Andrew the Bobcat

Andrew is so excited to be able to participate in Cub Scouts now.  At the February Pack Meeting, he earned his Bobcat award.  They have a 'face painting' ceremony, where the Pack Leader reads a statement that corresponds with certain marks that a parent (me!) puts on his face.  I'm happy to see him enjoying it so much. He got his first Pinewood Derby kit at the pack meeting, the derby will be in April.  Fun times!

Landsharks Fall 2012

Eden and Andrew had an awesome season!  Eden ran 2-3 miles for practice with the Great Whites, and she was so happy and excited when Andrew and one other 2nd grader got to join them too.  Eden ran 1.5 miles each race.  Andrew ran 1 mile for the first race, then 1.5 for the last 2 races.  They both qualified for the Citywide Championship!  Unfortunately, it was held on a Sunday this year, so they didn't participate.

Eden's Times (1.5 miles):
9/17 12:16
9/24 11:41
10/1 12:08

Andrew's Times:
1 mile: 9/17 8:29
1.5 miles: 9/24 12:14
                10/1 12:40

Something was off on the last night, everyone's times were higher than expected in the 1.5 mile race (they run the boys and girls together with a one minute delay on the girls).  In any case, they did awesome, and I am so proud of them!

Staining the front

A while ago, the owner had someone come to repair some woodpecker damage, re-stain the upper level of the house.  We kept the leftover stain, but it wasn't enough for the lower level, and we intended to buy more and finish the job so top and bottom would match.  Last weekend, we (Scott) finally got around to it, and let the kids help out too!

Eden and Jake hard at work.  Funny that 'upside' down was the best angle for Jake right then.

The light is cool on this one.

The tools of the trade.

Some collateral damage.  I think Jake was a little 'brush-happy'.

One week TDY

I was going through our photos to see what else might belong on the blog.  I noticed what I thought were random pictures of building from Washington, DC. in the middle of the rest of our photos. Then I remembered we use Photo Stream, which means any pictures taken from either of our iPhones or the iPad is automatically pushed into a collection on all our Apple devices including the iMac.  Anyway, there were quite a few pictures from kids using my phone (unbeknownst to me), there were pictures of a couple other 'events' here at home, and there were the pictures Scott took while he was TDY to DC. So, I thought it might be fun to play around with the features of iPhoto, and made this slideshow.  Enjoy!

Maybe I need to explain a few of the photos.  One day I was in the middle of something when Charis woke up crying from her nap.  Jake said he would go help her be happy.  There are quite a few pictures around the house that the kids took on Monday afternoon when we were getting ready to go to Landsharks.  Then there are photos from the race.  The pictures from our kitchen I took one morning after I came downstairs and discovered that Jake had helped himself to a yogurt- with ketchup, food coloring and sprinkles, I'm sure it was delicious as it sounds.  He must have taken the ketchup out of the fridge first, and when he was done with it (it was nearly empty), stuck it in the container where I keep random things, like food coloring and sprinkles.  Maybe he made some attempt at cleaning up his mess, because I found more food coloring in the sink.  There was also powdered sugar involved, but it didn't show up in the photos very much.  The last picture is how Charis sets herself up every time I put her in the carseat lately: both hands firmly gripping the handle bar.  Maybe she's bracing herself for whatever chaos is about to ensue?  At least she has  a smile on!  It was fairly typical week around here in mid-September.  Then there are the pictures showing a few glimpses of what Scott was up to in our nation's capital that week.  The pictures are in the same order I found them in Photo Stream, I did delete some of the photos the kids took (there were A TON!).

Conference Journals

I was recently called into Activity Days, along with a couple other ladies.  I know my sister Tricia is new to this calling too.  So, I thought I would share some of the ideas here.  I made one of these journals for Eden last General Conference from this idea I saw on Pinterest.  (I didn't realize until too late that the pictures were out of date- Elder Wirthlin had passed away and Elder Anderson had been called as an apostle).  So I got this PDF from Sugardoodle, made a screen-shot, saved it as a JPEG and added the vertical text using Picasa.  (Yes, I am feeling pretty proud of myself for figuring that all out on our not-so-new-but-I-still-don't-really-know-how-to-use iMac.)

So here's the new image.  I printed it through Picasa as 5x7, shrink to fit, on letter size (8.5x11) paper.  That way, when I selected more than 1 copy (20 to cover all our girls and leaders), they printed 2 per page.  I think it came out pretty awesome!

So, at our next activity we will talk about the importance of listening to and following the counsel of the prophets and apostles.  The girls will cut the pictures and use packing tape to put them in an empty lined notebook, either as tabs, or just onto the page.  Hopefully this will help them learn to get more from their General Conference experience.

Eden is 10!

   We officially have a "tween", we are in double digits.  And suddenly Eden cares a little more about what she wears and how her hair looks.  We celebrated by taking her on a special outing with just me and Scott (and Charis).  She's been begging to go to the aquarium in Denver ever since we moved here.  It's definitely not the best aquarium we've ever been too (we are a mile high and no where near the ocean), more like an attraction that includes an aquarium.  But we still had lots of fun!  And it was nice to spend time with just Eden, talking and listening and connecting a little more than we usually can when the whole family is together.

First stop, the bubble by the ticket counter:

Inside the aquarium:

That's one BIG fish!

There were a few of these 'bubbles' where you could crawl under the aquarium and look through the dome a that the fish all around

Charis had a good time too!

Then there was the area that had lots of different attractions, Eden choose face painting...

and feeding the stingrays....

Of course, we had to take pictures in the shark tank survivor suit! 

The last stop was Yogi Bear's Wild Ride 4D Ride.  Just Scott and Eden went, I took Charis back to car to feed her before we headed to lunch at IKEA (Eden's choice).

Waiting for their turn on the 4D ride

Then we headed home and had dinner, cake, and presents with our neighbors the Meinholds.  They were also the ones who watched the boys for us so we could have this special date with Eden.  Thanks Meinholds!

A few pictures and memories from June

Andrew and Jacob came up with some fun games.  This was a 'train':

Eden did some fund science experiments:

Jacob and Andrew got their annual summer buzz:

Charis got bigger (a little, anyway) and started showing us more of her personality:

We made a fun card for Father's Day (thank you Pinterest for the idea):

We went to Star Wars Day at SkySox Stadium: