A Tale of the Pinewood Derby

Well our first pinewood derby is finally over.  I would love to tell the tale of Trevor's car going so super fast, the fame, the glory, everyone asking how did you do it??  But alas, this is not that kind of tale, but I get ahead of myself, let us start at the beginning.

In a land far far away there was a humble housewife who did her motherly duties without complaint (for the most part)  Until one day the man of the house handed her a small bag with a block of wood, some metal rods and some round wheels and said "This will become my greatest masterpiece....or I mean this will become my son's greatest masterpiece!"  He went on to explain how in 2 short weeks this simple block of wood would become a fast car that would win in a race against all the other local men's er boy's cars.  The humble mother had heard of these races so she was not surprised.

The son created a design...."It must be pikachu!" he said.  So a lightning bolt theme came to life.  This will not be to bad thought the mother.  Little did she know that not only would it require a new saw, and as much time as the father could spare, but much of her time as well.   The entire family slaved away until finally the night of the race arrived.  Stress and worry began to build up inside this simple mother's heart as she looked at the car with no wheels, and no weights.  The father tore apart the garage, but with no luck, there were no fishing weights in the house.  "RUN to the store....quickly GO" counseled the mother.  So off they went arriving home only 10 minutes before they had to leave for the race.  

The father quickly drilled some holes for the weights and the mother hustled all the children into their carriage.  As they traveled the patient mother super glued the axles on and placed the wheels.  Only 5 minutes late...."surely they have not started" they thought.  (luckily they lived in Mormonville where everything starts late)  There was still time!!  Lubricate, add weight quickly now sit down and watch the magic!

As the boy's turn to race came everyone watched.  Oh no!  A false start, the boy's car left several seconds before the other racer!   Wait...what is this, the boys car STILL lost???  Oh NO!  This is not going to be pretty.  They restarted the racers and with no surprise, the boys car lost.  There was still one more chance for him, but everyone knew....he would not win.  With a sad heart the father went to check on the car.  Some other fathers who had witnessed this sad event came to help as well.  "Wait....what is this....you used the axles that they gave you??  No No", the fathers said, "we all used nails to keep our wheels in place, the axles are to small and make the wheels rub!!"  WHAT????   Quickly the fathers worked, they pulled off the super glued axles and nailed some better wheels in place.  It was to late to win the prize, but something had to be done to raise the boy's spirit.  When they raced again his car actually beat some of the other boys!  Amazing.  Everyone was happy....and just wait until NEXT year!

At least he won the prize for the most creative car (and thus the mother smiled as well)

A Great Day

So who knew that right after the school's Friendship Celebration would be Valentines Day!! We had a lot of fun today. It started off with Bryan letting me sleep in while he got up with the kids and made breakfast. Now, when I say that I made breakfast normally I mean that I poured the kids a bowl of cereal (or at least told them to pour their own bowl of cereal) But when Bryan makes breakfast..look out! He really makes it. He had a patient tell him how to make omelets that are FABULOUS, and he also made french toast, bacon and sausage. Sitting on my plate were a dozen roses to boot! What a sweet heart. Later on we went to a friends house to do a little partying. It was tons of fun. We did Kaylee's hair in a special heart hairdo and brought some pink heart rice crispy treats. They cleaned out their garage and turned it into a fun 50's theme with music, dancing, and food and games, what more could a girl ask for?? I am so glad I have such a great Valentine....I LOVE YOU BRYAN!

Happy Friendship Celebration!

Come on. I understand that some people don't celebrate holidays, but do we have to make up silly names for all the school parties that the kids have. Instead of a Halloween party they have a Harvest Celebration, instead of Christmas Parties we have a Winter Party and instead of a Valentines Party it is a Friendship Celebration?? Anyway....I went back and forth this year on if I wanted to have the kids do homemade valentines or if I just wanted to buy them at the store. After much debating we went with homemade. For FHE on Monday I pulled out all my paper, punches, glue, scissors etc. and let the kids go to town. It was pretty simple and TONS of fun. there was a small folded piece of paper that they got to decorate any way they wanted, then we put it around a sucker and stapled the bottom (I had to buy a new stapler as I have not been able to find mine for a very long time....it is probably hiding with my pizza cutter and my kitchen sheers.) They turned out really cute and the kids had a ball.

Nathan worked just as long as the other kids, but only produced ONE single valentine which he said was for his friend. It was huge with tons of papers glued on it. When he finally finished it he took the sucker out of it and ate it....guess he didn't quite get the concept.

Trevor worked well but stopped after about 15 and had me finish the rest of his so that he could finish a book. Before he left I told him to let me take a picture of him with his valentines that he had lined up. In order to get closer to them he tried to scoot over to the stool next to him....unfortunately I had moved the stool around to the other side of the counter to sit on.....so Trevor went right to the floor! He was such a trooper and got up to take the picture. If you look his expression still looks rather painful.

Kaylee could have done this all night. She finished the 23 she needed for her class then kept going. She is so creative and made each one of hers different. She ended up making some for her current teacher and past teacher and anyone else she could think of.

All in all they turned out great. I am heading up to the school to bring treats and help out with the friendship celebration (shouldn't they be forbidden to bring Valentine cards and only be able to bring Friendship cards?) Hope you all find LOVE this Friendship time of year!

Randomness

If there is any word that could explain my life right now it is random. My mind flips from one thing to the next with no real flow between things. You can imagine it is hard to put together a post when life is like this so here are some random bits and pictures that you have missed out on. The first show you Ashton's new past time. He is obsessed with dumping stuff out. Doesn't really matter what, but one of his favorites is the new dishwasher soap tablets that I bought. He used to dump out the big bucket of powder dishwasher detergent which was a HUGE pain to clean up, so I switched to these tablets (plus I think they work better) and yes you can still see the mostly empty bucket of powder detergent that is still taking up valuable under the sink space because I have not finished it, but went ahead and started using the tabs anyway.

Next is Kaylee's new hairdo. She came in one night with her hair in this strange up-do. Upon closer examination I discovered the source of the do was in fact a round brush that she had gotten VERY stuck in her hair, luckily we were able to get it out without any damage.

Next is a funny picture of Ashton, I don't remember what he had eaten, but he sure enjoyed it!

Then on to Trevor. Trevor LOVES to occasionally always give bunny ears in pictures, so what would happen if there was no one around to give said bunny ears to? Well this picture should answer that question.

Last but not least a small video of Nathan and Ashton who have become good friends and play the Wii together. Ashton of course is not allowed to touch any of the actual Wii equipment so we give him a game cube controller and as you can tell from the video he knows just what to do with it!

Hope you enjoyed and hope you have a GREAT day!