Cal's birthday party

We went to an apple orchard with five other families.

Here is Cal doing his "birthday dance."

Laura took this one. Isaac was totally nastying up all the cupcakes. Instead of telling him to stop, Laura took his picture. Maybe that's why she's his favorite.Cal fell over on purpose to get a laugh.Shae and Matthew

Sammy and Cal saying "oonga boonga." Cory, Emily, Laura, IsaacCal climbing a tree to see if he could reach any apples.

No idea where he's going.
Atticus, Mado, Alex
Brad and his boys

Isaac

I love this picture of Atticus.
I hauled these three meatwads around for a ways.

I know I don't have everyone in here. Sorry, guys.

Calvin's Actual Birthday

I realize I am way behind in pictures. Hopefully, I will get to those soon. But here's what we did for Cal's birthday yesterday. I am tired today.

When Cal got up he saw his decorated chair and present. He was very excited to eat blueberry pancakes with Redi-whip. His mouth is already full of the whipped cream here. We already gave him his big present (a used Power Wheel- it's sort of for Ike, too) on Saturday when his grandparents were here.

I volunteered in Cal's class for today. Here's Miss Diane as they sang Happy Birthday to him.
The letter of the week is F. They played Firefighter Frenzy- a relay race. They did surprisingly well.
Here's Cal running back to pass off the uniform.

Lisa (and co.), Jess (and co.) and our family (sans Eric) went to the Mall of America after preschool to eat lunch and ride rides.

I had some "mystery tickets" and they were good for a whole day worth of rides. What a treat since the rides are $3-$6/each. It's a complete rip-off.
The Rods
Naptime.

We went to MOA again since we had a whole day of rides. Eric is uncomfortably huge. But I refused to ride since I get motion sickness on spinny rides. Isaac isn't old enough to ride alone.
Laura and Mado joined us for part 2 of MOA.
I got very dizzy on these, but Laura couldn't ride since she's prego. So, Eric rode with Mado and I rode with Cal. I am such a good mom.
Cal and Mado loved this. Again, Ike = short.

Here's the cake I made Cal. Yeah...umm..... not so great. It wouldn't come out of the dang pans. Then I realized I used all the candles, so we used a tea light. Cal didn't seem to mind. He had a tummy ache by this time (surprised?), so he just had a bite.

Europe

What's up with all the people who voted to go to europe instead of sleeping in? You must not have kids, right?

Calvin turns four... almost

Some friends of ours joined us for a fun day at the apple orchard to celebrate Calvin's fourth birthday. More pictures to come, but here is a sneak peak at the after-party.

The Zoo

The moms at my church all met at the Minnesota Zoo on Monday. The zoo seriously rocks. They mainly only have animals that can live in all four seasons and they try to give them as much of their natural habitat as possible. This makes me feel good.We stayed mainly in the Russian Coast exhibit. Is that what it's called. The kids loved running through this tunnel. Some collided.

Watching the otters.

Here comes the Grizzly Bear.

This bear was looking for a snack. Seriously.
Calvin and Mado

We went to the farm area, too.