Birthday Dinner

Saturday evening was the annual birthday party at GaGa's for the four December birthdays in the family.  A fabulous spread of prime rib, potatoes (sweet or white), yeast rolls, and salad bar were scrumptious!  Dessert was a great cake (complete with accurate birthday ages) and Krispie Kreme donut bread pudding.  Yum! 



 

Of course, Camden and her cousins enjoyed playing with each other immensely.

Daddy's Birthday Dinner



For Kevin's birthday, he and Austin went to the Colts-Titans game.  The Titans are Austin's team and it was a combo present - GED graduation and Kevin's birthday.  Camden and I dropped them off at the stadium, spent a few hours playing at Chuck E Cheese's and McDonald's before returning to get them after the Colts win.

 

Kevin chose to go to City Barbeque for his birthday dinner.  We all shared a large family platter (1/4 chicken, 1/2 slab of ribs, pulled pork & brisket with 2 large sides), along with a huge piece of double chocolate cake that they gave Kevin for his special day.  This was a really yummy, casual meal and a good option for future times out. 

 

 

Camden loved the chicken leg, macaroni and cheese, and a bottle of grape Nehi.  Special treat for her, too!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

It was a long, fun weekend of activities, capped off with a birthday cake (store-bought - boo! Wait, but yummy) for Kevin on his birthday.

 

Camden picked out the flavor, the wording, and the batman ring!

 

Happy birthday to our favorite superhero...

Decorating The Tree

We knew the good and bad about the white pine - soft needles, but flimsy branches.  The heavy ornaments are having a hard time staying on the tree.  It also doesn't help that our cat is having a great time swatting at everything and our daughter loves to come and move things around all the time.

 

She loved getting a lift from her daddy to add Santa to the top.  He, too, is quite heavy and took a good wrangling job by Kevin to get him to stay secure.

When it was time for the final picture, she wanted Max in it.  This picture, unfortunately, is a fairly accurate reflection of the normal life for Camden and Max.  She is always carrying him and he is always enduring her efforts.

Finished tree!  Per tradition, we also put the stockings on the top of the window and Santa hat on the deer head.

My favorite item on the tree.  A picture from her first daycare from Christmas 2009.  Love that face!

Nelson's Christmas Tree Farm

We decided that Kevin and Camden would head to the place Kevin used to go in Greencastle one night this week.  We headed home through Lebanon so we could stop for Starbuck's.  Then we cut across to I-74 to get home.  On the way, I saw a sign for Nelson's Tree Farm.  We thought we would stop since we were going right past it. 

 

I can't even describe the experience.  There were probably only 6-10 other cars in the lot and a huge field of perfectly sized, perfectly shaped trees (for our living room).  Every aisle we went up had a tree we could have picked.  This would be a much more enjoyable experience for us!



 

We finally found a nice white pine (soft needles!) and Camden gave her approval.

She and Kevin cut it down and hauled it back to the front of the lot to be shaken, measured, and paid for.

We got it home and set in the stand.  They both did a little trimming of the bottom to even it out.  Kevin had to go to bed before work that night, so we planned to decorate it the next night.

It is one of the best trees we've had.  It's a wonderful shape and perfect fit in our small space.

Dull's Christmas Tree Farm

This year we wanted to restart Kevin's tradition of getting a real tree.  He and Austin always did it and this would be Camden's first year.  I found a cool "experience" on-line that was located in Thorntown.  We waited to go on Sunday because they were going to have Newfoundland Dogs there to help pull your tree from the field.

 

We pulled up and were a little overwhelmed.  Hundreds of cars filled the lot.  It was a beautiful location and looked like it would be a neat place to find a tree, but we were going to battle a huge crowd and long lines to do anything.    

 

 

But we grabbed a hand saw and a cart and headed to the fields.



 

We could not find a tree that we liked.  They were very picked over and most of those left were too big for our space.  We decided to mull it over a bit and headed toward the 25 foot slide built into the hillside of the farm.  We donated a $1 for a couple of times down.  Camden grabbed a burlap sack and she and Kevin headed to the top.

Down the long tube she flew!

 

Her face the first time she came out was a mixture of pure joy and pure terror.  But she eagerly jumped up, laughingly reported that it was, "so fast", and asked to do it again.  I took her up this time so Kevin could see her face.  This time she added screaming to the ride.  WOW!

 

We decided to head to another field across the road to find our perfect tree, but to no avail.  Ugh.  It was a beautiful place, but after two more times down the slide and we left....TREELESS!

Taylor Lanes

We took Camden bowling for the first time on Friday evening.  Kevin picked her up from school and I met them at the alley.  She came running full speed as soon as I walked in the door - jumping and dancing and yelling with excitement that she was bowling!

 

I wish I could have captured how adorable the bowling shoes were on her.  

 

 

Daddy helps her the first time (and the bumpers aided a little bit).

She was a pro before too long.

Even drying her hands while waiting for her ball to return.

She soon took to bending waaaaayyyy down and pushing the ball down the lane.

Then standing back and watching it roll.

She managed to bowl every ball for one whole game...and not a bad first time score either!