It's that time of year!

Time for the Pinewood Derby!
Zachary and his dad have been working hard on his car the past few weeks. They've carved, sanded, drilled, glued (then had to saw and drill again because the glue got on a wheel!), and lubed and weighed in. We were really close to the 5 oz limit, so we glued 2 dimes onto the bottom to bring it up to 5 oz. It was so much fun to watch Zachary as his car raced. He was so excited - he really hoped his car would do well.
Here's his car on the track - ready to go!


The race begins...watching the boys was so much fun!










Here come the cars... GO! GO! GO!















So, how did we do? Really, do the results actually matter? Uh, to Zach, the answer would be YES!



He got 2nd place! (Pretty awesome, especially when you consider there were about 24 cars entered - give or take a few!)











Zach with his trophy.














And how does Zach feel about it?

Really, do we need to ask?!

The secret weapon...

We have a secret weapon in our house. It is strong enough to get the boys out of bed at 6:42 am. It causes them to get dressed, make their beds, and even brush their teeth. They find themselves powerless against the morning grumpies, and even can be found cracking a smile now and then. They are drawn to even to do a chore or two. What is this weapon?



Ahh, the power of the donut.

(sorry for the swedish chef clip, I was feeling nostalgic... :-))

Something to think about

I came across this quote last week. Maybe it's something I need to consider a little more often:

"My sink of dirty dishes means we have plenty of food. This pile of dirty laundry? Nice clothes. Those unmade beds sure were warm and comfortable last night. This finger smudged refrigerator that needs defrosting so badly? Enough leftovers for several meals. Even that slamming screen door means my kids are healthy, able to run and play. Chores? I do 'em gratefully."

A "Fort"-ifying Sunday

OK, Jordan came up with the title for this post...

Yup, it was another Sunday filled with fort building, which means another Monday of demolition! The boys love to build them, and, hey, what can I say? They worked together to make an "apartment fort" with 5 different rooms to accomodate all of them.
It did make me laugh, however, when they came up with a plan to keep Levi out of their way...

They put him in his wagon and buried him with dinosaurs.

Hey, whatever makes him happy...

Don't judge a book by its cover...

My sister Kelly introduced this video to me. You can't help but smile through tears at this Susan Boyle.

Click here to see the video from Britian's Got Talent from Saturday (April 11th).

(I tried to embed this, but the code has been disabled... bummer!)

Our Easter Weekend

A pretty good load of sugar!

Happy Easter y'all! I hope everyone had a great weekend! We sure did. We were able to go on 2 Easter egg hunts. One was at my cousin Wendy's home. She hosts one every year and my boys always walk away with a big basket full of candy!
Levi was a little clueless this year, but soon got pretty excited once he realized that there was candy in them there eggs...


After the hunt, we were treated to lunch, then a pinata! The pinata started out as a flamingo, but the head and legs were the first to go...

Zach takes a pretty good swing.

Jordan tried to power through a swing. He later got frustrated and started a swordfight, and pretty much speared the flamingo.

Caeden was so intent on getting candy out of the bird that he actually went airborne... Brady was making it tricky to hit the pinata!

After a good sugar rush, we headed home to prepare for Sunday. I had a talk and a lesson to prepare, and a few other things to do to get ready for Sunday!

Sunday morning the boys all got their baskets. The Easter bunny didn't leave eggs in the yard this year, and my boys were bummed. I figured that with the egg hunt at Wendy's home and another at Grandma and Grandpa Gilbert's home after church, we didn't need to make the bunny work harder than necessary... (besides, I'm trying to steer towards a more Christ-centered Easter, less toward a bunny and plastic egg Easter). I tried to reason with them, "You don't need 3 Easter egg hunts, do you?" I heard Caeden stomp off, muttering under his breath "Yes, we do." Yeh, I think I have a little work to do regarding our efforts towards a less sugary holiday...

After church, we headed up to Grandma and Grandpa Gilbert's home (that's Aaron's mom and stepdad) and had fun searching for eggs. Grandma and Grandpa worked really hard to hide - and I mean HIDE - eggs in their backyard. They live up on the side of the mountain, and have great pathways and bushes and trees for egg hiding.

Jordan found an egg!

Zach checks out the water wheel for eggs.


Levi and Aaron on the path.

The kids had a great time looking for eggs with their cousins, then we all enjoyed a barbeque. It was a fun weekend spent with family and friends and we hope everyone had a great Easter, too!

Happy Palm Sunday

Today at dinner time, we were talking about what we had heard during conference. One subject that came up was that it was Palm Sunday. What is Palm Sunday, the boys wanted to know. So I explained the Triumphant Entry of Christ, and how the people layed palms down in the street as Christ entered on His donkey. Zachary thought about that for a minute and asked, "So did the donkey walk on their hands?"

What?

I had to think about that one for a minute...

Then explain the difference between the palm leaves and the palms on our hands.

I love my Zachary!

Happy April Fools Day!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we've no place to go,
Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!
Oh wait, that was fun to sing back in NOVEMBER, but it's APRIL now!!! And it's not fun anymore!!! And we've got places to go, people to see, things to do!!! I think Jordan had a point this morning when he said, as we were driving to school in the blowing snow, "I guess Mother Nature pulled an April Fool's prank on us, mom."

Zach and Caeden make their way to the bus stop this morning.