The Pinewood Derby

Last night was Stephen's first Pinewood Derby. Here he is with his car, the silver one.

And he got 3rd place! Out of 45 boys! He was so excited. So now he gets to go to the district Pinewood Derby which is supposed to be in the next month or two.

James also had a good time last night. Last year he built an electronic timer for the derby, and this year he wrote a really cool program to go with it. As each boy checked in their car, James would record them saying their name. Then the computer kept track of the races and different heats and who was racing when and projected it up on the wall for all to see.

It also announced the places of each car for each race using the boys' own voices. It was really neat. This is where James spent most of the evening, except when Stephen was up and James would help him make sure his car was all set to go.

We all had a good time, but by the time it was almost done, Naomi looked like this.

We got home just after bedtime, and tried to get everyone into bed as quickly as we could. But it was a little hard to calm down after all that excitement.

Strong Uncle Sam

This picture was taken almost 2 and a half years ago. It was just a couple of days after Brad was born and we were all at Ben and Lynsey's house. Stephen loved arm wrestling with Uncle Sam. He had just turned 6. You can see that Stephen is trying really hard to get Sam's arm to budge, and Sam is just sitting still, watching Stephen, like nothing much is happening.

CTR 5

Ellen was so excited to start CTR 5 this year. She received her very own CTR ring on Sunday and hasn't lost it yet. Hooray! And she has told me quite a few times that if I ever don't know what to do I can just look at her ring and remember to choose the right. She is also getting to be very good at saying prayers. Her prayers are even a little long at times, and very thoughtful. This morning at breakfast she included a good line that I have to share. "Please bless the food that it will nourish our bodies and strengthen our testimonies." It made me smile!

just a side note: James came home last night with a brand new monitor. Oh, I love the color green! Life just isn't the same without it.

purple and orange! AAAACK!!!

This morning the transistor (I'm pretty sure that's what James said) that provides green color to our computor monitor decided to die! Now everything is varying shades of purple and orange with a little bit of blue here and there. It looks horrid!

James will be checking the bullitin board at work to see if anyones got a monitor for sale. He says he's seen lots there in the past. Oh man, do I hope there is a good one there today!!!

Stephen was bored yesterday...

... so James suggested he take apart our old vacuum. He was a happy kiddo.

Mr. Darcy

It's been a while since I've done a book review, and so today I have two! They are a little different from each other, but on the same topic: Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice.

The first is Austenland by Shannon Hale. It's a fun, finding romance, kind of story about Jane Hayes who seems to be a normal working girl, but is secretly slightly obsessed with Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy in the Pride and Prejudice miniseries. (If any of you have not seen that miniseries, I'm telling you now to see it! It is SOOOO good.) So anyway, Jane has a wealthy great aunt who learns of her little obsession. When Aunt Carolyn (or Caroline, it's spelled both ways in the book - hee hee hee) dies, she leaves Jane a three week vacation to Pembrook Park. There Jane gets to live life as if she were Elizabeth Bennet or any of Jane Austen's other heroines. Love could possibly be found at Pembrook Park, but when and with whom? Or maybe Jane will finally be done with men altogether. You'll have to see.

The second book I've read recently is called An Assembly Such as This, A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman by Pamela Aidan. It is actually the first of three books. It is basically the story of Pride and Prejudice told from the point of view of Mr. Darcy. To some Jane Austen purists, this book may be a bit too much, but I really enjoyed it. I liked reading Mr. Darcy's thoughts and feelings. I still think he was being too prideful, (oh those society rules really bug me sometimes) but he is much more human in this story. I was afraid that this book was going to be a little boring since it takes 246 pages just to tell the first third of the story, but that was not the case at all. It was a quick read for me and I am anxious to read the other two books.

New Beginnings

Wordfull Wednesday from Chocolate on my Cranium is here again, and the topic for today is new beginnings. What I am posting about today may seem like a silly kind of new beginning to some, but to me it really is a big deal.





This picture of me was taken yesterday morning.

See the hair? I'm almost afraid to admit this, but it's the same hair style I've had since I was 12. Sometimes I would cut it a little shorter, shoulder length or even chin length a couple of times, but it was still the same thing and I always did the same things with it. Here comes my new beginning. Yesterday afternoon I went and got my hair cut.

Don't worry it's nothing too drastic...

Shorter, layered, different. I like it.

It turned out a lot like my sister Heidi's hair, and maybe like my other sister Dixie's, I haven't seen hers yet. (I hope you two don't mind.) It's just a little more stylish than my old hair and I feel much less frumpy, which is part of my new beginning. I have lots of things I want to do in this new year. Some of them I already know won't happen. There just isn't time. Or as my very wise mama tells me, it just isn't the right time. Some things though, like changing my hair, I can handle. I do have one complaint about my short new do: my neck is FREEZING! I think I need a scarf!

Snow Day #1, 2009

Today was supposed to be the kids first day back to school after the Christmas break. But last night it started snowing and blowing. We got about 10 more inches of snow and our first snow day of the year! Here is what we did today:

legos and then a game of war

good ol' laundry and some mega blocks













Noah was his usual chipper self.


James was tinkering with circuits and programs while recovering from strep throat.

I've made some progress on my puzzle, and did a little bit more today.











The boys played. (oh how long Stephen has waited for this!)











And then of course, we played in the snow!

Ellen is constantly eating snow.









Hopefully our mailbox won't get buried!


This is the mountain of snow at the corner of the triangle closest to our house. Since it is a triangle, there are two other such mountains, plus ridges of snow along the sides of the triangle. In the middle is the beautiful Secret Snow Garden, not visible from the outside. The kids love it! Oh, and yes it was foggy. As soon as it stopped snowing today, the fog rolled in and stayed till after dark.

Naomi is still too little to make the trek up and over the great mountain of snow, but she quite enjoys the little hills right outside our front door.

Silly Eyes

"Mom, look! Will you take a picture of us and put it on the blog?"

Rooms

This is the girls' room. I didn't get much of the beds in the picture because they are a mess, but you can see part of the play house, which has lately been dubbed "Noah's Office." I'm not sure which girl came up with that, but they all call it that. Some of you will notice that something is missing from this picture. (I know it does look crowded, but there really is something big missing.)

We moved the crib! Since our travel plans to Boise fell through, we decided to move Noah downstairs into The Boys Room.

And since I'm showing the boys room, I thought I'd finally show off the Dinosaur Wall James' Mom painted for Stephen this summer. Stephen drew a picture of what he wanted it to look like, and Grandma was able to use her amazing talent to put it up on the wall. I couldn't get the whole thing in one picture so here is one side.

And here is the other. Stephen LOVES that it is so big. He also enjoys showing it to any visitor we might have and telling them that it was his Grandma that painted it.