Chuck's Birthday Celebrations

Happy Birthday to you.

Happy Birthday to you.

Happy Birthday, dear Chuckie.

Happy Birthday to you!

Chuck's pre-birthday weekend started out with Charlie's first solo overnight at our house. Jenna and Andy had a Christmas party to go to on Friday night, so I picked up Maddox to deliver him to Corey, and then brought Charlie back home to Cannon Falls with me. Andy, Corey, and I all showed up wearing argyle sweaters. What are the chances?

Maddox took the picture, so it's from a rather low perspective - not a bad shot, though!

Charlie did great at our house! After Chuck entertained him for awhile on YouTube, we got out the markers and let him try out his artistic abilities.

I'm afraid he got more on himself than the paper.

Putting the caps back on is a challenge!

Bath time for Charlie (and his onesie).

He slept great, and I even got him down for a nap right after lunch on Saturday so he would be ready for the birthday festivities to follow.

Our plan for the birthday celebration on Saturday was:

*Pick up Kyle, and then meet Jenna and Andy downtown

*Go to Macy's Santaland

*Meet up with Corey and Maddox for dinner at Brit's Pub

*Go to the Hollidazzle Parade

*Eat cake at Corey's place

The afternoon/evening didn't quite work out as planned!

There was about a half-hour wait to get into the Macy's display ("A Day in the Life of an Elf"), and by the time we got to the front of the line, Charlie was totally done with sitting in his stroller. He decided he wanted to play with all of those little elves, so he kept trying to climb right in to the displays, and he did not particularly want to be carried. Needless to say, we walked through fairly quickly! Maybe he'll "get it" a little better next year!

We headed down the Nicollet Mall to Brit's Pub, and on our way, we got a call from Corey saying the wait for dinner was 2 hours. Hmmmmmm, on to Plan B, and then C and D, as restaurant after restaurant was full. We finally ended up at Kieran's Pub after a mad dash through the Skyway system as we tried to keep up with Kyle, who was leading the way. Once we got settled in for our 3/4 hour wait there, Jenna wanted to change Charlie's diaper and discovered they had left their backpack back at Macy's. Fortunately, when Andy went back to look for it, it was right where they left it - soooo lucky!

We finally were seated in our own private little room, which was great since we aren't exactly the calmest/quietest group around.

Charlie was starving by that time, and he loved his macaroni and cheese!

The waitress kept bringing Maddox glasses of milk as we waited - much better than beer!

Dinner was finally served, but by the time we finished, we totally missed the parade. Oh well. Maybe next year! We did not miss the after-parade traffic, though. Downtown was crazy, and the parking ramp was jammed with people leaving. Charlie fell asleep before Jenna and Andy made it to Corey's place, so they just went home, and Kyle had other plans for the evening, so Chuck had his cake with just Corey, Maddox, and me.

He still had candles, though.

Look at that cloud of smoke! We ended up delivering cake to Jenna and Andy on our way home.

We went to Mill St. Tavern on his actual birthday on Wednesday (I had a mega-rehearsal at church afterwards), and then on Thursday, we went to the St. Paul Hotel for an awesome dinner and live radio performance of "It's A Wonderful Life."

On Friday, Sandy and Ray had us over for dinner, and as usual, Sandy went all out with the meal and decorations!

Her centerpiece was beautiful,

and the food was delicious!

After a whole week of celebrations, Chuck is now officially....62!

Charlie, the Monkey!

Charlie can make a toy out of the most random things. When I was babysitting several weeks ago, Charlie decided the footstool in his room was the best toy ever. It has a cover with storage space inside, so he took the cover off and proceeded to climb in. Then, he put his arms out and threw himself at me, assuming, of course, that I would catch him before he crashed to the floor.

I got a few pictures of the climbing in process, but I had to put the camera down quickly once he got in there so I'd be ready for the "launch."

Such concentration!

Get that leg in there!

"I did it!"

It took me awhile to calm him down for bed after this little game!

October/November Update

Long time, no blogging. Guess that means we've been really busy with other "stuff." Here's an overview of the last few months. I have to get this done so I can move on and be ready for December.

We had an interesting experience this fall with this almost-dead tree of our neighbor's. It was right on our property line, and really needed to come down. One Sunday afternoon, Paul, our neighbor, got out his chain saw and started to cut. Scary when it started to wobble towards our house!

Chuck and Paul tried to push it, but it wouldn't budge. Finally, Paul hooked a strap to the tree, attached it to his pick-up, and drove away. Only problem was, the strap wasn't any where near long enough, and the tree fell right on top of his truck. He was trapped inside and actually had to climb out the window of the truck! Crazy!!

The truck was a little the worse for wear, too.

He set to work with his chainsaw and had the whole thing cleaned up and hauled away within a couple of hours.

I think he was lucky one of those branches didn't puncture the top of the truck and kill him, and we were lucky we didn't have a tree in our living room!!

Another October event - Jenna got an iPad from her school last summer, and Charlie probably uses it as much as Jenna. I don't even know how to turn it on. Oh well.

I do know how to respond to e-mails offering free concerts at the Ordway and Orchestra Hall! We took Maddox to a Target Free Family Concert by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra - what a great experience for children to be exposed to wonderful music!

This concert was about Mozart and how he wrote a concerto after hearing a tune sung by a little bird in his garden.

We played a little peek-a-boo while waiting for the concert to start.

Maddox had to take a picture of us, too. I also took him to see "The Wizard of Oz" at the Children's Theater in November for part of his birthday present - no pictures of that one, though.

And here's another October milestone! Ray turned 66 on October 11th - wow!

Our tradition of entertaining each other on our birthdays continued, and I made a chocolate strawberry cream torte for dessert - delicious!

Looking good, Sandy and Ray!

So much fun to celebrate with good friends!

MEA finally arrived and Jenna and I took a much-needed break and went "Up North" to visit Chuck's mom and spend a little time on the North Shore.

We can never resist stopping at Gooseberry Falls. Charlie has been there at least 4 times already! We drove on up the shore of Lake Superior to Tofte, where we stayed overnight at Bluefin Bay, one of my favorite resorts. We didn't have a refrigerator in our room, so Jenna took an early-morning trip to Super America to pick up some milk and cereal for our little "early-riser."

Nothing like a little breakfast at the end table (the lamp is on the floor - we had to do a little furniture re-arranging). After breakfast, we went for a swim in the pool and did a little hiking.

Charlie was impressed with my hiking boots!

Look at the big lake, Charlie!

Ahhhhhh, there it is!

I had to get back on Saturday to attend my 40 year college reunion at Augsburg!

Here are a few of my Elementarty Education buddies. It was reassuring to find out that I'm not the only non-retired teacher from my class (3 of us from this group are still working)!

Moving on. Maddox celebrated his 5th birthday on Monday, October 24th!

Here he is with his pre-school class treat of fruit juice bars. The kids love them (the teachers, not so much). Happy Birthday, Maddox! This was just one of many celebrations for this little guy. He partied over the weekend with Heidi, and then...

we had another cake for him at our house on Wednesday night.

Of course, there were a few presents, too. Corey is getting really good at assembling LEGO vehicles!

Blow them all out, Maddox!
After cake and ice cream, we started decorating the basement for the kid's costume party that we hosted on Sunday, Oct. 30, for about 15 of Maddox's little buddies.

One of the games was a bean-bag pumpkin toss.

We covered a lot of the basement "junk" with sheets, and hung streamers from the rafters. We didn't have to put up any fake spider webs - there were plenty of real ones!

Corey and Maddox came back on Saturday to finish getting ready. Here, they're packing up the gift bags for all the little characters coming to the party.

Lots of Super Heroes!

Corey started the party by reading a spooky story, and then the kids rotated to 4 different activity centers (I can't help it - I'm a 1st grade teacher :-)) Next, it was presents, and...

food! Yes, I actually served them in my dining room, but we didn't use the purple grape juice boxes. Those glasses are filled with water! The kids actually did really well, and there weren't any spills at all (a few crumbs, though). After food, we sent the kids outside to run off some energy. fortunately, it was warm enough for everyone to race around the front yard. The favorite activity was jumping off the stump from that tree we cut down a few weeks earlier. After over a week of celebrating, Maddox is now officially five. What a kid - we're so proud of him!

Charlie is still playing with the leftover balloons from the party.

His latest trick is putting the ends of them in his mouth and then running around shaking his head and making noises - so funny!

November wasn't nearly as eventful as October. The month just whizzed right by and we're already at Thanksgiving at Ted and Pat's!

I discovered I didn't have a picture to use for a Christmas card, so we went outside in the afternoon for some pictures. It was a beautiful day, and Maddox and Charlie had much more fun wrestling than posing for a family picture.

Maddox got a new leather jacket like his dad's!

We couldn't believe how warm it was for the end of November!

So....here's the final choice. Happy Thanksgiving, and soon to be Merry Christmas!

This one didn't make the cut, but it's pretty good of everyone too, except for grumpy Kyle. There, I'm caught up to December! My computer has been working really slowly, and this post has taken me forever to do! I think I have to try to do more and shorter posts so it doesn't take me so long! Yeah, right. We'll see how that goes! :-)