Thanksgiving and Birthday, Part 2

*Again, the pictures are reversed.*
On Friday,we celebrated Thanksgiving and Rudy's birthday again.
Here the kids enjoy one of Rudy's gifts - a hexbug maze. This was a big hit!

Rudy is really into board games, and can play them and sit and concentrate well enough for them. He got Star Wars Trouble.

Everyone enjoying cake.

Rudy's request for this cake was "a wedding cake". He wanted something with layers. So I bought 2 smaller circle pans and created this. Of course, all night he had to endure questions about who he was marrying!

Sometime in the future, we might have a family band, based on all the instruments played.

I think Lucy looks like a natural!

Thanksgiving and Birthday, Part 1

*Note: Pictures are in reverse order and it is too difficult to change them!*

On Thanksgiving, we spent much of the day raking leaves and working outside. Then we ehaded over to Aunt Pat's house for dinner. We also celebrated Rudy's birthday.

Here he is playing with the light saber Grandmom got him.

Ashley and Neil enjoying dessert.

Rudy and the first round of birthday cake.

Just chillin'

He always manages to get in this chair with someone else.

Rudy convinced Neil to pull out some old video games to play.

Since we were celebrating Rudy's birthday, he chose to make cupcakes. We found these candies at the store that you could create animals faces. The first few turned out well, then Rudy decided to get creative. One of them is a one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater!

Bored in the Car

A few weekends ago we took Rudy to the Lego Store for some early birthday shopping. We had given him the choice of having a party or getting to go buy some of the bigger Lego sets he is always asking for. He chose shopping, as we hoped he would. It was about an hour and a half car ride to the Lego Store. This is how Rudy kept himself occupied:

He even took some videos, which may show up here at some point.

Tagging a Tree

For the first year, we remembered we wanted to tag a local Christmas tree. Usually in December we start thinking about the tree, and then wish we had checked local farms earlier, and then end up buying a tree from a not-so-local source. So last weekend we went out and found a small tree farm. There was no one else there, but a box with directions to take a tag, tie it on the tree we wanted, and then come back in a few weeks. It was a lot of fun to do, so I;m sure we'll keep up this tradition.

Harry Potter came with us to find a tree.

Here he is posing in front of the tree we chose.

Even wizards are sometimes silly.

Paul and Rudy both picked a tree they liked, so Rock, Paper, Scissors was used to choose the tree.

Rudy won, so his tree it is!

One tree had an old bird's nest in it.

Rudy put his glasses in this tree and wanted to hide behind it while Paul took a picture. I can't explain why.

Lots of trees to choose from.