Erin even got to take a few whacks at a pinata!


But she needed to take off her blindfold to actually hit it!


Mmmm! Cake and ice cream!


Harley wanted to ride in the wagon with Sarah and Peyton so bad!


Max wore Erin's party headband around for a while.

Sarah and Zane

These two cute cousins had fun playing together in the sawdust near grandpa's woodpile.

All the excitement of party day caught up with Sarah right after she finished watching "Max and Ruby," her favorite show about two bunnies.


Myrtle with her two granddaughters and all six of her great-grandchildren.


Here's most of the rest of the gang!


Our family.


Four generations of women!

Sleepy waffle-whiffer

Guess who got sleepy eating her waffles this evening? Yup ... Sarah! She went to bed at 12:30 a.m. and woke up before everyone else at 7:30 a.m., forcing Daddy to get out of bed even before the usual 8:15 a.m. buzzer.


Awww!

More cycling with Sarah

Rich has been getting in some good miles on his bicycle, now that it's warming up in MN! Sarah has been out with Daddy in her trailer about five or six times so far. On Tuesday we rode 18 miles round-trip to Elm Creek Park Reserve and back, stopping for some playtime at the HUGE playground over there. And Sarah had it all to herself!


On the captain's plank.


It's slippery coming back down!


Daddy, you're too big to be on the swinging bridge!

As Peter Gabriel once sang, "I'm digging in the dirt."



Banana break!


The dynamic duo.


Sarah helped mommy keep warm on the couch this morning!

Spaghetti-face!

Sarah had so much spaghetti on her face at supper tonight that daddy just had to run grab the camera to take some future "blackmail" pictures!



Sarah ate nearly a fourth of a large watermelon today, and then topped it off with a bunch of spaghetti and corn(?) at supper. She's halfway to six feet tall already, and probably took another big step in that direction today.



Hey, it's see-food!



Sarah loves to listen to secrets, and tell them, too! Here she is listening to one of mommy's secrets...


... and one of Lucas' secrets. She calls Lucas "Wookie" and Caleb "Kay-ko."

Boing! Boing! Boing!

Erin brought home a trampoline last night and set it up in our backyard, thinking it will keep the boys from saying "I'm bored!" too much this summer.


Kangaroo country...


Sarah takes a break from the trampoline to eat watermelon! She woke up this morning, and the first words out of her mouth after she rubbed her eyes were, "Jump? Jump?"


Three cuties watching the fun.

Spring cleaning

Rich took advantage of one of our rare warm days recently to clean out the garage, which had gotten so full of junk that we couldn't get either of our two cars into it. Noah and Lucas both helped out, and earned five buck each. If you look closely amid the clutter, you can see them at the top of the driveway. At the end of the day, we did manage to get the entire garage swept out and organized enough to get the minivan back inside.



Sarah supervised -- from inside one of our coolers ...


-- while eating a cup of ramen noodles!


Later that night, Sarah insisted that Lucas watch television with her.

A weekend at Bowstring

All six of us (and both dogs) went to see Grandma and Grandpa G at Bowstring Lake a couple of weekends ago. It was the first time we'd been there since (gulp!) last October, when Sarah was baptized. That's SIX MONTHS! Where did the time go? Anyway, here's Grandpa walking Ozzie while Grandma walks ... SARAH!!! Rich attached the dog leash to her pants, and she pretended she was a puppy.


Look out! Sarah has a snowball!


Da boyz. And Harley.


Sarah practices for her future expedition in Antarctica. Sarah, that one pack of Smarties candy won't carry you too far, and that hat under your arm needs to be on your head! But those ladybug boots are ROCKIN'!

Need to cheer up?

Then click on the "right arrow" embedded in the picture below! Don't forget to turn up the volume a little, to hear him purr.

My dead body ... yours for only $3,890!

Rich's little buddy Eric also blogs, and Eric had a link to a website that will ask you several questions, then calculate what your dead body would be worth should you decide to donate it to science. Rich's body? Worth a whopping $3,890! Find out what your body is worth HERE:


$3890.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth.

Cycling with Sarah!

With the boys at school today, mommy working the day shift, and the sunny day approaching 50 degrees, daddy decided to get out his new birthday present (bike trailer) and take Sarah for a bike ride! Here she is in her new bunny helmet.



Bicycling big rig! Sarah's already in the trailer and raring to go! We rode to the Coon Rapids Dam and back, for a total of 11 miles.



On the way to the dam, we saw a pair of deer! We stopped, and they didn't even run away. When daddy pointed them out to Sarah, she said, "Oh!"



At the dam.



While we walked around at the dam, Rich ran into John, a friend of his, Roger and Gloria's from the Jim Klobuchar bike ride. John is from Indiana and was visiting his son's family in the Twin Cities, and he was out walking on the dam with his two grandsons, who don't have school this week. John took this picture of us, and said to say "Hi!" to Roger and Gloria.

Cycling with Sarah, continued...

On the way back home, we just had to stop at a playground for about 40 minutes to enjoy the sun and so Sarah could have some fun. Here she is crossing a bridge ...



... on the way to the big spiral slide. Her hair got all static-y, and she went down the slide about 12 or 15 times.



Riding the teeter-totter. She yelled "Boing! Boing! Boing!"



Wheeee! Swings! Daddy swung, too. We saw many robins looking for worms while we were on the swings, and Sarah (of course) named them: "Daddy! Mommy! Sarah!" When we got off the swings, she decided to chase a few robins to make them fly away.


The last few miles home knocked Sarah right out! It was a good day. Mommy and the boys have to come along next time!