Happy Birthday, Caleb!!

Caleb is 10 years old--ready for his very own ID card! His birthday was yesterday, but we started the celebration Friday night at Bible study. He picked a sports theme cake, with lots of little cakes. Although the cake was difficult to make, it took a ton of time because I had to make up a lot of different icing colors and pipe a bunch of little lines! All that time spent drawing soccer balls in high school came in handy finally.

Friday was a very busy day already because we took a field trip with Rivendell downtown to the National Gallery of Art. The older boys had a tour of Renaissance art. The docent who led it did a good job--my boys enjoyed it more than the one last year. They looked at a lot of religious art, and it was very interesting to see the style and the colors change over the years. The younger kids had a tour about how to look at pieces of art. This tour was led by the wife of Nathan's football coach from last year, so it was a surprise to see her again! Caleb and Jonathan had a good time.

Here are the older boys looking appropriately contemplative and wise.

We continued the celebration of Caleb last night. He chose sausage roll for his birthday dinner (I quadrupled the recipe, and we finally had a little bit left over!), along with sweet potatoes, wild rice, and stir-fried green beans (3 pounds!). Then we had some leftover cake and more ice cream. Bob was at a men's retreat with our church Friday night, so we wanted him to try some cake too! Then Caleb opened presents. He has wanted a watch and some slippers, so we got him those, along with 2 UnderArmor-knock-off long-sleeve t-shirts that he has also been wanting. He loves them and says they are "so comfortable". My parents got him the Narnia DVD "Voyage of the Dawn Treader", and Bob's folks gave him a Bionicle thing--oops, I stand corrected-- a "Hero Factory villian". Apparently there are no more Bionicles, just these Bionicle-like creatures who coincidentally are made by the (former) makers of Bionicles.

So all in all, it was a fun birthday for Caleb, who is glad to now be in double digits! We are so thankful for Caleb, and for all he adds to our family!