Ready, Set, Crash....

Well we are sliding into 2009! I am going to once again try and keep up with the POTD challenge or at least get the weekly challenge accomplished.

We went over to one of the local sledding hills a few days ago and the boys had a blast. We were able to walk away injury free which is a huge accomplishment!

I hope 2009 will be a great year for all of you and I am excited to try and share my year through my POTD.

Happy New Year!

My Little Snow Angels

After it warmed up a hair we went out and the boys made snow angels. A trip outside is not complete without hot choclate.

Gingerbread House Making

Tonight (12/14) we celebrated Advent by taking some special family time together to build and decorate a gingerbread house. The boys are amazed every year what we can make from the simple store bought gingerbread kits. This year we got smart and during the 15 minute frosting set up time instead of trying to keep them out of the frosting and devouring all of the candy decorations We are smart and pulled out one of our favorite holiday books to read to them. The story Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett is a favorite and the boys get such a kick out of the basset hound in the book. Then each boy decorated a Jan Brett gingerbread house online and printed it. By then the frosting was set and it was time for the true decorating to start but between Keaton coughing and farting, Cam burping and laughing at Keaton, Darcy laughing and taking pictures needless to say it took us a while and a few hand washing attempts before we got into the groove. So needless to say our annual gingerbread house making project turned out to be quite memorable but maybe for not quite the reasons I was hoping. Regardless they did a good job, had fun and ate way more sugar that any child should ingest before their bedtime.

Fresh Snow

The boys were dying to get out and play in the fresh snow. The one thing the boys did not realize was that it was -10 out with a windchill of -20. We did not spend a lot of time out there but long enough for them to have some fun. This is what a good Minnesota winter is suppose to be like.

I Got A Wii

Oh boy where do I start. Well I have been pestering my dear wife for the last week or so on what my Christmas present was. I was 100% convinced that she was getting me a snowmobile (I bet she still is :o). So I was trying to get hints and she had me going every direction on what I was getting.

Darcy was hiding my present at her parents house and she went to bring it home on Monday. While she was trying to hurry out of the house and hide it in the van (so the boys didn't see it) she got going a bit too quick on the ice and needless to say she crashed...HARD...while trying to curl her body around the wii to protect. She fell hard enough that she had to cancel the rest of my patients for the day because her left arm isn't working quite right...opps...at. Darc had me oopen it that night to make sure it wasn't broke, it works GREAT! So I guess we can say we have had our first Wii injury and it was not even out of the box.

I can not believe I got a Wii for Christmas, the last gaming system I had was the original Nintendo (which I still have). It is so cool, I would have never guessed in a million years that she got this for me. Thank You so much hun!

As you can see by the pics the boys have already taken a liking to it. Cameron bowled a 157 on his first time ever using it (oh and yes we do feed the kid, look at those ribs)!

Merry Christmas All

Merry Christmas

I can not take credit for these at all but Darcy made some great scrap booking pages that I wanted to share...

Some more of the boys

We decided to try taking a few more of the boys... Here they are :o)

Having Fun

We have a few photo shoots today, I need a little model to help my practice my lighting. Keaton was all to eager to help since he saw the presents :)

Thanksgiving

OK Here we go! Well this is the first time we have ever hosted Thanksgiving. It is the first time a turkey has ever been in our house or oven. Darcy did an AWESOME job at cooking the turkey and all the other stuff. I would say it was a huge success! Oh and the little turkey cup cakes were great!

Here are some pics

We did a little photo shoot a few days ago. As much as the boys claimed they hated it, I think they enjoyed it a little bit as well. Also I have been playing with this new blogger template, what do you think of the single column and larger picture sizes?

Anna

Darcy's friend Anna came up last weekend from the cities. We had a blast doing a little photo shoot with her. Anna, thanks for being a trooper and letting us drag you all over the place.

Just Testing

I am just doing some testing with a new template.

Cam Fall of 2008

Cam wanted to be a little goofy during one of his shoots.

Mentos

Papa Dave bought the kids a science experiment. I do not know who was more excited him or them? Have you every tried this? It was really cool. Here is some info on it from wiki

Diet Coke and Mentos Eruption (also known as a Mentos eruption or a soda geyser) is a reaction of Diet Coke and mint Mentos candies. The eruption is caused by opening a bottle of Diet Coke (typically a two liter bottle) and dropping a Mentos into the bottle. The reaction causes the Diet Coke to foam at a rapid rate and spew into the air. Mint is used instead of fruit-flavor Mentos because fruit flavored Mentos have a smooth coating which slows the reaction. Because of the nature of this physical reaction and the easy availability of the ingredients, the eruption is a popular subject for Internet videos, and has also appeared in non-Internet sources.

More Memories

Here are a few more memories from when I was a kid growing up in Duluth MN.

This is the school I attend from grades k-3 and also were my mom taught as a teacher. If I remember correctly this was a really cool school.

This is the little convenience store that was not too far from our house. My mom also worked there so I remember years of sidewalk sales, and them having the best candy in the world!

Ok now this place was the best. It was the hardware store next to the little convenience store. I think when my mom got sick of me wanting candy she would send me over there. I remember I got my first really cool bike there. It was a black Colombia BMX bike with NO brakes. That is what was really cool about it! Ahhh to be a kid again.

John Ward

Congrats John! Keaton got a sticker at one of the local parades for John and thought it was pretty cool to wear it on his back. John was running for Minnesota House of Representatives and he is such a great guy, I am glad he got back in again. John keep up the good work!

Tool School

Last time we were at "Tool School" is was also "Safety School" the boys had a blast looking at all the cool emergency response vehicles. Thanks Home Depot!

Cheese

Cam loves his camera!

St. John's

St. John's Catholic church is where I was baptized when I was a kid. We moved from Duluth when I was 10. I hate to say it but I had sort of forgotten about that church until when we were up there. It is so weird what that it was 20 years ago when I was at that church. I should have taken some time and went in and got some shots of the inside as well.

Crazy Hair Day

During Homecoming Week the boys got to have "Crazy hair Day" at first Cam was pretty unsure of the whole idea but once he saw his hair he was pretty pumped!

Look What I Found

Look what I found on the side of the road that had a “FREE” sign on it. I saw them and just had to pick them up. I really don’t know what I am going to use them for but I just keep thinking they might be a cool photography prop…. Who knows maybe the boys can actually use the desks for home work.

WOW

With being a geek like I am I always wonder what is next? What cool thing is going to change our lives. I remember as a kid when we got our first microwave, now that is what I am talking about. It is something that is so big it changes the way we do things forever. Over the past few years there have been many “cool” things like the Internet, iPod etc but I don’t fell it is something that when our kids get older they will be like “dude do you remember when mom and dad got the iPhone?”

I have not witness most of the great events in history, but I got to last night when Barack Obama was elected president of the US.

I hope this is something my kids will remember as they get older.

The boys got to read the headline this morning...

Halloween

Duluth Depot

We had a great opportunity last week to go up to the Duluth Depot and ride the Pumpkin Exprees :) We were all able to board the train and take a 20 min. ride north to a pumpkin patch. We were all able to grab a pumpkin and carry the very LARGE pumpkins back to the train (only 100 long yards or so) carrying the pumpkins were heavy but the fun part was to wiggle through skinny train doors with two pumpkins in your hand is pure talent. The boys had an awesome time, they were really good as favor as energy and listening goes but man they sure like to bug each other. It got to the point where I sat with Keaton in a seat and Darc sat with Cam. I guess you can call it brotherly love.