Tracks

The littles have been grounded from screens.  Sometimes one of the brothers says "vic-tory for me, vic-tory for me, VIC-tory for ME!" in an annoying chant when they win at a game, a Nerf fight, or anything in general.  That victory chant seems to instantly make the other so angry that all sense flies out the door and things will be thrown (objects and punches).  When things happen like this, all screens are taken away for a while.  

Besides dealing with the aftermath of the fight, I am always happy when that happens because suddenly the old toys are super cool.

Even though Jake wasn't involved in the altercation that resulted in less screen time, he was still a gem and helped the boys set things up.  This particular track has been a hit at our house.  Jake got it for Christmas when he was 4 or 5 and it's still running strong!

Lemon Juice

I was helping Jake with math (a rare occurrence these days, thankfully).  

Jason was thirsty and rummaging around in the fridge.  He asked for some lemon juice.  Jake told him not to drink that because it wasn't lemonade and that it was gross.  I reassured Jake that Jason knew what he was doing.  He gets into the lemon juice all the time.  Jake was pretty horrified when Jason took a big swig straight from the bottle.  He said "Ew!  That's the public supply!"  

I laughed and laughed over that.  

I guess it's not the public supply anymore.  It's just Jason's.  

Adventures!

On Saturday, Mike took Jake snowmobiling and Allie went skiing.  So, I had the littles at home with me.  They decided to go out on an adventure.  I came out to walk Charlie and found them having a great time.  My bigs used to do stuff like this every day, but the littles haven't.  I think they had a great time though, so they'll be happy to do it again.

 It's awesome to be able to jump off of something so high and have a soft landing...

When Jake and Mike came home, I got pictures from them.  There were two.  I guess I shouldn't expect dozens.  They had a good time though and Mike said Jake rode well.  He's getting old enough to be a real snowmobiling buddy.  It's so crazy!
They got above the inversion and said it was beautiful up there. 

Mentors

I had a meeting on Sunday morning and Nathan had a talk.  I asked Jake if he'd help Nate write his talk and he said he would.  He was supposed to mentor a younger scout for his advancement for his Eagle, so we thought at first that this would work for that, but it turns out he needed to do a bit more than that.  He still helped Nate with the talk though and it ended up being a great talk.

As I left one room of kids working together, I came into another room of kids working together.  It makes my heart so happy.  Allie knew how much Jason has been into art lately and she decided to give her crayon kit to him.  He loves it and she sat down to color with him making things even more amazing for Jason.  He's pretty easy to please when you spend time with him.

Every day, he says "I am so glad that Allie gave this to me!  She is the best sister ever."

These kids have always worked pretty well pared up like this.  I've decided to turn a little more responsibility of the Come Follow Me program over to the bigs.  If they can partner up with one little each, then maybe they can present something to the rest of the family.  I'll let you know how that turns out.
Anyway, yay for kids that are getting along!

You'll love Allie...

...she's an artist.

Remember that from Toy Story 2?  Only, it was Amy, not Allie.  

Things were pretty quiet downstairs, so I peeked in on Allie and Lily in Allie's room.  They were playing with Barbies. 

I've been lamenting that Allie seems to get older and older and the days of creating in her room have been few and far between, so I thought this was awesome.  Little did I know...

...they were creating masterpieces.

Beauty school/fashion design...here they come!

Conversation on the Couch

Jason and I were on the couch watching tv.  He was having a hard time falling asleep, so I let him stay up with me for a minute.  This is the conversation we had...

Jason: Mom, how does the remote work?

Me:  I don't know.  How do you think?

Jason:  I think it's from batteries.

Me:  It does have batteries.

Jason:  I think they took lightning and trapped it in the batteries.  Because isn't lightening energy?
Lightning is energy and it can power anything that needs to be charged.

Me:  Well, that is smart thinking!

Jason:  I know a little bit about science.

Me: Oh really? (laughing)

Jason:  I actually do.

Derby Day

As soon as Nathan walked in the door from school, he was asking Mike about what kind of progress had been made on the car.    

Mike ended up taking both boys out into the garage to melt down the lead and grind things down smooth.  It was quite a project.

Jake brought his old derby cars out and let Jason drive one too.  The brothers had a few races before the event.  Jake's car is still pretty fast!

Nate was totally proud of his Greenbay car.

Then, there was the real car.  Mike helped Nate build a car that he could keep forever, but then they also built a car to race.  We borrowed stuff from the cousins (who haven't ever lost) and they made a pretty fast car.  In fact, it was almost embarrassing how fast it was.

Nate didn't lose a heat with that car and he took first place over all.

I guess it's a pretty exciting introduction to scouts!
There's only one other boy in our ward that's still in cub scouts, so we are combined with another ward.  They had an awesome set up with computer keeping track of all the heats.  They each got to race 11 times and they were all so happy with their cars.  It was such a fun night.

Way to go Mike! (and Nate :))

Winner, winner, goldfish dinner...

Preparing for the Derby

We got a call on Tuesday night with an invite for Nathan to go to the Pinewood derby for cub scouts on Thursday night.  He was so excited.  Mike was out of town, but would be home on Wednesday night, so we hoped we'd be able to get things going.  On Wednesday night, I took Jason to karate (that's a whole post on its own).  I kept getting texts from home..."where is our paint?"  "what pan can I use to melt our lead in?"  I finally scooped Jason up and we hurried home before Mike could ruin one of my good pans melting down lead.

The derby prep was in full swing.

I found a can for Mike to melt the lead in and Nathan was busily painting his car Packers green.

Things are going to be awesome at the derby.  I just know it.

The Bigs

The gap between the bigs and the littles seems to be getting bigger all the time.  Now that both kids are in mutual, it leaves me and the littles home when they go off for activities.  It's a good thing.  I'm glad they get to have experiences together, but it's so crazy to think how fast they are growing up.

I took these pictures as they were headed out to Stake Standards Night.  Mike was out of town, so they went together and sat next to each other, just the two of them.  They aren't really the best of friends.  Jake pretty much drives Allie crazy and Allie is pretty intolerant of Jake.  So, it's rare for them to be happily sitting next to each other.  I was glad that they did though.  They can fight as much as they want, but I hope they'll always have each other's backs.

Also, poor Charlie can be the coziest of cozy, but when it's time for anyone to leave the house, they always go and roust him for a goodbye hug.  It drives me bonkers.  Just leave the poor guy alone!  I guess he is always patient with them and never really seems to mind, so I'm sure nothing will ever change.  He's good to put up with all the "love" he seems to attract from all the kids, big and little.

Greaser

Jason decided he wants a mo-hawk.  He did his own hair and came down to show me.  He told me he wants to do it like this all the time.  I was cracking up because in his jeans and white t-shirt, he looked like a greaser.  I told him we did and then we tried to get a picture of him flexing.

One thing lead to another and next thing we know, Jason's got his shirt off trying to see if he could flex a "nine pack".
Allie was trying to teach him to flex his abs, so she said "push like you're going to poop, but don't actually poop".
I looked at her like she was crazy, but Jason said "ok", so I got ready for the picture.
Next thing we know, Jason said "uh-oh" and ran for the bathroom.  Allie and I were laughing so hard we could barely stand.  I asked if he had actually pooped his pants and he said "nope...close though!"
That kid cracks me up.  I guess he's a greaser...in the greasing your shorts kind of way...

Hard Earned Cash

Jake has always really liked the swing in Allie's room.  He finally decided to open up his wallet and buy one for himself.  He talked Mike into letting him drill a hole in the ceiling and then proceeded to nag him about it until the hardware was placed.  Mike was going to be out of town on the promised Amazon delivery date and Jake didn't want any down time waiting for installation, so we made it a priority on Monday night.  By the time the swing arrived, all he had to do was hook it on.  

It's a favorite hang out spot for him now.

I guess we can thank some hedgehog sales for the new swing.  :)

New Pictures

Jake never really liked our last family pictures.  He continued to ask when we could replace them.  I meant to do it when we still had green grass and blue skies, but you know how things like that sometimes go...  

We did finally make it out there for pictures though and I think they turned out great.  

   

We brought Charlie.  Mike tried to argue that he didn't think Charlie belonged.  "We never brought the fish or hedgehogs".  He was probably just teasing us, but we were all looking forward to adding Charlie to our family pictures, so Mike was out voted.
Charlie did great!

I can't even believe these kids are mine.  They are the cutest kids ever!

There were no meltdowns.  We were only out there for a half hour.  It was just really easy. 

The side story is that when we were done with the pictures, I decided to get a picture with Mike.  That meant that the kids were on their own.  The frozen over river was calling their names, so they were playing on it.  Heather snapped a picture just as Jake fell through the ice.  It makes me laugh so hard to see our reaction to the loud crack...

 Dork.

Yummy Carrots

When we were staying at our neighbor's cabin, Charlie kept coming up with carrots.  Allie had left an open bag up in the room she was staying in and he had sniffed them out.  Every few hours, we'd see him in the corner munching a carrot.  I worried that it would be bad for him, but everyone assured me that dogs like carrots and that they are good for them.  One of my friends said she buys the big carrots and tosses them to her dog to chew on like a bone.  

Since Charlie likes them so much, I decided to do the same thing.

 All the boys like carrots.

It took Charlie a few hours, but he ate the whole thing.  I can't believe the glutton of that boy sometimes.  I swear, that carrot has to be bigger than his whole stomach!

Anyway, as for a story about Jason, he likes to say "yummy cay-rots".  We were watching an episode of AFV and the dad in one of the clips was mispronouncing carrot and every time he would, his kid would run over and correct him.  For some reason, it struck Jason as particularly funny and he's been doing it for us ever since.  So, for him, carrots will probably always be pronounced as "yummy cayrots". 

Basket-Ball Boy

Nathan wants to be a professional athlete.  He thinks he'll go pro with football, but he's going to be happy with any pro sport :).

For now, he's playing for the City team.

He made a two point shot and was pretty excited about that.

He can hustle, that's for sure.  He runs up and down the court like he could never run out of energy.  That's certainly going to make him valuable to the pro scouts!