Happy 10th birthday Logan!

Logan turned 10 last week. He had a great birthday party with four friends (a big improvement over last time-only 1 came!). We did a survivor party that included an obstacle course, puzzle challenge, disgusting food challenge and scavenger hunt. I made a very cute volcano cake with hard sugar candy "lava" and whip cream foam. Logan loved all the gifts and cards he got from everyone. Mostly He loved the attention. Blake and I gave him a watch and he's been timing everything ever since.

What, you don't want to try watermelon and hot sauce oatmeal?

Johanna's tiki's...they were very cute. We would have saved them, but the wind tore them up the next day-oh well, at least we have photographic evedence.

A happy birthday boy with his lava cake.

kid sports and cupcakes

These are the shark and minnow cupcakes I tried last week for my piano recital. They were pretty cute, but what a pain! I think I spent two hours putting 6 cupcakes together, and then they were top heavy. If I did it again, I'd cut the twinkies down more, and maybe they would'nt fall over. Anyway, they were a hit with the kids.

Logan enjoying his post-game picnic with his team, the Diamond Backs. He enjoyed the camraderie of the team, but says that he will never do baseball again. It's hard to enjoy something where everyone is better then you!

Johanna at the bat. Yes, under that huge helmet is Johanna. She also enjoyed playing with her team, and I think it was generally a good experience, but ditto Logan's position. She looks professional though, doesn't she?

A beautiful Spring day of soccer....

Actually, it was freezing! It was a miserable last game for Camden. I don't think he minded much. He had a great time with his team. I'd have to say that altogether, I was glad I was able to coach, but I'm sure glad it's over!

DIsneyland

Eddy finally getting to ride the teacups-he talked about "the teapot ride" the whole week before we left. I was just excited that I didn't get too dizzy on them-it was kinda fun! Ed and I had a wonderful time together going on the rides in Fantasy Land-they were just right for his age.

We had so much fun in Disneyland! It was our first time, so everything was especially exciting and new. We loved the detail that was put into everything, the fun main street and Tinkerbell flying over Sleeping Beauties castle. The lines were almost never too long, so we got to enjoy the rides without waiting all day. It wasn't too hot or crowded. As for our favorite rides-I think most of us liked California Screamin', Space Mountain, Soarin' over California, Indiana Jones, the Matterhorn...
Having Jen, Karl, Joren, Kyle and Jonathan with us was a blast! We didn't hang out all day, but we enjoyed meeting them for lunch (PB and J, everyday!) and having dinners together in our hotel.
All in all, it was a magical Diney vacation, just like it was suppossed to be. We only wished we could have stayed a little longer.

Here are Johanna and I screamin' on California Screamin'-you can see how much fun we're having.


Johanna took a liking to Minnie Mouse while we were there and got her Minnie mouse ears. We were lucky to see Minnie standing almost alone, so Johanna and I sprinted over to her to get a picture....classic !

Jennifer and I joined our two tables to make one long table for us all-we are enjoying Jen's delicious stir fry, rice and egg rolls-definately beats a hot dog at Disneyland!

How many families have this exact picture in their scrapbook??? Gotta love it though.

It's been awhile...we were on Spring Break!

Despite a week of sickness all around and buckets of rain, we managed to have a great Spring Break in Oregon. Our trip was delayed a day after I got sick the night before we were suppossed to leave. We arrived Sunday, Eddy had diarrhea in bed with me Sunday night, Dad got sick Tuesday night, Johanna got sick Wednesday, Mom and Logan got sick Thursday, and Katy was sick Thursday night and Friday...amazing! However, we did lots of fun things. Katy, Johanna and I had a great time shopping the Salem botiques in the rain on Monday. On Tuesday the kids had a fantastic time playing on an indoor jungle gym. It was all the way up in Sherwood (not too far from Portland) about 45 minutes away, and I grumbled a bit on the way up, but it turned out to be fun. Bonus, I got to visit my old neighbor/friend in West Linn on the way home. Wednesday I had a marathon on girlfriend visits. Katie Keppinger just happened to be visiting her parents that week, and I had a wonderful time with her for a few hours. Later that night, I met Britta and Kari-Ann in Woodburn. I returned home around 11:30 p.m. to find mom cleaning up Logan's puke that was distributed throughout the bathroom. Thursday we took advantage of the one nice day and went to the beach. It was a beautiful sunny day, if a bit on the chilly side. We ate at Mo's, of course, where Katy was christened "the Butter Pig" (I can't remember why now) and we polished off tons of bread, fish n' chips and chowda....yummy!!!! We loved watching the waves crash over the road at Depot Bay. Another fun day! Friday was when I was initially planning to go home, but bad weather in the mountains gave me another day of vacation..yeah! The kids wanted to go to the children's museum.....they love that place! They had a fabulous time there-which is good, because I think it costs a fortune! The money was well spent that day-the kids did everything-shopped in the grocery store, played with bubbles, pretend to be digested, dress up and do a play, a pretend chinese tea ceremony, be ship captains, make cool star wars ships out of toilet paper tubes. Katy was feeling a bit better our last night, so she did puzzles with the kids and we talked until late.
It really was a great week. I love visiting Oregon! I didn't even mention how beautiful it was!

We miss you Logan!

Here's my answer to your "Big chair picture" Jen!

What's so funny?

Fun in February

Cam the postman
His class set up a post office in their room and learned all about the mail. If you can't tell, Cam is wearing an official US post office sweater=he looks like Mr. Rogers! His class sent all of their Valentines through this post office.

Ed and his hat. I signed Ed up for art classes at the library-he'd only go to one, but it was a good one-he made this cool hat!

My "box of chocolates" cupcakes for my valentine's recital Yummy! The "chocolates" are really marshmellos-cut and dipped in frosting-everyone thought they were real, and were a bit dissapointed.

Johanna and friend, Hanna making cookies to give out as prizes for a school raffle raising money for Haiti.

Snowtwins, Elvis, and weeWii

I don't know why I took a picture of this-I just did-their names are Eddy and Aiden (Ed's buddy)

Logan as Elvis-I'm still hoping he'll wear this for Halloween. He just needs to learn some Elvis tunes and the air guitar.

This was the one time Ed actually went on the potty, only because he was playing Star Wars Wii, I don't think he knew he was going, and was rather surprised to find all that pee in the pot when he stood up.

The ice was nice!

Our family had a great time ice skating the first Saturday in January. Camden, Logan and Eddy had never tried it before and after a tenuous start-they kind of got the hang of it! Even Eddy was starting to skate on his own at the end.

Johanna in the midst of a twirl-she's a little more confident then the rest of her siblings (oh, and Dad).

This picture pretty much describes the state of the boys and ice skating-barely hanging on!