10. The other boy won of course, but Cooper did great and didn't even fall! They gave Cooper a free soda prize anyway, for doing such a good job trying. We were so proud of him, and he brought the free soda card home to show daddy.

After the race we were skating a little more, and the girl who raced against Kestrel came up and asked Cooper if she could give him a hand, and the two of them skated around the rink together holding hands. So cute!

I decided that Skateland is one of the hardest places to take a picture with my phone, but I thought these were cute anyway.

This is Cooper when he came back from racing. He was so proud of himself!

And speaking of skating, I was rollerblading yesterday morning and it was such a beautiful day! It is still hot here, high in the 80's this week, but not such a miserable hot like it was in the summer. It stays cooler in the morning, and was such a nice blue sky morning while I was skating. Here's a prairie picture for you. I've decided my phone definitely takes better pictures outside! Or perhaps the big blue sky is more forgiving.

pierced ears!

My girl got her ears pierced! We had told Kestrel she could get her ears pierced when she turned 8. However, this past Tuesday we had some time for a mommy-Kestrel morning, as Kestrel is on break from school, Cooper was in school, and we had nothing planned for the morning. I thought it would be a fun thing for us to do together. I discussed it with Paul and we both felt she was close enough (she'll turn 8 in less than 2 months). So, when I woke her up in the morning I told her we'd have a special day and get her ears pierced.

She was so excited! We had breakfast out and then arrived at the mall before the stores were open. She wanted to wait outside of Claire's. She couldn't think of doing anything else. She was a little nervous, but very brave. She picked out the pink crystal flower earrings. Afterwards, she told everyone she saw that she just got her ears pierced. When asked if it hurt, she described how it "hurt a little for half a second, and then felt weird for a few minutes, but then felt like my normal ears!" We did some shopping and I bought her some new clothes and a purple headband to show off her earrings. She was ecstatic all day, and kept telling me that I was the nicest Mom ever!

Here she is cleaning her pierced ears, in the mirror. She wants to take care of them herself and doesn't want me to help. So grown up! I tried to get a close up of her ears with the earrings, but I couldn't get it in focus. Oh well, I'm not much of a photographer.