Putting Up the Christmas Tree

Today we put together the tree we got last year and started putting on our ornaments. THey are a combination of ornaments we grew up with, new ones we've bought to comemorate certain events, handmade ornaments, some we've received as gifts, a few colored balls, and candy canes.

Lights Before Christmas 2006

What a great night for checking out the Christmas Lights at the Toledo Zoo again this year. The weather was mild (we overdressed actually, expecting worse) and so a record setting crowd felt the same way that we did. This was definitely the warmest and most crowded stroll we've ever taken through the Zoo at night. Next time we'll go when it's 10 below on a weeknight and get the whole place to ourselves. Wait...no...that doesn't sound good either. Oh well, it was beautiful as always and we only lost one of the kids once. (Keep up Alex!) I think I even found a glowing Santa fly by with his reindeer. He was flying by so fast that I couldn't quite get the picture in focus. Yeah...let's go with that. Be sure and check out the video from a synchronized light display that we took in the previous post.

Rocking Christmas Display

This was filmed at the Toledo Zoo.

Large Cars Decorations by Grammy

Lizzie and Ramone
Guido and Luigi
Mater
Sarge
Stanley
Flo
Doc Hudson, Chick Hicks, and The King
Fillmore and Sheriff
Red
Mack and Lightning McQueen

Sally, Dinoco Lightning, Tractor, and of course, Alex

Alex's Birthday Cake

Alex and Becky made his cake together. She baked two layers of cake, then Alex helped her smear ice cream between the layers.

After refreezing it, they frosted it together. Alex put plastic and candy Cars decorations on the cake and Becky used gel icing to write "Happy 7th Alex!!!" on it.

Then he blew out his big "7" candle, making it official. Happy Birthday, Alex!

Happy 7th Birthday Alex!

Our oldest turned 7 at 2:01 AM. He slept through it, but when he awoke, he began a fun and relaxing day. He and Becky made cinnamon rolls after breakfast. He opened presents from family and got a lot of neat gifts, including several new games.

We played Cars Tractor Tipping, Make 'N' Break, Gobblet Jr., Cars UNO, Cranium Ziggity, and Cranium Whoonu, and Cranium Cadoo. He was especially pround of beating me twice in a row in Gobblet Jr., which is like Tic-Tac-Toe, but played with small wooden cups in 3 sizes that can gobble up your opponents smaller pieces. Becky had to ask me if I let him win because it was his birthday - while that sounded noble, he earned the win the hard way. He must've had a good teacher. :)

Grammy Hardage made him large versions of the cars from the Cars movie that we decorated the house with. We went out to dinner at Bravo! where the birthday boy had pizza and we of course came home for dessert.

Birthday Cinnamon Rolls

Becky and Alex got up this morning and put together some semi-homeade cinnamon rolls. They used frozen bread dough - thawed of course and rolled it out. They covered it with butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Then they rolled it up and sliced rounds out to bake and then topped them with frosting. Good eats for the birthday boy (and the rest of us)!

Thanksgiving Scavenger Hunt

Before we had an evening Thanksgiving meal, Alex talked us into going on a walk around the neighborhood on a scavenger hunt. The goal was to find items on our walk that Alex set up ahead of time on a list. You would get points for finding feathers, flowers, acorns, and for a bonus point - a PIG.

No one found the pig and when we found out that the others were hard to find, Alex added pine cones and squirrels to the list, which were much more readily visible. Alex was keeping score and ... wait for it ... he won!

Wacky Hats

This is actually one of Alex's presents from his party, but Aaron and Becky had fun building wacky hats from a kit. This cracks Aaron up everytime he sees this picture come up on our slideshow screen saver.

Strike!

Today we celebrated Alex's birthday at the Southwyck Lanes Bowling Alley. We've found it hard to get kids to come to a party close to his birthday because it usually falls right near Thanksgiving. That's why we turned Alex and a bunch of his closest friends and classmates loose on the lanes today. We had a great turnout and the kids really loved the bowling. We also had Cars themed coloring pages for the younger siblings, but the older kids enjoyed them too. Everyone got Cars temporary tatoos and enjoyed cake.

We got a great cake from Sam's decorated with the Cars characters. It was half vanilla and half chocolate, allowing everyone to pick their favorite flavor. Everyone sang "Happy Birthday" with a "cha cha cha" after each line - not sure where that came from - and Alex blew out a big "7" candle.

Since we were bowling hard and eating cake, we saved the present opening until we got home. He got a really fun mix of games and toys. He's already told us that he wants a Party Heroes party next year.

Grammy's Here!

Grammy came into town tonight on the same flight I did. Of course, hers originated in Austin, and then connected in Dallas where I got on the plane. I walked up, gave her a hug, and then got hustled down the aisle by a grumpy traveller to my seat a few rows behind her. Kinda wierd to share a plane, but not see her for the entire flight. The kids haven't seen her for 7 months and are looking forward to her stay.

Attack of the Blue Sesame Street Sno-Cone

To reward the kids with a fun night out after a hectic week of doing the single parent thing, Becky took them to the latest Sesame Street Live show. They wore appropriate shirts we picked up at Sesame Place this summer.

They really enjoyed the show, which featured all of their favorite characters.

The real adventure began simply - with a request for a Sesame street Sno-Cone. We don't know if they were designed this way or mixed up badly but there was WAY too much blue food coloring in Aaron's. He kept grabbing handfuls of it and of course, stained his hands and tongue. But the fun didn't stop there. Within 24 hours he had a neon blue diaper deposit that stained his tuckus as well. It would not come off in the bath and had to wear off over the next few days. In addition to the program and concert CD, this was one more thing to remind us of the trip to Sesame Street.

Board Review Express

Today I left the troops behind for a short medical education trip in Dallas in preparation for the Family Physician Boards I will be taking next summer. We had 3 days of lectures from 7 to 7 (with breaks thank goodness). My tuckus was tired of sitting when it was over.

It was rough leaving the rest of the gang but it wouldn't have been much fun here. Since I was in lectures all day, I wouldn't have seen them much anyway and Becky would've had to wrangle the kiddos by herself away from home. Not to mention the fact that Alex has school this week. I stayed in the Dallas Intercontinental and spent my downtime back on the treadmill (in front of a big mirror - I found out that I really don't like to watch myself run), or watching TV.

I spent half an hour in the pool one night (it was 88 that day in Dallas), but I found that it was a little creepy by myself. I kept touch with home through my cell phone through calls and text messages. Before long I was winging my way back home to the troops. I'm taking them on the next CME trip - hopefully with half day lectures.

One Last Trip to the Park