Jordan raced in his first ever Pinewood Derby with his Cub Scout pack last night. He missed the top 8 finalists by just a little, but he was definitely proud of his Batmobile. He came in 1st on one of his four runs. That was a pretty exciting moment!! One of his best buddies won 2nd place overall! It was really fun to be invested in the competition with him to the very end.

Does it come in Black?

As the years go by, our lists of firsts gets longer and longer. This week we added two items.


1) I used a weed-whacker for the first time. This was always my sister's job when we were the lawn guys growing up. This is my third summer with a yard to take care of and it is high time I figured out how. (Brett did all of the hard work the first summer and then hired it out for me the next -- he decided that it was worth the cost since it meant he could breath adequately without the exposure to all of those allergens. I decided I wanted to make money for our family this year by eliminating the lawn-guy bill and I hope that no one was watching out the window as I attempted to figure out how that stupid piece of machinery works.) I made it through almost 2/3 of the job before my arms started shaking with fatigue under the weight of it. It seems like it has "lite" somewhere in its name -- I don't believe that! I'm going to develop some muscles over the next many weeks.

2) Jordan and his dad are working on his very first pinewood derby car. Jordan is pretty thrilled with it so far. We will be spending the weekend painting it, getting the wheels on, and weighting it just right so he can race it on Tuesday. It might not be fast, but it will be cool!

In Disquise. . .

It has been so long since I've posted, that I'm afraid to show my face. . .

No . . . not really. The truth is that Brett and I flew to Denver recently to visit some great friends and were able to attend a masquerade ball that they put on while we were there. At first, we were a bit apprehensive about showing up in such a get-up, but my sister hit me with her motto -- "Go big, or go home!" -- so we had some fun with it. I'm posting pictures so she can see that I have taken some advice that she's offered.

The party planners.

I've promised myself that I would sit down during this spring break week and catch up on my blogging. So, stay tuned . . .

Don't let it go to "waist."

My boys have yet to figure out that I am always the one to eat the heel of the bread, whatever variety it is, whether it is my first choice or not, because otherwise it will go to waste and there might not be enough of the non-crust pieces for the men in my house. They simply think that I like the dry, crusty ends. They started calling this part of the bread the "butt" and we can't seem to ditch that lingo. So, often at our dinner table you hear something like, "Mom gets the butt!" or "Here's the butt, Mom!" or "Mom wants the butt!" It's so glorifying.

Today the boys came home from school to banana bread very nearly out of the oven. When it was finally cool enough to eat, I started slicing it -- at the end, of course -- and Kade said, "That part's for you, Mom. I don't like the butt. I want the waist! That part is yummier."

I'm not so sure that the correct term for a middle slice of bread is the "waist", but that is probably quite accurately the part of a person where a thick slice will eventually find itself.

PS The "butt" was pretty yummy too, and we won't discuss where it now resides.

Ba-hum-bug!

We recently returned home from a great trip to Idaho for the Thanksgiving holiday, where everything was dusted with snow. A few days ago, Jordan was lamenting the quick passing of our trip and expressing his distaste of our mild winter climate. He is quite worried that we are headed for a brown Christmas and blurted out in great frustration, "When is it ever going to snow?!?!"

I answered, "I hope never!"

His reply? "Oh, yeah! 'Cause you're the Grinch!!"