Apr. 1-16, 2011: A Variety of Spring Activities

Our ward holds an open pinewood derby every year and invites anyone and everyone to make a car to race. So Rohan made a penguin, Xander made a Lego car, and Jaden made a mouse.

Jaden was very excited to race his car and watched every minute of the races. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed seeing all of the different designs and started getting ideas for next year!

Jacque spent most of the time on the other side of the track sitting with Austin and Rachael. So I was making faces at her and trying to get her to laugh at me.

Jacque is a very curious child, which translated means that she is always getting into things that she shouldn't. This picture makes me laugh because she has been caught in the act and has that, "uh, oh" look.

Xander is helping her practice walking. She is now taking a few steps by herself and it's one of her favorite things to do. She will be running in no time!

Xander had a fun project in school where he needed to use natural materials to decorate his picture of a miner. He used jeans for the overalls, elastic for the suspenders, a real feather in the cap that was made from small pieces of leather, rafia for the beard, aluminum for the pick ax, and a few golden pebbles at the bottom. It was fun helping him put it all together and he did a great job!

It's been difficult lately to go watch any of Budge's soccer games so we decided to go watch one of the playoff games.

This is all four kids watching their Dad play soccer. It was so action packed that it kept their rapt attention!

Oh, wait. Maybe they were watching the gopher pop his head out of his hole, and then duck back in. Or maybe it was a little of both...

One of my Webelos Scouts has turned 11 and is moving on to the next stage of scouts. So this week we celebrated his birthday with him and said our farewells. Pretty soon it will be Xander that will be moving on. It seems like it has gone by so fast!

Mar. 27-31, 2011: Food, Photos, Track, and Cars

So I am not the best at cooking and baking on a consistent basis. But I have a friend who has a cooking blog and she posts new recipes all the time. I was reading through some of these recipes and I was inspired. So I cooked. And baked. And had to take a picture to prove it.

And unfortunately, I once again proved why I dont do this very often. Everyone was salivating over how this s'mores dessert looked. But when we tried it, it was awful. I somehow misred the measurements for the salt and it was pretty much inedible. Darn it!

We were in the car this week waiting at the school to pick up Rohan. Jaden's good friend Liberty was with us and they wanted to take pictures with my camera. So Jaden took a picture of Jacque.

Then Liberty took her turn and took a picture of Jaden. Such a cutie! (Even with the road rash on this forehead.) Then Liberty posed for Jaden to take her picture.

And after several rounds of taking turns, I finally convinced them to let me take one. I love these two kids!

Xander was in the school track meet this year. He ran the 50 yard dash and he ran hard. Because of his December birthday, he ran with mostly 5th graders. He was a little disappointed with his placement but there's always next year!

He also tried the long jump and did fairly well. It took him a couple of times to get the foot placement and not step over the line, but he picked it up fairly quickly!

It was over 100 degrees outside and by the end, poor Jacque had had enough. But Jaden tried hard to keep her happy and entertained while we watched Xander compete.

The scouts had their Pinewood Derby this week. Xander's car was fun to make but was a little spoartic on how fast it was. Sometimes it would lag behind and then it would be ahead of the pack.

But all in all, we had a great time! He won the Most Creative Award for his lego-themed car.

I was driving earlier this week when I saw this awesome huge cloud and it was moving quite quickly. It reminded me of home so I had to stop and take a picture. Smelling rain in the air...

This is the first picture I've taken of a monkey's wedding that actually turned out. A monkey's wedding is when it rains while the sun is shining. Our neighbors at BYU who were from South Africa used this term and I have used it ever since.

And when the storm was over, there was an amazing rainbow that I could see right out of my front window. So beautiful!

Jaden, Jacque and I met Daddy for lunch today at Jaden's favorite place... Burger King. Not so much for the food, but the indoor playroom.

And Daddy was in a very goofy mood, but it was making Jaden laugh!

We had a surprise visit from Kris and Melissa and kids today! They stopped for a little lunch and to rest before getting on the road again. The cousins had so much fun playing together! Little Lucy was so cute playing the toy piano.

And Halley and Josie helped the boys build a train track. It was way to short, but so much fun!

Rohan earned Wrangler of the Month! I know. He looks so excited. Actually, he was, but he hates to have his picture taken so he refused to look at me and definitely refused to smile. Silly boy! But so proud of him!

Mar. 13-19, 2011: Busy, Busy, Busy

This week has been extra busy. Or maybe it just felt that way because of Daylight Savings. But to celebrate the first day of more hours of sunlight, we took a family bike ride. Well, almost all of us. I pushed Jacque in her stroller and walked next to the bikers.

I also spent the week baking more than I usually do in preparation for our Green Day Picnic. I made these white chocolate covered shamrock pretzels. They were so fun!

I also finally attempted to make cinnamon rolls for the first time and they ended up being very yummy! I topped them with green frosting to stick with our green theme.

Jaden had a busy week at preschool this week. They are talking about people in the community and they had a police officer visit and bring one of the K-9 dogs. Then they had a fireman come with a fire truck and each kid got to hold the hose while water sprayed out of it! He said that he wanted to do that again sometime!

This week for scouts, my awesome partner Sarah, talked to the boys about growing up in Indonesia. She taught them some words, a song, and a couple of games.

Rohan liked the game of Congklak so much, that I may ask her to get one for him when she is there this summer. She also made some amazing treats and dishes from Indonesia. It was a great activity!

This was later in the week when I needed a break from making dinner so Budge brought home some Panda Express. He always uses chopsticks when he eats food from there so all of the boys decided that they wanted to eat with chopsticks, too.

This week, Jacque has been practicing standing by herself without holding on to anything. She is up to about 10 seconds now. She has really good balance!

Rohan and Jaden decided that they wanted to wear hats all weekend but Jaden insisted on wearing his backwards. So when I said I wanted to take a picture of them, he made Rohan turn his around backwards, too! I love those boys!

Mar. 17, 2011: Happy Green Day!

We started our day with green pancakes. Rohan didn't think they were green enough and Jaden was a little hesitant about how green they were. He wasn't sure if he wanted to eat them. Jacque on the other hand, quickly ate three mini ones.

Then we had our 4th Annual Green Day Picnic. It took a little bit of rearranging to get everyone there, but we pulled it off! And we had several new friends join us this year! It's always so much fun!

Rohan was worried about getting his hands sticky from the green cinnamon rolls so he decided that this was the best way to eat it.

Jacque got to try her first pickle. This was the sour face she made after the first time she put it in her mouth. But then she sucked on it for quite a while so she must have liked it!

Here is Jaden with his best friend, Liberty. They were having a contest to see who could swing the highest.

Here's the whole crew of little leprechauns. Such a pretty green backdrop! :-)

By the end of the picnic, Jacque had crashed and she looked so peaceful that I did the same when we got home. What a fun day!