Happy Birthday, Huxley!

Megan's human baby doll turned ONE yesterday. We had a fun time at his birthday party last night. I'm not sure if I had more fun watching Huxley eat his chocolate cupcake or listening to the boys giggle at him eating his chocolate cupcake. I truly thought they would pee their pants.

O Tannenbaum

The Christmas Tree is up and decorated. Megan was very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very excited to decorate the tree. The boys were excited, too, just no where near as excited as Megan was. As always, Eric found his favorite ornament right away-the one with the kittens in the basket of yarn. We used to keep that one low on the tree so he could play with it. I think the boys' homemade ornaments are almost outnumbering my Hallmark ornaments. Of course, the majority of the ornaments are all clustered together at the boys' eye level, sometimes with 3 ornaments on one branch. Megan only hung a few, she preferred to hand them to me.

Turkey Trot

They use chip timing for results
My T-shirt. Megan got a kick out of the Turkey
My entry tag


Woo hoooo! I did the Turkey Trot. It wasn't even that bad. It was 3.29 miles, and my time was just over 35 minutes. I was a little slower than I normally run, but the upside to that was no shin splint pain, no hamstring pain, no bunion pain...
Eric really wanted me to win the race. There were 579 runners in the 5K Division. I placed 49/67 in the 30-39 age group, and 494th overall. Since I wanted Eric to be proud of me, I told him I beat his first grade teacher. I left her in my dust. I did not tell him that she was walking and not running.
Jonathan did his best to take of picture of me. The Nikon D40 is a bit big for him to handle.....

Macy's Birthday

We went to Fargo to celebrate Macy's 12th birthday at the Fargo Air Museum. The kids all enjoyed playing together and seeing some cool airplanes.

Raingutter Regatta

Tonight was the boys' first Scout competition-the Raingutter Regatta. Little boys use their hot air to mobilize a sailboat made of a block of balsa wood along a raingutter. It was a lot of fun. Jonathan won 2nd place for our Den. Both boys earned their Immediate Recognition badges, which is where they will place beads that they earn throughout the year.
The bummer of the night was that the battery for the Nikon D40 was drained, and I did not have a spare. I only got a few pictures.

What was I thinking???

I signed up to run the 5k Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. My running path I took this summer is basically a 5K, and I usually run it in 33 minutes (I am slow). A friend is also doing it, so I thought "what the heck". Unfortunately, I have not been as good with my running schedule since back to school/back to work/back to reality. Just returned from my 3.2 mile loop and I think I will now pass out.....It's all worth it for the free long sleeve T-shirt though.

Megan's baby

We had dinner guests tonight. One of them is 2 weeks shy of his first birthday. Megan waited all day with eager anticipation to have a real, live, walking and kind of sort of talking baby to play with, instead of the kind that are filled with cotton or other synthetic filling. When he arrived, she just stared and giggle and said his name, over and over and over and over, and got in his face. He just stared back. There were kisses, hugs, more kisses, more kisses, more hugs. We are excited to have him come and play with us again.

Backyard Birding

I am becoming a bit obsessed with the Blue Jays that are enjoying our backyard. This morning, Megan and I set out about 3 cups of peanuts in the shell on our deck, and watched the 2 blue jays come and get them, one by one. Megan even set up her small pompasom (sp?) chair in front of the sliding door to watch them come. The jays took all but 5 peanuts. We were only 10' from them, but it was still hard getting close up pictures. I think I need to get that fancy zoom lens for the Nikon D40....

Sunday trip to the Zoo

Megan and I took advantage of the 60 or so degrees outside to go and hang out at the zoo this afternoon. I kept remembering that one year ago this weekend, we were still digging out from our first of many, many blizzards of the season. We had fun watching the goats, chickens, pigs, and geese. The best part of all was running into Mary Kay, Ava, and Kathy as we were getting ready to leave.

Autumn Leaves

The names of the members of our family have changed, per Megan's request. Megan now only answers to Sister Bear, Lisa is Mama Bear, Don is Papa Bear, Eric is Brother Bear, and Jonathan is Cousin Freddy. Garret next door is Farmer Ben.
The Bear Family had a fun time raking up leaves in the back yard. While Mama Bear did do most of the work, Brother Bear was a raking maniac. Sister Bear was a bit possessive of her leaf pile, but let Cousin Freddy jump in hers a few times. Brother Bear was not allowed anywhere near her pile. Papa Bear came out to help, too. Since it was a balmy 68 degrees outside, Mama Bear went inside to make Reeses' PB Malts for us to enjoy for our afternoon snack. After the snack Brother, Freddy, and Papa went back inside, while Mama and Sister raked up the leaves into 11 leaf/lawn bags.

In other Bear Family news, Sister Bear disappeared for a few minutes this morning. Mama Bear found her in the bathroom, sitting on her potty chair, where she proclaimed "I'm going poopy." Lo and behold, she had already gone poopy. Mama and Papa Bear are very happy.

Den meeting

We hosted our Den's first meeting last night. Five boys and their Dads, plus our Cubmaster and his wife crammed into our basement to learn about family life. The boys all worked on a family book/scrapbook, and had surprisingly great attention with it! The Cubmaster brought me some leader guides and information, so now I don't feel totally clueless about being a Den leader. It was a fun night, and we all slept well at bedtime!