Fishin' for a birthday

After we finished opening Christmas presents at Mom & Dad's, we were all sitting around, eating too many snacks, when Jeff jokingly said that he had his fishing gear in the car. It was a nice day, and still about an hour before dinner, so I said, "Let's go!" He thought I was kidding, but I wasn't. I figured it would be fun for the kids and get us all out of the house, so off we went. In an effort to save time, we didn't bring a fishing pole. Luckily, Uncle Jeff is good on the spot, because it all worked out beautifully. Even the annoying geese mostly cooperated!

Todd's favorite cake is yellow cake with chocolate frosting - how boring is that?!  But I make it every year.  Apparently, this year, I made it a little too quickly.  Todd helped me get one of the cakes out of the cake pan, and it crumbled on one side.  So, I decided to frost the whole thing before we left... when it was still warm... and then we put it in the car... and drove for 20 minutes.  Yep, this is what it looked like upon arrival :(  I was annoyed, to say the least.

Cute picture of Erin and Kate... never mind that I cropped out myself on the side, flipping off my husband behind the camera who was taking pictures of said cake.

After the cake fiasco and opening presents, we headed down to the lake.  It's not really a lake, but I've called it a lake for the last 19.5 years, so it's a lake.  Ok?  Ok.

Jeff got the bait on the hook on the line and threw it in the water as far as he could... it was entertaining.

Within a couple minutes, the boys caught the first fish!

Brett was so excited!!

Getting ready to throw that one back in... now could he do it again?!

Oh yes!  Although, by this point, the geese were on to us.  Erin and Meredith took some bread to the other side of the lake (pond) to distract the geese away from the fish.

Kate (in her sparkle shoes, tights, dress, and big bow) with Uncle Jeff and their fish... whew, time to go home!

But not until Kate pets the fish first!

And she had to feed the geese too... those annoying, pooping, loud, obnoxious geese!

After dinner, time to celebrate Todd's birthday a few days early. 

He always has helpers to blow out the candles!

Brett is the resident candle-licker... no icing left behind!

And there he is, enjoying his sugar-high, dancing to the music in his head!