Happy Birthday Dan!

Well I have been having trouble getting the pictures where I want them in my blog. So the pictures come first. I was able to get them in order at least!

Making homemade huckleberry ice cream with Grama and Grampa. It tasted wonderful! Especially since the berries were picked by Grama and Grampa!

The birthday boy with his under the sea carrot cake. He baked one of the layers all by himself, made the frosting, and did all the decorating. We were all very impressed!

Presets from Grama and Grampa!

Dan's first Bible! He was so excited that it is the whole Bible and not just a story book Bible.

Playing with the color changing truck.

A close up of Dan's decorated cake. He used fruit roll ups, Swedish fish, and chocolate rock candy. It was a yummy carrot cake with butter cream frosting! So, so good!

Monday the 7th was Dan's 7th birthday! We had a birthday party for Dan and for my dad (his birthday is on the 6th) on Sunday night. It was a really fun time with my parents. We made ice cream (well milk shakes... it was taking a long time in the hand crank ice cream maker and we were impatient) huckleberry ice cream! Dan got some great books to read, some really nice new shirts that he can wear to Co-op school, and a very cool logic puzzle. Then in the morning on the 7th we had a birthday breakfast for Dan. Waffles with fruit salad on top. Yum! We were so proud of Paul and Clara... they spent their own money to buy a present for Dan. Well it did take some encouragement for Clara. She has really been wanting to buy a Polly pocket sized Ariel doll. Anyway, Paul got Dan some glow sticks and Clara got him a color changing hot wheels truck. While the glow sticks were cool the truck was the great hit. The three kids spent most of the morning taking turns putting it in hot and cold water to see it change. They even found out that they could "draw" on it with ice. There was a little bit of arguing over who's turn it was but for the most part they shared very well.

Then it was off to get the last present. We pulled into the parking lot of Pet Smart and told Dan that it would be a hamster! He was very excited. So we went in to pick one out and get the starter kit for hamsters (cage, food, bedding, water bottle, food dishes...) Well as it turned out they were sold out of hamsters and cages! Actually, they has some dwarf Russian hamsters for $16 and the deluxe starter kit for $36. We had planned to spend $9 on a basic hamster and $24 on a basic starter kit. Who knew that there were multiple kinds of hamsters anyway!

That night we were at our pastor's house for dinner. Our pastor's wife said that she knew someone with a bunch of free baby hamsters to give away. So by Wednesday we had a new hamster for free! Dan named him "September". It took a few days of being confused about what we were talking about (the month or the hamster?) before we were used to the name. Josh was a little confused one night when I informed him that "September bites!"