Pine Wood Derby, Loose Tooth, and Soccer

We had another fun filled and busy week this past week.  Someday life will slow down and we will not be so crazy but until then, we are trying to enjoy every minute we can.  

Well our week started with an "On your mark, Get set, GO!" at our ward's Pine Wood Derby.  I think this is one of the funnest pack meetings of the year.  The boys had a great time racing their cars and it really didn't matter who won because they all cheered for each other and then ran their cars back up to the starting line to race again.  Here are our scouts and their cool cars:

 Some of these cars were so awesome.  The designs were very different and unique to each driver.  My favorite had to be Trayton's semi-truck.  We combine with the 7th ward for scouts so both wards' winners got to race against each other to see who first place should go to.  AJ White from our ward came out on top with the first place.  Cole Heaton, however, had the official winning car.  Cole's dad is in our ward so we invited him to our Pine Wood Derby but he is not in our troop so he technically couldn't win for district purposes but don't worry he is still going to district because he won in his troop derby too.  Cole's car was super fast and beat everyone.  Here are the boys racing their cars;  

 Look at them zoom down the track.  The races were so fun to watch and the boys had a great time.

For our next adventure, Emily lost her first tooth on Thursday:

This little tooth has been hanging on for dear life for the past few weeks and Russell was finally able to pull it out on Thursday.  He told Emily he was going to count to 10 and then the tooth was out.  Emily was excited to lose a tooth until it was actually time to pull it and then she was kind of scared.  She was a trooper though.

Emily was also really excited to get a visit from the tooth fairy!  Her little tooth magically turned into a gold dollar.  She has treasured that gold dollar and keeps it in a safe place on her headboard.  Her other bottom tooth needs to come out soon too because her adult teeth are coming up behind it.  So Emily has what we call "Shark teeth" because she has two rows of teeth!

Another fun thing we did this week was sign Emily up for soccer.  I have officially become a soccer mom!  Her first game was yesterday.

I think she played pretty well considering she has never played soccer before.  She is on a team of 4 little girls and their team name is the Roses!  Not everyone had uniforms for this first game so they all wore different colored uniforms and crazy colored socks.  It was fun to watch her play and she also has some pretty good players on her team.  Emily's friend Faye is on her team too and Faye's dad is the coach so this season should be pretty fun.  They practice every Thursday and have games every Saturday.  Go Roses!

Well I had to talk in church today.  I talked with my presidency and our topic was General Conference.  I think we all did well on our talks.  I love General Conference so it was an easy topic for me.  Luckily I got to go last so I didn't have to talk very long.  General Conference is next week and I am excited to hear from the prophet and apostles.  Yesterday was the General YW Broadcast and it was cool because all women age 8 and up got to attend.  This is the first time primary girls have been able to attend so it was really a special meeting.  I loved all of the talks and especially the music.  They reminded us that we need each other and we need to be better disciples of Jesus Christ through serving each other.

Have a great week!

Logan's First Steps!

Logan finally did it!  He took his first steps on March 17, St. Patrick's Day!

Logan is 13 months old now.  It was so fun to watch him take his first wobbly steps.  He was such a stubborn baby on learning how to walk that I thought he would never learn.  Anytime we tried to teach him to walk he would just sit down.  We would stand him up and he would just sit down or hold his legs up so we couldn't stand him up anymore.  But by chance, on Monday, Russell said he was watching Logan and all of a sudden he took a step from the couch to about the middle of the room!  When I got home from work, we had Logan walk back and forth to each of us and Logan loved the attention and kept trying and trying to walk as much as he could.  He would smile so big when we would cheer for him.  Logan seems to like walking now.  He still can only take about 5 steps before falling but that will come with practice.  He also can only walk if we stand him up or if he stands up next to the couch and launches himself out to take a few steps.  He still preferred to crawl but is not as opposed to walking any more.  Good Job, Logan!! We are so proud of you.

Well that fun event started off our week of fun.  We had a lot going on this week between working extra hours and planning for a primary activity.  Tuesday Emily had her music class.  She loves her music class and is learning a lot about ear training, and major scales, rhythms and singing and playing her bells.  Wednesday I got up extra early to go to the temple.  I have been bad and have not been to the temple for a very long time probably since before Logan was born...  So I found out that on Wednesdays, there is an extra early session that starts at 5:30 am.  Well my goal was to get to that session but I missed it by 2 minutes so I went to the 6:00 session instead.  In a way I am glad that I missed the 5:30 session because it was nice to sit in the quiet chapel and just feel the Spirit and get mentally ready for the session rather than feel rushed.  The temple session was so nice.  I definitely need to make temple attendance a bigger priority in my life.  I am going to try and go to these early morning sessions more often because it sets the whole mood for my day and week and I can go before I have to go to work.  Wednesday was also spent Visiting Teaching.  I am a terrible Visiting Teacher but my partner is a great one so we go visit our ladies each month because of her.  Thanks Michaela for getting me going.  Our last stop was to my 1st Counselor and our friend, Anna.  We found out a few weeks ago that she is moving up north and we are so sad to loose her.  I brought her dinner and Michaela and I helped her box up some of her families things.  I was fun to help her but sad too.  I know she appreciated the help and especially the dinner which made it all worth it.  Finally, yesterday we had a fun Primary activity.  Last year we did a "Preparing for General Conference" activity and it was a huge success.  A lot of parents told me their kids had a great time and that they looked forward to and watched General Conference that time.  So we decided to do it again.  Our activity was a General Conference Celebration.  We had a pretty good turn out and the kids said they had fun.  We made a countdown to conference craft, learned about the apostles by playing a memory game, and played a General Conference trivia game show game.  Then we ended by handing out conference activity packets for the kids to work on during General Conference and had cookies.  I think it was a good activity.  

We had a good week this week.  Full of milestones for Logan, and spiritual experiences for me and fun activities for the kids.

Spring Break

This week has been Spring Break for us, which really only means no school.  Unfortunately, it does not mean no work and with corporate tax returns due tomorrow, it really meant more work for me.  With Russell out of school, I took advantage of him being home and worked all day long. Now I am not complaining because full time hours means full time pay.  Anyway Russell worked extra hours too.  He had clients call him to do landscaping jobs so he was busy working outside in the nice Spring weather.  Okay don't get me wrong, we had fun too.  The kids got to spend time with Grandma Farnsworth and they also got to spend the day with their favorite cousins, the Hughes.  Even Logan had a good time and Lacie said he didn't even cry!!! When we were not working, we were playing in the yard.  Russell got our garden area all tilled up and ready for our garden.  Now that we don't have our dog anymore, we have a much bigger area for a garden so Russell ran sprinkler lines to that area and set it to an automatic timer so the garden now waters itself!  Hopefully we will have a good crop this year.  He and the kids planted peas, carrots, radishes, zucchini, and squash.  Later on, we will plant tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries and whatever else we decide.  Yum! I can already taste the fresh fruits and vegetables.  

On my day off, we had fun crafting.  Emily has been asking me to teach her how to sew for some time now and we finally had time to do it.

 For our sewing project, I showed Emily how to sew sequins and beads onto felt.  Then we sewed a piece of felt to the back of the decorated piece.  Emily loved sewing and did a really good job.  Here is her finished project.

 I think she did a great job on her heart.  She was very proud of her project and text Russell and Traci and told them about it.  Then when Russell got home from work, she proudly showed him her work.

 Colby didn't want to be left out of the craft so I had him string buttons to make a bracelet.  He had fun doing that and it kept him busy for a while.  Too bad the bracelet kept breaking...

Also for fun, the kids and I headed up to Enterprise Reservoir on Saturday for a picnic.  My family was up there camping over the weekend.  I had to work on Friday and Russell worked on Saturday so we didn't go camping.  I decided to head up there for the day on Saturday though.  Unfortunately, when we got up to Enterprise and found their camp, everyone was gone.  They must have all gone on a four-wheeler ride together because their camp was empty.  We decided not to let that ruin our fun so we had our picnic anyway at their camp.  Then we went for a hike and explored the rocks around Honeycomb campground.

These two had a blast climbing the rocks, posing as superheros, and hiding in the holes in the rocks.  After hiking and waiting around for about 3 hours, we finally decided to go home without seeing everyone.  The kids were kind of sad because they didn't get to see their cousins but they were tired and ready to leave too.   It was a fun trip despite all of the wind and not being able to see family.  But we had fun as our little family.  

We had a busy but fun Spring Break.  It was nice to be able to sleep in a little bit because we didn't have to get up for school.  Tomorrow starts a new week back to the old grind.  Welcome Spring!!

Picture Day

Much to the kids dismay, I took them out to practice my photography skills.  Okay I bribed them with the park if they would cooperate.  This incentive didn't really work for Logan but the other two would at least smile for the camera.  I will be the first to admit that I am not the best photographer but it is fun to pretend and sometimes I get good shots.  Someday I would like to take a class and actually learn how to use my camera but for now I just like to pretend and hope to get lucky.  

Well the reason for the photo shoot was because Colby needed an updated picture now that he is three.  Here are the new pictures of Colby.

The last few close up ones are my favorite so one of those are going on the wall.  You can definitely tell that Colby has a camera smile.  It is like "Come on Mom are we done yet?"  

I also had to get a couple of my Emily girl while we were at it. 

She was a little more cooperative than the boys.

and this little stinker would not cooperate at all...  This is the only good picture I got of him.

So this second picture is just for fun because everyone else had two or more pictures...

Finally I tried to get a few group shots:

Yeah not the easiest task because I could only get 2 out of the 3 looking at me and smiling each time.  Oh and Logan kept trying to crawl away.  Oh well I will keep trying and learning.  But as for these picture I think they turned out good  so we will see how they look printed out.

Finally we made it to the park as promised and of course they were all smiles at that:

We had a blast at the park playing on the slides and swings.  Logan has discovered that he loves the park and loves slides.  I have to watch him because he will climb up the stairs and try to go down the slides by himself.  He has no fear.  In fact he is mad in this picture because I am having Emily hold him so he won't go down the slide head first on his own.  He gets really mad when anyone gets in his way or prevents his mission.  

What cray kids.   I love them even though they try my patience a lot.  But I learned in church today that that is thier jobs as kids and parents need to deal with it.  So I am trying to deal...  Love you kids.

Colby's Superhero Birthday

Can you believe it? Colby is 3 years old!!! It sometimes makes me sad how fast these kids are growing up.  Look at my handsome birthday boy:

Colby definitely keeps our lives interesting.  He has the funniest personality and says the funniest things sometimes.  For his birthday this year he told me he wanted a Spiderman cake and cupcakes.  Lately he has been interested in all things superheros so we decided to do a superhero birthday party.  It also helped that the Blue & Gold Banquet last week was superhero themed so we just re-used some of those decorations.  Colby was so excited for his party that he kept asking me everyday if it was his birthday yet.

Finally on March 4 it was his birthday.  Russell and I decided Colby needed a bike for his birthday so while we were at the store we looked at the bikes.  Colby was asleep at the store when we found this bike so we sneakily put it in the cart and took it to the checkout while he was asleep.  Then, before we could finish checking out and get to the car, Colby woke up and saw his bike.  He was soooo excited to get his new bike but we told him he had to wait until his birthday to get it.  He understood so he waited quite patiently actually for a 2 year old.  I was really surprised.  Then on the morning of his birthday, he asked us "Can I get my new bike now!"  So we brought it out and that was the one present he got to open before his party:

Colby loves his new bike but is still trying to figure out how to pedal.  He likes to have us pull him along but we keep telling him he needs to pedal.  He will get it soon I am sure.  While we were waiting for all of Colby's friends to arrive for his party, we rode our bikes.

Here is the birthday boy before the party next to his Spiderman cake and cupcakes.  Oh and we could not forget to wear his Spiderman shirt to match:

I like how the cake and cupcakes turned out.  They were really simple to make too which is always good.  The hardest part was getting the red icing to the right shade of red.  In order for it to not be a pink Spiderman we had to use almost a whole thing of red food coloring plus some burgundy.  We also mixed brown chocolate frosting in with the white to give it a darker color too.  Yeah it was quite a process but I think we got the color right finally.

All of Colby's friends arrived at 4 o'clock for the Superhero Training party.  When we asked Colby who he wanted to invite, he said he only wanted to invite Tyrel and Jack nobody else.  While a party with just those two would have been fun, we wanted a few more kids to come too.  After giving some suggestions, Colby decided to invite his friends Braxton and Easton Lay, Erik White, and Cayson Terry along with Tyrel and Jack.  We had a really fun time with all those little boys and Emily...

We started out with presents so we could do all of the games together.  Colby loved everything he got especially the Spiderman mask, and swords. 

After the presents we started our Superhero training.  First we had all the kids decorate their own superhero cape and mask.  We had markers and fun foam available for the kids to use. They had fun decorating and then wearing their capes and masks for the rest of the party.

Our first game was a Scavenger Hunt.  We had to gather all of the other superheros to help us in our quest to fight the villains.  Around the yard we had hidden pictures of different Marvel Comics superheros and the kids had to find them all.

After we had found all of the Superheros, it was time to train with our weapons. 

Russell and I made a Captain America shield out of a Frisbee and a Thor hammer out of a box and paper towel roll to use in this game.  We also wrapped a bunch of old boxes in brown packing paper and decorated them like buildings.  For this game, the kids had to throw the shield or hammer at the buildings and try to knock them over.  They loved this game and didn't want to stop playing.

After weapons training, we had to learn how to fly or "leap over tall buildings!"  Once again we decorated old boxes to look like buildings and let the kids leap or "fly" over them.  This was fun too until two little superheros in training crashed into each other as they were flying.  Then the game wasn't fun anymore so we moved on.

Next we had strength training.  Each superhero got to lift 200 pounds!  Well as you can see, they really only lifted 100 pounds because the other 100 pounds popped...  Okay you know our secret.  The weights were only balloons and after Emily lifted the weights first, she sat it down on the grass and one of the balloons popped.  She was so sad and felt bad but we told her it was fine and still had everyone lift 100 pound instead.

Finally, we were ready to fight the villains!  We had gathered our superhero friends, trained with our weapons, learned how to fly, and gotten really strong so it was time to get those bad guys.  

On the wall we had pictures of different villains in the comics and each kid was given a can of silly string.  When I said "Go!" everyone shot their "webs" at the villains like Spiderman.  This was so hilarious to watch.  Some of the kids really got into it and were squirting with all their might and others were just watching the others.  Everyone shot until all of their "webs" were gone and then they gathered up the "webs" on the ground and formed them into balls and started throwing the web balls at the villains.  They all had a good time and all wanted more cans of "webs" to shoot.

Here are all of our little Superheros!  This was such a fun party.  I hope they all had a good time.  Thanks for coming everyone!!!

Now that all of the villains were vaporized with our "webs,"  it was time to reward our superheros with cake and ice cream.

Everyone went home with red hands and faces from the Spiderman frosting but they also all went home with smiles.  It was a good party.  I had to put in this picture of Logan.  He had so much fun at the party he crashed after eating his cupcake.  Because he was asleep, I didn't want to bug him by washing his face so I left it until he woke up.  Well I guess I should have washed his face right away because after the frosting had set on his face for so long, the red dye had stained his face and hands pink!  It was so funny to see him with a little pink goatee after I washed his face.  Don't worry the stain finally went away after he had a bath but it was still funny.

For Colby's birthday dinner, he requested red soup (tomato soup) and grilled cheese.  That is his favorite and super easy to make after hosting a birthday party so that is what we had.  What a fun day we had.  Colby said he had a good birthday and he loved the Spiderman cake.

So this story doesn't have anything to do with Colby's birthday but I have to get it in writing so I will always remember it and laugh.  Colby and Logan are good friends but sometimes they like to pick on each other.  It is not just Colby picking on Logan, Logan can hold his own and pick on his brother too.  So yesterday Colby was sitting on the floor with his peanut butter sandwich in his hand.  Logan was across the room from Colby but spotted the sandwich.  I could see the wheels spinning in Logan's head as he eyeballed the sandwich.  All of a sudden, Logan speed crawls across the room, yanks the sandwich out of Colby's hand and shoves it into his mouth taking a huge bite before Colby even knew what was going on.  A second later when he realized what had happened, Colby freaked out and grabbed the sandwich back from Logan.  This of course made Logan freak out.  So here they both are bawling and screaming at each other over a half eaten peanut butter sandwich and I am just sitting on the couch laughing my head off!!!! It was so dang hilarious!!  Then they are screaming at me because I was laughing at them instead of helping them saying "It's not funny!"  In return I just laugh even harder.  It was so funny.  I told my friend, Anna, this story because she has three boys so I knew she would appreciate it and she laughed too and told me this was only the beginning of the fighting over food.  I am still laughing at it as I write this.  

Happy 3rd Birthday Colby!  We love you!!