Sam's Arrow of Light

When Sam earned his Weblos they told me that he wouldn't have time to earn his Arrow of Light.  I looked at the requirements and he had earned everything he needed except for one or two things.  He spent twenty minutes on it and he was done.   Then he ehleped his friend, Logan do the last two requirements to get his Weblos before the end of our involvement in the Scouting program.

Jeremy's birthday

Since Jeremy's birthday was super busy, he made his own buttermilk pancakes, sent Evelyn off to dance and Sam to his last pack meeting where he received his Arrow of Light.  My sister, Janelle picked up Evelyn for me..... I'm so glad to have Jer. I love him so much. I'm so proud of Sam and all the work he puts in.

The two hardest things for me in life are being organized and asking for help. The last month I've had to do both, but it's still working out okay.  It's good to be humbled and to go through adjustments.

Goings on

Sam is apparently teaching Seth how to play chess... it's so cute.  It's funny when Seth doesn't know what to do next so Sam tells him where to move.

Raking leaves at Grandma and Grandpa Robertson's house.

Sam got his Weblos before the end of the year.... Next month he's scheduled to get his Arrow of Light.  I'm glad that he had so much fun in Boy Scouts.  I'm also glad they are switching to a program with a whole lot less things to buy.

I accompanied Evelyn on her field trip to the Curiosity Museum.  Deanna, the aide/crossing guard is super tall and told the kids that she could jump and reach the top of the thing that measures how high you can jump.  By jove, she did.

Ada's favorite subjects are Art and Science. Their class got to dissect owl pellets.  Gross, but she was in heaven.

Sam getting his Weblos.

Appropriate

I inherited my Grandma Wilcox's quilting frame.  I hadn't used it until this week.  I think it's very appropriate that the first time I use it is to help a friend whose son was getting his Eagle.  Grandma would very much love the fact that it was for scouting and for a neighborhood friend. 

Earlier this week

So this happened this week too.... Evelyn, who has had the ability to ride a two wheeled bike but has been too scared to decided that she was no longer scared.  She's been going everywhere on her bike and it's adorable.  Most of the time when she's out there, so is Seth who is using Evelyn's old bike with training wheels on it.  So much fun.

For our YW's activity, we borrowed a golf cart and had a 'driving school' complete with obstacles and parking challenges.  It was fun and we had one of our very anxious YW come for the first time because they had wanted to drive the golf cart.  They brought their mom with them and I think it went okay.

Brickslopes came to Utah last weekend too.  The kids didn't want to go originally, but I wanted them off the computer for a while so we went anyways.  They had a blast and wished that we had more time to play.  Because it was May 4th, they had a Star Wars theme.  not only were there characters, but they had almost every Star Wars lego set ever made on display.  That was fun.

Evelyn was the only one brave enough to take a picture with these guys.... so the guy gave her his blaster for the picture.

My sister and brother in law gave me a gift card to Home Depot as a thank  you for taking pictures for them... so I picked out and Jer replace the leaking kitchen faucet.  I like it and it works well. 

Our neighbors are Samoan.  We don't know them very well because we always have conflicting schedules, but we've taken them bread before and lent our lawn mower in the past.  They were making Samoan pancakes and gave us some too.  SOOOOOO good.... like donuts.  They're not too hard to make either.  If they weren't fried, I'd want to make them all the time.

Ada has decided that her favorite part of salads is the red cabbage, so I bought a whole red cabbage and that was our veggie for dinner.  They thought that was pretty funny.

It's been pretty windy, so Seth and Evelyn went to fly their 'kites'.  Of course you need to fly kites on bikes.... it's just not the same otherwise.

This is Ada' team.  There are supposed to be 9, but only 6-7 come each game.  It makes it a challenge for the whole team, but each of them are such good girls.  Several of them have been on the same team for a couple of years and several are making plans to sign up again together next year.  

Sam had his pinewood derby this week.  We forgot about it until the night before, so we decided to make a very easy car.  Sam decided on a bathtub.  Jer cut it, Sam painted it, and I added the bubbles with a hot glue gun.  It didn't win anything, but they gave Sam the Rub a dub dub award.  Jer and I laughed about that and Sam had no idea what they were talking about.... which made us laugh even harder.

This week Ada also participated in the highly anticipated Hope of America program.  She's been singing the songs and practicing actions for months now.  She loved being part of it, Sam said he'd be terrified to sing in front of that many people (then continues to belt out the Star Spangled Banner), Seth and Evelyn said it was too loud but loved dancing and singing in the bleachers.  For me it was an all day deal.  I had to get her there by 9 am, pick her up at 11 am, then wait in traffic for almost an hour to get her there on time for the actual performance.  So instead of driving back and forth all day, I dropped her off and Seth and I went to the Paleontology lab on campus.  Seth kept pointing out to me that the bones had to be glued together with plaster and that the petrified trees used to be wood but they were now stone.  Cute buddy.  And he's never scared of the bones, except for one of the giant elk heads on the wall.  Which I think is hilarious, because most dinosaurs would be more dangerous that the prehistoric elk.  After that we went to the Bean Museum and looked at animals.  Again, he was only scared of the giant fake ants in the play area.  We picked up Ada and her friend Taevia, went shopping, they made cookies at our house, went and got Ada and Sam's hair cut, got Evelyn to dance and then headed out to the Marriot Center.  Us going to the museum worked in our favor though.  When we got there for the performance, there was a baseball game at the same time and there was absolutely no parking anywhere, but I still had my parking pass from the museum, so I parked there. That gave us a shorter walk and I was 'legally' parked though it felt a little weird. 

Days like this make me so glad to be a stay at home mom.  Trying to work this all out without a parent available would have been really hard.  

Just a couple more busy weeks like this and we'll have a heavenly summer schedule.  I can't wait.  

Here's Ada's performance on YouTube.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoivSur7Ars

This week

A couple of these pictures are older and I just found them on Jer's phone.  I loved this one.  Jer and Judy took Ada to the temple together.  

Sam's blue and gold banquet was a picnic on the floor.  It was awesome.  They even had bigger pickles than Sam could eat and that's saying something.

Tuesday, my niece got home from her mission.  I'm so proud of her and the testimony that she bears.  I can't believe that she's an adult!  All these sweet family members that have gone from kid to adult are fun to see.  I love seeing the lives that Emma, Lizzie, Jacob and made for themselves.  I can't wait to see what Ruth can do!  

We've had some bad storms.   Friday morning, even though he was running a little late for work, Jer was inspired to check our roof through the crawl space.  Lo and behold... He has tried to fix the roof so many times, but the problem was something that he couldn't find.  He called our old neighbor Gonzalo Canos and he came over.  He patched it and is going to put together a bid to replace our roof.  Not something we were planning for this year, but hmmmm.

Sam and Ada

Saturday was an unsanctioned fencing tournament.  The last one we did was fairly hard for both of the kids.  This one was a lot smoother.  Ada made huge strides forward.  She never had to be reminded to stay in the strip.  She has very solid parries. She was able to get hooked up and didn't stress about any of it.  She got hit hard several times and would tear up but then would keep going.  I was very proud of her!  Sam never had a break down until he lost his last bout.  You can tell that he was happy to be winning.  He won every bout until the semi-finals.  He ended up tying for 3rd place.

This is my very favorite picture of Ada ever.  Thanks Jer for that!

Jer was amazing.  He got the kids up and there early to get ready.  He helped them every step of the way.

Julie is pushing really hard for our kids to join the USFA so that they can get points and ratings for competitions.  I was purposefully keeping the kids out of both because of the time and money involved.  After Sam doing so well at this one he might want to push competing.  I'll watch him over the next few weeks and see how motivated he is in practice.  

After the competition, we drove up to Sharon and Brad's house.  They'd taken Emma to the temple to do baptisms for the first time for both her and for Brad.  Brad got to baptize Emma.  What a neat experience. 

Daylight savings time hit our kids hard this time.  Watching Seth petting Sam's hair was the cutest thing.  Ada was completely out.  

Our neighbors, the Clingers, are always thinking of the kids.  They brought Sam the Hardy boy books last week and this week they brought Evelyn the Magic Treehouse books that they had collect for their now older kids.  For 6 hours she carried the box of books around and read.  

Sunday night we had my friend, Elizabeth Cason Stott and her husband and son over for dinner and games.  It was fun to catch up with her.  She was always fun to talk to. Sam really had fun with their son, Isaac.

Happy two weeks

We've had a very happy and busy two weeks.  One of our happy things was Sam getting 4 loops and his Bear.  He sure loves Scouts.  He cried when they said they were changing programs.  I'm sure he'll learn to love the next one too.  I think more than anything, he loves spending boy time.

Evelyn had a field trip to the Children's Discovery Museum.  Seth and I got to help out.  It worked great because Seth has never been there and he loves spending time with Evelyn more than anything. 

Evelyn and her friend Donnell having a sack race.

The Kaleidoscope

Racing lego cars

I asked them what their favorite part was, and they both said the grocery store.  I think that's a popular one, it was hard to find any play foods to stock it with.

Seth also liked the new addition of a car in the shop.