Pinewood Derby

I can't believe it, but Mason turns 8 this year, and so was invited to participate in our ward's Pinewood Derby! Oh. My. The level of excitement in our house for 2 weeks was incredible. You thought this boy normally had energy! Look at this face:

He could hardly sleep at nights he was so excited. First about designing the car. Then about cutting it out. Then about sanding it, then painting it, then putting on the wheels, then getting...wait for it...graphite for the wheels. I can hardly wait for next year to see him get so excited again!

It's almost done...

And at the race:

He got 2nd place in his age group (7-year-olds) and "Best Muscle Car" for the award-that-I-hope-I-never-have-to-create.

I had to get a shot of these three buddies--they are used to being together almost every Friday night at babysitting swap, and soon it will be every Friday with Pack Meetings! They were all born within 6 weeks of each other, and as you can see, are pretty dang cute!

Mason has his car all planned out for next year. And yes, it does involve circuitry and flashing lights. He has his circuit almost figured out for making alternately flashing LEDs inside of his car. It ought to be fun! We have 11 consecutive years to look forward to the Pinewood Derby. :)

Ice Skating

Minnesota has really been messing with me these past 2 winters. Last winter (2010-2011) was the 4th snowiest on record (86.6" as of Apr. 20th), and this winter we're at 14.4" so far, which is less than half of normal. And we're on average 7 degrees above the normal average. It's supposed to be near 40 for the next 5 days! The lack of snow, while nice because I don't have to shovel my driveway, is rather disappointing. What I got last winter was exactly what I was expecting from a Minnesota winter. This winter is pretty wimpy. 

Where am I going with this? Oh yeah...

Ice skating. It's hard to have an outdoor rink stay frozen with days consistently above freezing. As odd as it is to say, "Sorry kids, we can't play outside because it isn't cold enough", that's what I've been saying. We've only had a few good days to skate, and we're all itching to get out on the ice! Hopefully it will stay cold for my mom's visit in a few days--she wants to go skating, too! C'mon, Minnesota! Bring on the REAL winter!

How Trevor "skates". Isn't he adorable?!?! Well, what little you can see of him, anyhow...

It takes a while to get everybody ready...

YES! He skated (a teeny, tiny bit). I think he could have done more if the skates actually fit him...I need to stop by a couple different thrift stores for skates so small!

Strike a pose

Sammy in his "starfish" pose. He really needs to wear a helmet when he skates! He's graduated to single blades and is still getting the hang of them. It goes a little better for him when he has his hockey stick.

Sammy was about finished with his "skating one last time around the rink" idea. He crawled the rest of the way back!

Mason's "card" for Uncle Cookie

Edison has been talking about his Aunt and Uncle Cookie for...years. Ever since we visited them in Southern CA (in 2008) he remembers random happenings--like Uncle Cookie being king of the grill. In fact, one day he asked who was the best BBQ-er: Papa, Daddy or Uncle Cookie. Another day he told how at dinner one time Aunt Cookie told him to take a hamburger bun for his hot dog so that Uncle Cookie's feelings wouldn't be hurt; he would think Mason was having one of his yummy hamburgers. Mason followed that story up with the statement that now he likes hamburgers, so we need to go visit them again.

A few weeks ago we made cards for grandparents, and Mason insisted on making a "card" for Uncle Cookie. Here's his explanation of it:

New Year's letter

Happy New Year!

Another year has passed in the great state of Minnesota. The snow has come and gone and come again. The mosquitoes came, bit and (thank goodness!) died off again. And our family grew by one more little boy!

Trevor David, alias Mr. T, was born October 18. He weighed in at 9 lb 11 oz, and continues to grow at an incredible rate. He is named after two of his uncles—my and Stephen’s oldest brothers. Everyone loves the baby, especially Lincoln.

Lincoln, alias Twinkie, just turned 2, and is always trying to help. He is actually quite helpful, although I always get a little concerned when, from the other room, I hear him sing the clean up song or say “Uh-oh!” He continues to charm us with his adorable cuteness.

Sammy, alias Sambo, is 5 ½, and on any given day he might be a cheetah, scorpion, mongoose, poisonous rat, dog, starfish or mouse. He loves nothing better than to have someone read to him.

Mason, alias Edison, is 7 ½, and a more electrically minded boy I have never seen! Stephen and I have learned to take his word when he explains how something works, because 9 times out of 10 he is right on.

Elise, alias Belle, is 9. She has excelled in her ballet program and also loves her piano lessons. She has been an incredible help since TD has been born. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without her!

It seems like every stage of life that my kids have been in has been my favorite! Being a mom is a job that I absolutely love! I stay busy teaching them, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Stephen and I have had a great year reading and discussing education philosophies.

Stephen, alias Dr. Jones, stays very busy with his Business Strategy PhD program at the UMN. We’re a year and a half into his 5-year program. He stays busy writing papers, attending classes (only one more semester of that!), grading, and doing other research projects (I think he is currently working on 5). I swear his vocabulary grows by at least a word a day—things like ‘explicate’, ‘exogenous’, ‘heteroscedasticity’, ‘heterogeneous’, ‘paucity’ and ‘endogeneity’. I just nod and smile.

Living in Minnesota has been a great, but different, experience. For one thing there are NO mountains. The kids and I still get excited when we see a hill. The winters here really are cold! But in this state of 10,000 lakes there are many, many ice skating rinks. The lakes all freeze over, but the rinks that we frequent are simply parks with a flooded field. They have official hockey rinks, too. The older 3 kids are pretty good on skates now, and even Lincoln has got up on his double-bladed skates!

Living here puts us within a 7-hour drive of Nauvoo, IL, and we visited there this past summer. We spent 2 full days exploring and participating in the many activities they have there. We visited the temple, and it was wonderful to be where some of my ancestors sacrificed so much. We are definitely going back!

We really love our house and especially yard! We joke about the kids playing in the “back 40”; we really have so much space to just play! I have a huge garden—too huge, in fact! I’m considering planting wild flowers in half of it this year. The kids love playing “Forest Children”, “Indian”, “Emergency” and a host of other pretend games in the back yard.

If you’d like to keep track of our homeschool  adventures, you might like to check out our blog:

our-family-school.blogspot.com

We hope that 2012 is a wonderful year for you!

Lincoln and his crib

Lincoln's big-boy bed

We've been doing a little room rotating the last couple of weeks, beginning at Christmas when Stephen and I moved Elise into her own room--the room formerly known as the den (really the sewing-printer-guest-file cabinet-make-a-mess-here-because-the-family-room-is-too-messy-to-play-in-room). "Space" is more technically correct that "room", as she has no closet or window big enough to escape out of, and my sewing table, printer and file cabinet are still in there. BUT she does have a bed, dresser and little table. And a shower curtain door. And she loves it. :o)

I had my own room from the time I was 7 until I was 11. With the exception of that time and part way through my senior year of high school through my first year of college, I've always shared a room. First with brothers, then a year of college roomates and then I was married!

I digress...back to Lincoln...

Here's the bed situation: Mason has the bed that I made this summer. Sammy has half of the bunk bed set. Elise (now) has the other half of the bunk bed set. Lincoln moved from the crib to Elise's old bed--the original Ikea fort bed. We flipped it upside down so it is low to the floor and got a mattress for it (love Ikea!) on Friday night. Saturday I tried to get Lincoln to sleep in his bed at nap time, but he climbed into his crib instead. After his nap Stephen raised the crib mattress for Trevor (who will soon move out of our room), and that night Lincoln slept (rather unwillingly) in his new big-boy bed!

A few months ago my wonderful mother-in-law Ann sent Lincoln his quilt that she made for him. I got to help pick out the colors and pattern, and I must say that I LOVE IT!!!! My camera doesn't do it justice. Here's another view so you can see the pattern a little bit better:

On Lincoln's inaugural night in his bed he christened it by throwing up all over. Nice. Fortunately the quilt was spared the nastiness. He's better now. Now he sleeps just fine in his bed. In fact, this afternoon when he woke up instead of coming out he started crying. I left him in there, thinking he would get off of his bed and come and join me, but when he kept crying I went in to see what was wrong. I had to laugh when I saw him sitting on the end of his bed with his blanky, binky, bear and sippy cup all on the floor. As soon as I went in he jumped down, gathered up his beloved possessions and was happy as could be. He used to throw his stuff out of the crib and would have to wait for me to come and get him up--he must have thrown everything down and not realized that he could get them on his own now! :o)

The next big move will be putting Trevor in the crib! Crazy how fast everyone is growing up!