Saturday was Lucas and Caleb's eighth birthday, and they invited six of their friends over. The original plan was to take all the boys to see the movie "Flushed Away," but after the discount theater refused to accept anything but cash, we ended up at (Up)Chuck E. Cheese. Afterward, we went back to the house for cake and presents.
Looks like the sugar rush from the cake and ice cream just set in!
Erin worked tonight and Noah and his Webelos pack went to visit a possible Boy Scout troop for them to join. So I took the twins and Sarah to Majors Sports Bar and Grill in Bloomington for a meeting of Minneapolis-St. Paul pilots who are involved in Jetcareers.com, a networking website for pilots. My camera doesn't have a working flash, of course, so the pictures are blurry. In the photo above, L to R, are gredenko (James), blee256 (Brian), Dazzler (Richard) and his wife and children, and Clumping Litter (Christine). We found out that I share my birthday with James and Richard, although they are much younger than I! We're all flight instructors, and Brian is a first officer in the CRJ for Pinnacle Airlines.
minnflyer (Rich) with Sarah, Caleb and Lucas.
Tonight was Pinewood Derby night for Cub Scout Pack 685, of which Noah, Lucas and Caleb are members. None of our boys won their age group, but they did earn ribbons for participating!
Noah's car is the yellow one, Caleb's is the blue one and Lucas made the red one. The boys had help from Grandpa Gordon and Uncle Aaron (who helped form the shape of the cars), Erin (who got the painting started) and Rich (who applied the weights and put the wheels on. Rich also ran the race computer at the event, which kept the times for each car.
Here's one of the more creative cars that was at the race. Inside each eyeball was an LED that made the eyes glow red!
This car won "best of show" for its design and cool paint job.
Sarah loves to take a power nap every morning. Today, it happened to be in the papa-san chair behind the computer where I was doing some work. I had put her in there with a couple of toys to play with, and pretty soon I heard some heavy breathing!
Sarah had her 9-month checkup recently and is doing great. She's in the 95th (!!!) percentile for height at 29 inches, and weighs almost 21 pounds. Dr. Manney says we should have five more just like her. OK, if he provides daycare and pays for college!
We managed to get everyone to sit still (sort of) for a family photograph!
Sarah with her cousins, Ella (almost 3) and Madeline (almost 6).
Grandma Gordon arranged for all of us to go on a horse-drawn sleigh ride through the forest last Thursday. We had fun singing songs and playing in the hay. Here's Noah and Lucas with one of the horses.
Today, Grandpa Gordon and Uncle Aaron drilled a few holes in the ice (which was almost a foot thick) so the kids could try their hand at ice fishing for the first time. Here's Lucas giving it try. Madeline caught a small perch!
We've all been having a great time at Bowstring Lake for the Christmas holidays. Today everyone (except Erin and Sarah) went sledding at the big hill near Mosomo Point. It was the first time sledding for Madeline and Ella, and they loved it!
The sledding hill was pretty big, so Ella made her sled runs starting about halfway down. She's so silly!
Madeline and Caleb "doubled" on one sled several times. They got a little banged up, but that's all part of sledding!
Rich did more geocaching with Caleb on Dec. 13 ... it was 42 degrees, and still no snow! Noah and Lucas chose to stay home on this excursion, so we drove a few miles over to Maple Grove and found three "treasure" caches in Elm Creek Park Preserve, which has 15 miles of trails. We heard owls on the walk back to the van, and Erin had sloppy joes ready for us!
A fuzzy attempt at art ... the park horizon at dusk.
