Happy Birthday, Drew!!

Today was Drew's Birthday !  They had it down at the movie theater in Tacoma. What a great birthday place. The movie today was How to Train Your Dragon. Great movie.

The cake!

There are doughnuts? Wait a sec, where are they?

After the kids had doughnuts and orange juice, they watched the movie. They all had bags of popcorn too!
Then it was time to light the candles and sing the song

That song can take forever

Finally!

While the cake is being cut, let's open presents! NOW

Lots of good presents

The kids then enjoyed their cake. It was a yummy cake

This man takes the best Dad award for wearing his daughter's head band so it does not get lost
It was a fun party and we are, as always, happy to be invited. Our annual pilgrimage to Tacoma!

Skating Party!

It is that time of year! Birthday parties! This party was at Skate King. A roller rink that has been here for a very long time they tell me.

Getting Skates

Working his way down to the entrance

A talking to a buddy break!

Slowly making his way around the rink, building his confidence. He did not want anyone to help him. He was going to do it all himself! And he did, he fell, alot, but he kept working at it

Video game break!

After another trip around the rink, it was time for Pizza and cake!

CAKE! Yummy yummy cake! Happy Birthday was sung, the candles blown out, cake eaten!

After snacks, the birthday boy helping Lon gain some more confidence out on the rink.

Some encouraging words from Dad

Lon goes out into the center! Near the dancers

He is trying to copy the dancer!  How cool is that!

Darn, time to go home

We had a great time! Lon now likes roller skating, he wants to go and do this again!
Thank you for the great time!

Pirate Party!

Today we had the honor of being invited to Christopher's 8th birthday party!  he had a pirate theme! All the boys LOVED that.

The boys got to burn off some energy running around the gym!

This is the homemade cake that Maria made! It was so beautiful and it was very tasty too! Mark went back for seconds!

Group photo number 1

Mighty Pirate Lon!

Christopher, the birthday pirate!

Mighty band of pirate boys.
group photo 2

Treats!   Yummy treats!
One of the boys brought home made pad thai! OH! that was soooo good!
 Mark and I ate so much that we decided that we would skip dinner !

Setting up pin the eye patch on the pirate! The game used stickers, with numbers! What a great idea that is!

The three boys who came closest !

Lon and a friend sword fighting!

The weather outside was cold ! The fountain was icing up. It is pretty.

Getting ready for singing, candles and cake!

Hoping his wishes come true!

ARG! Must be present time!

Opening presents is always fun!
Then, it was time to go home.
We had a great time!

Swimming with the Pack!

Tonight was the promised Pack swim! As an incentive for the boys to sell LOTS of popcorn, the Cubmaster told the boys that if they sold 5k in popcorn as a pack, they would get a swim party!  They sold over 7k! They wanted that swim party!!  The Cubmaster booked the Lynnwood Rec Center pool.  WOW! It is wonderful, like a smaller version of Great Wolf Lodge!  I think we will be going back up there more often!

Getting ready to play!  There was also the opportunity to get the swimming belt loop. Of course, Lon was all over that. He had to tell the Cubmaster about safe swimming in the pool, be with his family or pack doing some fun pool things and flutter kick with a kickboard across the shallow end of the pool.  Lon did all those things. He was not pleased with his first trip across the pool, so he did it again to his satisfaction.  He will get the swimming beltloop at the next pack meeting! Way to go, Lon!

Watching the bucket of water dump. Lon wanted to be under it next time it dumped

He went over to play in the splash pool while he waited

Lon is under there somewhere!  The bucket is a bit smaller than at Great Wolf, but it works for us!

Making sure Daddy is good and wet!

They have two water slides that loop outside the building.  One with innertubes, and one you can just go down.  Lon was not too sure about the innertube at first, but after he went down once, there were three more trips!

An hour passed very quickly! Lon did not want to leave, but we only had an hour.We will be going back up there!

New Year's Eve, Part 2

After we got home from our Mandoo extravaganza, we had the privilege of having one of Lon's classmates and her sister over for the night!

Our first order of business was a movie, and everyone was happy on the hide a bed

A little dancing! We were watching Madagascar 3. Lon is wearing Marty's wig.

Natasha is being a good sport wearing Marty's wig

We watched the midnight fireworks on TV. The Space Needle was an amazing show this year
Lon took out his confetti pistol and fired off what he had left, two shots.
Then we went back inside, Mark went up to bed. The kids were wound up like tops!  They were alot of fun!  It ended up being that one sister was in the hideabed, the younger sister was on a pillow bed on the floor and Lon was sleeping on my lap on the comfy chair.

They did not get up till 9! Yipppeee I made them pancakes for breakfast, with chocolate chips inside.
and chocolate milk !
We had a ton of fun ringing in the New Year. First time Lon has stayed up till midnight