MN Thompson's

Eden Prairie assisted our county with a Mass Dispensing Drill this morning. In the event of a wide-spread public health emergency they may need to distribute medication/vaccine and instructions to a large group of people in a short period of time. They wanted 1000 people to drive through an area at the mall this morning, so I loaded the kids into the car and we headed over there. They ended up having far less people participate than planned so we looped through at least a half dozen times. Each time they distributed “medication” and coupons. We only took the coupons once, but we couldn’t resist the medicine…

We collected 42 packets of medicine total 🙂

First, a HUGE thank you to Aunt Katherine – she posted the first comments to this blog. Hooray Aunt Katherine!!!

Yesterday we did the annual Arbor Walk for the city. This is another one of those things we’ve done for many years. The first year we won a big tree in a raffle but we haven’t been able to repeat that luck again. It is a 2.5 mile loop around a lake – this time Colleen and Christopher rode their scooters the whole way around. The weather was still a bit chilly, mainly due to the strong winds. There is a park at the end of the walk so we played a bit afterwards.

We also started soccer season. Colleen plays Thursday and Saturday. Christopher plays Friday and Saturday. I’m co-coaching both teams with another coach who lives in our neighborhood. Four families from our neighborhood are on Christopher’s team so it should be a fun year. Colleen knows the drill by now but this was Christopher’s first time – he did great! Here he is (#8).

We got to watch the “most exciting 2 minutes in sports” on tape last night. I love the Kentucky Derby. I’ve been there 6 or 7 times and miss the excitement in the air (not to mention the Derby Pie!). Once again my boxed trifecta bet wouldn’t have made me millions so luckily I never placed that bet (how could I not cheer for a horse named Pyro!!!). I couldn’t believe they euthanized Eight Belles so fast – talk about a split second decision. Hard not to make you chuckle that Hillary was calling this “Hillary’s Filly” – if I were Hillary I’d tape my ankles this week just to be sure her campaign doesn’t suffer a similar fate.

One first grader’s painting was chosen from each class by the art teacher to be displayed at city hall for a month. She chose Colleen’s piece! Even though our mayor went to Notre Dame (booooo!) we still went along with this and went to see Colleen’s art tonight. Colleen’s is the top one…

Colleen has always loved to draw and paint and write and do anything artsy-fartsy. Well deserved, if I do say so myself 🙂

And a close up…

Yesterday was the FAMILY FUN RUN for Colleen’s school (1 mile around Round Lake). Well…they got the ‘family’ part right, but does this look like FUN???

Despite the cold and wind and sleety snow, it was actually a pretty day in the woods. It all went toward a good cause and got us out moving around – purpose served.

She looks so cute with her number on.

I put the good pump back in the pond Friday night, thinking that the warm weather was here to stay. So now the waterfalls and stream are running again, but I was a bit surprised to see snow covering the ground Saturday morning (can you tell how much news I watch?). Megan and I were feeding the ducks – here she is throwing some food to them (action shot).

Quack, quack (thanks for the food Megan)

The run around the lake wore the kids out which kept them still enough to take a few pictures…

Here’s Megan with her ducks (look close – there are two). She often flings open the sliding door to yell at the squirrels (“Go away! Have a nice day!”), which of course completely scares the ducks – but they obviously are getting less and less worked up by her.

And here she is relaxing…

Last night we were reading the Berenstain Bear’s “C” book and I asked Megan what body part the cows were using to balance the cake. The correct answer is “nose”, but she went with “beak”. I then asked her what the (udder) was called. She guessed “butt” which cracked me up. So we talked about milk coming out of the udder, and that this is what you make cream and butter with. So she started guessing other things that come out of the udder. “Mustard come out of udder?”, “Eggs come out of udder?”, “Beer come out of udder?”. Hee hee.

I’m not sure which of these is the craziest…

1) That a company would even make and market these two products for kids
2) That a neighbor and relative would buy these two products for Christopher
3) Or, that a neighbor would buy one of these products for Christopher knowing that he is going to their daughter’s birthday party in one week? Payback is a @?#%! 🙂

Christopher had his birthday party today. He has been fascinated with space ever since they studied it in preschool this year. This is really the first time he has been excited to tell us about something that he has learned in school. So…he chose an alien theme for his party…and we managed to catch one…

Luckily, we had the first really nice day of the year today so the kids got to enjoy being outside in our backyard. He invited a mix of kids from preschool, star talkers, church, and the neighborhood. They got to play “astronauts and aliens” (our version of sharks and minnows) and even searched for alien eggs in our yard before they hatched. As always, Beth does a great job thinking up all these crazy games for the kids!

It’s hard to believe Beth’s parents sold the bakery with the talent that Beth and I have, huh?

Today was the big day.  Christopher turned five.

Here he is with his preschool teacher who he absolutely loves! She has been so great to him this year and it has made all the difference.

Christopher got to pick the menu tonight for dinner. We had…

Appetizer – McDonalds French Fries

Main Course – Dino Nuggets

Dessert – Ice Cream Sandwiches

Yummy 🙂