Birthday with the Timberwolves

 

I am not big on having the kids’ birthdays at our house. In fact, we have never had a kid party at our house. The amount of work that goes into entertaining little ones for hours on end (especially boys) is just not what this teacher wants to do on her day off!

 

So, Connor’s 9th birthday was inching closer and closer. Because his birthday is in March, he kind-of gets the raw end of the deal because he is limited to indoor activities only. However, Connor had been talking about wanting to go to a Timberwolves game since basketball started. He had never been and Mike and I had only been to one game and it was a long time ago. Wouldn’t you know it, at the beginning of February we got a post card in the mail describing their birthday package. We decided to take advantage of it.

 

We had two games to choose from and since one was a week night, we picked the Sunday afternoon game. We got 8 tickets with the package. We can only fit 7 into our vehicle and after the four of us, that left Connor three tickets for his buddies.

 

 

 

Of course, the first game had to take place in the skyway………

 

 

Upon arriving at Target Center we first had our meet-and-greet with Crunch, the Timberwolves mascot.

Here he is perking up when the lady asked who the birthday boy was……..

 

First it was time for a little all-star wrestling, Crunch style……..

 

 

 

Crunch pulling off Connor shoes…….

 

The Birthday Boy……

 

 

The kids were then allowed to play basketball in this special area……lots of fun music and sweaty kids.

 

 

 

Then it was time to go to our seats and eat! Everyone was starving. The tickets came with meals. they also delivered cupcakes to our row, and they were YUMMY!

 

During the game, Connor’s name was on the scoreboard and I missed it. I was expecting it to be flashed alone, but it scrolled at the bottom of the screen and I didn’t see it until it was too late. Of course, he was the first kid because it was alphabetical. So, no picture of his name…..which is a bummer.

 

 

Timberwolves howling ……

 

Connor also got a Kevin Love jersey with the package….

 

Speaking of Kevin Love, they were having some technical difficulties during the game with the scoreboard. They stopped the game three times to try and fix the shot clock. It was a long time before they would try to go back out and play the game and Love got annoyed after awhile and he decided to just lie down on the table….

 

 

It was such a great time. Kids had a blast and went home with posters, pencils, and bookmarks!

 

My birthday was a week ago and I left Mike a huge hint as to what I wanted (in other words, I left it up on the computer, told him I wanted it for my birthday, and walked away so he could order it).

 

A new camera bag…..

 

I have been wanting a new camera bag that looked more like a purse. I want to be able to go on vacation and not have to drag both. The inside is all sectioned off for my flash, lenses, and camera. There is tons more room and I can haul my own personal items, along with our flip camera all in one bag. And the bonus….it’s cute!

 

 

We leave for Florida in two days! We are all so excited. Getting ready this week has not been enjoyable as my vertigo has decided to rear its ugly head, but oh well. I am just going to go with the flow, if I have an attack, I have an attack. Not much I can do about it.  I just hope it happens somewhere near a bathroom and a bed as I generally need both of those items to get through the worst of it. One more work day and then it’s time to relax!

LB

My Baby is 9

 

Another birthday for Connor! He turned 9 on Sunday. He’s got quite the party planned for next weekend, but on his actual birthday we kept it low key.

 

We invited both sets of parents over for some cake after supper.

 

 

 

 

 

He had asked for a skateboard for his birthday which I vetoed immediately. However, it was literally the only thing he asked for. He could not come up with one other present he wanted. So, he got a skateboard. This was his reaction when he opened it……

“You said you wouldn’t buy me this!”

 

 

Because Connor doesn’t really like cake (although he’s decided he might like cupcakes) we had ice cream cake instead. Then it was time to get outside and try that skateboard out…..

 

 

 

He decided it’s a lot harder than it looks! He kept wanting to do tricks…..hard for him to understand he should learn the basics first. We will see if he keeps at it.

 

9 Thoughts About Connor:

* He has a voice! No longer is Noah deciding ALL the shots around this house. I told Noah this day would come.

 

* He still loves PB&J. He could not decide on what he wanted for this birthday supper as food is not a big deal to him. He finally decided on spaghetti.

 

* He has made huge leaps in his reading capabilities this year! At conferences his teacher praised him for his hard work!

 

* He has received two all-school awards this year for leadership. His name gets announced over the intercom, he receives a small trophy and a certificate explaining the specifics of his behavior/actions that caused him to get the award….helping others and leading others.

 

* He is a typical boy in love with video games and sports.

 

 

* His one-liners are hilarious. He is quite witty, and his sense of humor is very dry. He’s not silly, he’s serious.

 

 

* He will still snuggle and sit on my lap. Often he grabs my hand while we are walking in the parking lot or into a restaurant. I love it.

 

 

*  He does not like going out to eat, to movies, to the store. He is a total homebody.

 

 

* He is a great sleeper.

 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CONNOR! 

We know our time with you being our little boy is so limited. We are proud of you and so blessed to have you.

 

Smooches ~

LB

 

 

Early Valentine’s Day

 

We elected to celebrate Valentine’s day early this year. Both boys have practice on Valentines Day (because remember men plan that stuff) and because I have so very few years left where the boys will humor me and sit down with us to celebrate, I just pushed the festivities up a day.

 

Noah had been sick all weekend. He started a fever on Saturday. I decided to keep him home from school as he still wasn’t able to eat and standing wasn’t high on his totem pole of things to do either. As I type this there isn’t much improvement so I have a feeling Mike will be home with him tomorrow.

 

I spent the whole day cooking. I made chocolate covered strawberries (stick with the melt-aways not chocolate chips), cheeseburger soup, and cupcakes. I also put together 31 bags of chocolate covered popcorn for my students which I bagged and affixed labels to.

 

I set up the table…..

 

I made the kids clink glasses……

 

We ate.

And it was over!

 

Hope you have a Happy Valentine’s Day!

LB

Twins Caravan

 

The Twins caravan breezed through Owatonna and mom and I decided to take the kids up to see the players. Even though we arrived over an hour before the event started, good ole’ Budach luck struck again and we ended up one of the last people in line. Generally we pick the wrong place to camp out and the line started at the complete opposite end of where we were in the restaurant. **Sigh**

 

 

I ended up sending mom home and Mike joined us for the duration. Noah wasn’t super thrilled and would have turned around at any time and went home (love this child) but Connor would have been disappointed had we not stayed.  So, after not being able to get served because so many people had reservations (except no one was sitting and eating) we plunked down at a random dirty table and asked some kind waiter if we could order supper. Luckily he was fine with that and we ordered food while the kids stood in an unmoving line. My headache was grateful.

 

Can you believe how young Noah looks here? You know why……because Connor is huge. He is ONE pant size behind Noah.

 

 

 

 

 

Butera (back-up catcher that played most of last year), Valencia, and Bert Blyleven were there which were pretty big names. Bigger than the guys that came last year to my school anyway.

 

It was nice to get a little taste of Florida a few weeks early.

 

Our weeks have been busy with basketball (and baseball camps), but not this weekend. We are heading to Burnsville to see Journey The Mysterious Island and look at getting a new couch.

LB