Pine Wood Derby...Vroom...Vroom...

Nick picked a race car design. Greg went to work with the coping saw. It was a little more difficult that we originally thought, but we made it work. Lot's of sanding...
Then Nick picked a paint design that he wanted. I think it turned out great!
The derby was Friday, March 4th. The pack served pizza, salad, and drinks.
William spent the whole night driving around with his car... He had a good time!
Line up for one of the races. Nick raced two times for placing. He received second, and a fourth.
Watching the race closely to see if he was going to win. It's a little disappointing to see your kids upset when they don't win.
Nick and his participation ribbon. He's all smiles now...
Our den's Cars... I think everyone did a great job!
Den 1 Boys and their cars...

Nick Playing Basketball

This was Nicholas' first year playing basketball. He played through Bethel Recreation.

His coach had prior experience in coaching witch is always a plus... He helped the kids learn and progress a lot in the short season. It was a whole month... We had two practices and 6 games.
The team making silly faces on picture day!
I was surprised how well he dribbled considering we've never actually played except in the driveway. Through out the season he made 3 baskets. The team in action...

Caught a decent picture as he was coming off the court for half-time...

Playing defense... It took him a few games to catch on, but he eventually got it.
And offense... He was good at getting open and wanting others to pass. However, when he had the ball there was no way he was going to pass. He was going for the shot. It made it a little easier because first graders weren't allowed to steal the ball except when passing.

It's Starting to Feel Like Christmas!

Christmas Crafts Are on Their Way...

We went to the Twiddy's house on Tuesday to make GINGER BREAD HOUSES. It was a lot of fun. I think William had the most yard decorations....Oh, no a Christmas Hoarder! I'm in trouble now!!
I was amazed at how much fun Hailey had... I didn't think that she would really be that interested, but boy was I wrong! She wanted to put every piece of candy that was in her bowl on her house or in the yard.
I didn't have my camera with me, so I had to result to my camera phone which takes horrible pictures. Any movement....And you will end up with a Blurry Picture. Hmmm....I did manage to get a few that weren't too blurry. Nicholas Did his after school a few days later...I wasn't going to get away with the little kids doing something fun with out him getting to do it too... Thanks Ladies! I had a great time too getting to spend time with my friends! The kids seemed to get a long pretty well and stayed out of trouble until they decided to jump on the bed...

Its off to the pumpkin patch we go...

How Could We Not Do The Wallup in Puyallup?

In one of the exhibit halls this year they had leather working that the kids could try. They each made a leather patch. Nick picked a wolf and William picked a monster truck of coarse. It's fun to see all of the collections and talent that people have. One of my favorite exhibit halls is where the photography is, but we didn't go through this year.
There was a really cool Astronomy collection. If we didn't have three kids I think I would have taken a little more time to look. They had a large telescope that the kids looked in; when they looked inside they saw themselves. The owner of the collection said something like who is that monster? Making a joke of sorts when the kids looked in.
We didn't eat lunch as we had planned on eating all the yummy fair food. This year we had corn on the cob..........smothered in butter. Mmmm.... Ice cream and candy apples among other things.
We bought tickets for the kids. The boys each picked two rides and Hailey wasn't really big enough to ride, but they let me(I didn't even have to pay for it). That made me smile... I didn't want to have to deal with a toddler who wanted to ride, but couldn't. Nick choose to do the Big Slide and a Roller coaser...That's my boy! I love roller coasters and I can't wait until he is big enough to ride with me.
William chose the cars and an air-plain ride that went up and down.
All in all we had a pretty good day.
Nick was being a good brother and made sure that Hailey stayed out of trouble when she wasn't in the stroller. I thought this was just too cute not to post. She wanted to walk most of the way. William on the other hand, we practically had to force him to walk. I think we kept him in the double stroller a little too long and it made him lazy.
Hailey was all smiles...
We also saw giant pumpkin carvings...Amazing art! I'm curious what they carved these 2 ton pumpkins with...

Back to School...1st Grade!

On the first day of school Nick was anxious to get out the door to the bus...He was super excited about going to first grade. At the end of kindergarden he said"three months until first grade, I can handle that." He handled it alright. Now he talks about second grade and he isn't even a quarter of the way through 1st grade.

Nicholas with some of his friends Dylan and Kden on the first day waiting for the bus to come.
Nick rode the bus to school, but I followed to walk him to his classroom. After all it was the first day of real school... I know he didn't need me to. It is more apparent everyday how independent he really is. I just wanted to share that day with him. I'm having a hard time letting go. So is William...But it is so cute how both Hailey and William want to go to the bus stop to get Nick. Sometimes they are reminding me before it is even time to head out the door.

Eat those greens...

Here are some of the goodies that came out of our garden this year. We also had strawberries although not too many this year. We also had pea snaps...But they disappeared as fast as they were ready! Those are my favorite!! I was kind of disappointed that we didn't have more because it looked like we were going to have way too many. I think we had six full squares full... We attempted cauliflower, green beans, bell peppers, pumpkins, watermelon, corn and a few others. Early on we had a frost that wiped out some of the plants. We had to replant... Then we had a bad case of slugs. We didn't know that we had them for quite some time. We just thought the new plants weren't growing. One night after dark we headed out with a flash light and a container of salt... We took them by surprise! I thought we had a few here or there, but when the light hit they were everywhere. It was kind of fun... I felt like I was defending our garden against evil forces. Ha, ha. Kind of corney I know... We hit them with the salt and the top layer of skin seemed to melt off and you could see a slimy substance left behind. Part of me felt sad that we were killing these things, but they were sabotaging our veggies...