PWD 2012

Last night was our Pinewood Derby. I was the coordinator this year. Personally, I think that is a great job for the committee chair (we do have 3) or the cubmasters (we have 3 plus an assistant) but I have been to some great PWD's (thanks to Julie H and Vanessa C) and I really wanted the night to go off smoothly. After I had been reconized I turned to a friend and said jokingly, 'This derby was really all about me and not about the boys racing!' Well, I did try to go all out, and I think it was a success with the help I received.

You can't see it, but on the left of this image was our pitstop. I made a covered stand with red/white fabric and PVC pipe. We got popcorn donated by Cinemark and had water to drink. Free refreshments! We did have twinkie cars at the end of the evening.

After using this completely automated track, I don't see how you could possibly do it any other way. It was fair with no partiality to the line judging.

Our Alex came in 4th or fth place overall. Here he is in the winner's circle. I'm not sure why we didn't take pictures of the car itself.

At our weigh-in on Tuesday a dad said to me, 'You must either really love boys or love serving the Lord. How else can you handle with all this noise and chaos?' Huh, little did he know that having a parent to every boy equals zero chaos for me, and I can handle noise as long as I am not driving. And I do love boys and I suppose if I love serving them, then I am serving the Lord, so it is a win win for me!  But I am hoping that by the time Ryan is racing I'll be able to sit on the sidelines and watch for a change...

Spring Break

The Bolts first victory came the Tuesday before Spring Break.

Macey has been working on her potty training. She is earning Squinkies for filling up her potty charts. I think Ryan wanted me to make one for him, but I reminded him that he has a lightsaber that he earned when he was 2.5.

We went to AR for a few days. Dan couldn't go with us because he didn't have enough vacation time. So I drove the kids up alone. It might have been just fine, but sister was in a funk and cried the day before, the entire trip, and the day after.
It was my Mom's birthday. Here is her Harry Potter cake.

My brother and his wife are in the background.

We stayed with my uncle and his family. Here is Leslie trying to keep Macey from crying.

The boys in the media garage.

On the Monday we loaded up in the car and headed to the University of Arkansas. You can see from the following pictures how excited the children were to go.

Here is my name etched in the sidewalk. I'm sure I've posted this before, but it is always reassuring to know that I really did go to college and that I had my own identity at one time that wasn't attached to someone else. (Not that I mind being Dan's wife or Alex's mom. I love it actually, but once I was going to be an architect. This is a part of me that I don't want to forget as my goals have moved on and now I'm a wife, mother, handywoman, housekeeper, cub scout leader, chef, etc. all for my family.)

My good uncle is also etched here out in the Old Main front lawn. A beautiful place to be immortalized!

On Old Main's steps.

Here we are at Wilson Park in Fayetteville.

The boys played in the creek. Oh, they would have been happy to stay here all day.

And Macey played at the park. She was saying to Ryan, "Ryan, don't go down there. You are going to get all wet." She was really worried. I have been concerned that my children are parenting each other and constantly remind them that their siblings already have two parents, but I think I'm going to change tactics. I think I'm going to encourage their parenting of each other so that they can learn about positive parenting and so that they can see what tactics work and don't work.

Mike and the boys went to a Military and Air museum. Alex took 150 pictures. I only kept these ones. I think he wanted to record it all for me, which was sweet but unnecessary!

Macey being very fashionable.

And as a parting farewell to Spring Break, Dan took Alex and our friend Andrew to an FC Dallas game. I hear it was a good time.

I think it was a good spring break. Certainly I could have done without the crying (Macey), the coughing (Alex), and the complaining (Ryan from the third row of the car on a 6 hour drive and for the few minutes sister was NOT crying, 'I'm sick. Listening to Dora makes me want to puke. Turn it off!') Perhaps our next vacation will be more relaxing; oh wait, it will be because I won't have any children with me! Aloha!

Wrong Bug

I took Macey and Ryan to the park this evening. Ryan was telling sister all the sports that can be played at this particular park. "You can play soccer, baseball, football, and cockroach." Huh, well, I'm not sure that crickets look like cockroaches, but certainly in Ryan's mind they look enough alike to have the same label. I'm wondering if he had actually seen a cricket match if he would have said, 'painting,' since the players all wear white like house painters.

Nine!

Alex turned 9 last week. On his birthday (Tuesday) he had school, scouts, and a soccer game. Not much time to celebrate, but he did have a yummy breakfast, Braum's for lunch (I watched him eat it while he played with his friend), and a few presents.

This year I suggested a party out of the house. We always plan for a sports party and most years it is too cold and we end up having too many kids in our house! And it was freezing the night of this year's party (Friday), so I was wise to plan for one inside.
We let him choose between a sports party at the park (with the alternative playing soccer in the church gym if the weather was bad) or a party at a fun place. The catch was that a cheap party = more presents, pricey party = zero presents. Alex had no big ticket items that he could think of (saved again from buying the latest Nintendo handheld!) so he went with the amazing indoor party.
We went to a great place that was all indoors. The boys (no girls again this year) had unlimited access to go carts (if they were tall enough), bumper cars, rock wall, mini golf, or lazer tag.  There was a buffet and our party host brought the boys any kind of pizza or soda that they wanted. We had 10 kids (including our own) and it went very well. I made sure Alex shared his time with each friend. The boys all got to take home prizes from the toy counter and Alex got lots of toys that he has really enjoyed. Ah, he got to build 4 lego sets in one day. Bliss for that young man!
One great thing about Alex is his great friends. He always finds the nicest kids to befriend. All of their parents we like too. It truly is fun to get these kids together and to see their parents too. It is funny that this still new kid has good friends from school, church, scouts, and soccer. Those boys all get along together. I'm proud of my Alex and love him so much!

Elmo Live

Macey and I went to the other side of the moon (or the metroplex) to watch Elmo Live: Elmo Makes music. I only missed one of the 3 interstate exchanges on the way down and no mishaps on the way back!

Sister was looking her best this morning. Glitter in her hair, and a new hair bow I made this morning and her Elmo slippers? I brought her boots 'just in case' and she didn't notice after the hour drive that I switched them.

It was advertized that there was a playroom for before the show. More correctly there were many photo ops that you could touch for 30 seconds after standing in not-so-short lines.

Our 30 seconds with Elmo... Hmm, well there were other disappointing things (like $15 parking) that I should have expected. Needless to say, we won't be making this drive again for any other shows; however, we did have a nice outing and I'm glad that we went.

A live performance does beat out TV. We danced and sang and had a good time.

Our pricey popcorn that we got at intermission.

A beautiful Sesame Street girl!