Happy 11th Birthday Derek!

Derek at his 4th birthday party in 2003 - it seems like it was maybe a few years ago, but not 7!

Now he's a big pre-teen - roughhousing with his friends

Pizza for dinner

Loading into the van

Piling out in the arena parking lot

Watching the hockey game

Florida Everblades vs the hometown Gwinnett Gladiators


Hoping the blimp will drop free stuff our way

Score!!! Gladiators win 4-2

Playing PictoChat on their Nintendo DS's

Cake time

Derek, Gavin, and Christian. Gavin made a card with a picture of his fro fully extended.

More roughhousing in the morning

It's hard to believe that our oldest son, Derek, is 11 years old today. It goes so fast.

On Saturday night, Derek had a birthday party where he invited some friends over for a sleepover. We had pizza for dinner and then went to a Gwinnett Gladiators hockey game. One of Derek's friends canceled at the last minute, so rather than waste a ticket we let Adam invite his friend Ryan to the game. Derek wasn't thrilled, but conceded after crashing and burning on calls to some of his other friends to see if they could go.

The kids were into their Nintendo DS's and mp3 players. One kid had an iPod Touch, which is what Derek is all hot on now. He still likes Lego's, but is telling everyone he wants cold hard cash so he can get his Touch. I'm still not so sure about it, but you have to appreciate his enthusiasm.

After the game we came back home for cake and ice cream and presents. We all stayed up until after 1 am watching the Blind Side. The movie was good and we were kind of in an exhausted haze and weren't really paying attention to the time, so it was good that the kids actually decided on their own to stop the movie and finish it in the morning.