Busy Week with Pinewood Derby Jan 22-28

 This was a busy week, but full of fun things.

Sunday: I have been able to go back to choir which has been so nice.  Since Doug is the financial clerk he has to stay after church which was when choir was.  But with our change of schedule choir is in the afternoon - so now I can go.  Tyler has joined me the last two times and has done well.  He has a nice voice and stays on pitch most of the time.  He sings a bit loud - but that' ok. :)

Monday: Normal school for the girls and I stayed home and got the house picked up and odds and ends done around the house.  We talked to our nephew Alex on Facetime to wish him well on his mission.  He left for Mexico on Tuesday to serve in the North Carolina Mission, Spanish speaking.

Tuesday: I went visiting teaching all morning.  I guess we like to visit since it takes 3 hours to see 2 ladies.  In the evening I helped with our Girls Night Out.  We made these service boards.  It was my brain child and I'm glad that we made them - but I am also glad that the project is over.  It was more of a pain to organize and get materials for everyone than to just make one myself.  But I think they turned out great.  - you put a pom pom in someone's bucket when you serve them.

 We had gorgeous weather this week so we had to take advantage when we could.  The girls are little monkeys and can now do the small monkey bars all by themselves.

Wednesday: I helped set up for the Pinewood Derby.  The other ward was doing theirs that night and ours was Thursday so we shared decorations.  It was great!

Thursday: I made the treats for the derby in the morning.  A friend came over to help with her 1 year old.  I forget how messy little kids can be and how much work they are.  She spent most of her time looking after him and cleaning up his mess (all over my floor and chairs).  But it was still nice to have some help and visit while we worked.  

The pinewood derby went well.  We just had a change of leadership, new cubmaster and new committee chair.  The change will be good, but transition is still hard sometimes.  Tyler did ok, about middle of the pack.  Of course he would have liked to have done better, but some of the dads spent a lot of time working on their cars and we didn't.  Tyler was proud of his design though, it painted like a football field. 

 Photo Op

 Weigh-in

 Starting line up:

 Rice Krispy treat cars, they were a big hit.

 Everyone is enjoying the magna-tiles we got at Christmas.  Chris can get pretty creative.

 Friday: Doug and Damon went on a quick camping trip with the scouts.  The weather turned cold so we were looking for all of our winter stuff - it doesn't get used that much.

Saturday: I had to take all the kids to Tyler's football game since Doug and Damon were still camping.  We bundled up and tried to stay warm.  Chris and the girls did pretty well and we were glad that the sun came out later and when the wind stopped it was much better.  Doug and Damon came up in time for Damon's game.  Both teams won this week which always makes the event more fun.  Tyler caught a pass and Damon did well with pulling flags.

Saturday evening Doug and I went to a Scout appreciation dinner.  We don't seem to fit in with that crowd exactly, but we went to support my friend who was in charge.  They had it katered by a local BBQ place and the meat was good, but there needed to have been another side.  All they had was meat, macaroni and cheese, baked beans and a slice of bread.  I was missing the coleslaw or green salad.  Anyway, it was a bit long and we were worried about the kids a bit.  We had told them we would be home by 7:30 and it ended up being 8;15 or so.  Damon is a great baby-sitter and he had the girls already in bed and the boys were in their room reading.  It's so nice having him be old enough to babysit. 

 More Magna-tiles, Damon and Tyler were making an AT-AT battle.  Damon rebuilt his big AT-AT walker set so he has been playing with it.

Back to Normal Jan 15-21

We missed Grandma and Grandpa this week, it was so fun to have them come and visit.  Monday was a holiday and we were planning on going to the Aquarium, but the weather decided to not cooperate.  So that trip is postponed.  We tried going to Pump it Up, (a bouncy house place) but I failed to check their hours before we left and read their door saying that they wouldn't be open for another 2 1/2 hours.  So we went to Good Will and bought some tennis rackets and stopped at Wendy's and bought frosty's for everyone.  We just played at home for the rest of the day and went to the park to try out our new rackets.  Our closest park just put in tennis courts and some basketball hoops.  We all did pretty well for our first time.  Everyone had fun just trying to hit the ball.  :)

School was normal for the rest of the week.  It is still a trial to get Chris out the door happy.  He usually is in pretty good spirits until I tell him it's time to get his shoes on.  Then the drama turns on and he pulls a big fit and pouts that he hates school.  Then I have my girls who are sad anytime their school is canceled.  I hope they like Kindergarten as much as they like Pre-school.  They had a field trip this week to HEB (our local grocery store).  The worker did a good job of promoting healthy eating as we toured the store.  We got to meet Spikey the lobster (the kids named him).  He was 40 years old.  Made me kind of sad to think that he made it 40 years only to end up in a grocery store, but I guess that's what happens to all of the food we eat.  Of course we ended our tour with some Buddy Bucks, the kids get to put in the play money and spin the wheel to earn a ticket.  They get so excited every time we go grocery shopping.  

I did a bunch of errands on Friday and picked up my next book group book: Dark Matter.  It's a little bit crazy for your brain.  Thinking about multi-dimensions and alternate realities.  It's good so far.  

Saturday football was canceled so it made the day less crazy.  I went to a friends to work on a GNO project we are prepping for and then went grocery shopping.  Doug played with the kids outside for quite awhile since it was such a fabulous day.  The boys played poison ball at the church for awhile and then we had dinner and played Sleeping Queens a couple of times.  I spent the later evening reading my new book. :)

A week with Grandma and Grandpa Datwyler: Jan 8-14

We had a great week with Grandma and Grandpa Datwyler here.

Sunday we had a nice church meeting, we are getting used to 9:00 church.  I like it so much better.  Chris wanted to paint his fire truck that he got for his birthday.

 Monday mom and I went shopping.  We both found some church shoes, but I ended up returning mine.  I just can never find somewhat comfortable heels.

Tuesday we went to a nearby Arboretum.  It is a fun park with different playgound equipment that also has some walking paths.  We took the short 1/2 mile stroll through the trees.  It was a beautiful day to be outside.  We finally warmed up from last week.

 That evening we hurried to the movie theater as soon as Damon got home from school.  On Tuesdays the movies are only $5.50 so we went and saw Sing.  It was pretty cute.  We were all just excited to go and grandma even treated us to popcorn!

 Wednesday the girls' preschool was canceled so grandpa was so nice to watch the girls while mom and I went shopping again.  I found some cute shirts at Ross and mom found some things too.  We had lunch at Panera.  

In the evening we went to the temple, Doug joined us too.  It was nice to enjoy that time together.  

 Thursday we took the girls to the Port of Houston.  It is a 52 mile stretch of river that was dug deep enough to let the big ships come into port - away from the coast and harder weather conditions.  Our boat  only went 6 miles out but we saw some cool ships and scenery along the way.

 

 Since we were already in the area we stopped by the Battleship Texas Monument.  We went as a family last year, but it is a cool place.  It was the girls' turn to try all of the guns.  The boys were bummed that they didn't go, so we will have to go again.  

 It was a long morning/afternoon, but we made it home just in time to pick up the boys from school.  In fact I just had mom and dad hop out of the van at a stop sign and walk the rest of the way home so that I had room for the school kids.

Friday the girls have a fun dance class that a mom in another ward teaches.  She does such a good job and the girls love it.  They are smiling the whole time.

 Friday evening we went roller skating - we decided it would be easier than ice skating since my family hasn't done either.  For their first time everyone did pretty well.  There were lots of falls and tears at first.  Then Chris and the girls discovered that they liked rolling on the carpet best - Chris stayed out here the whole time.  The girls finally got brave and circled the rink holding onto the wall.  Jenna picked it up quickly and was doing really well by the time we were done.  They all wanted to come back, so I think they had a good time.  Tyler skated well - but he has been roller blading before.  Damon had the hardest time being frustrated.  I feel bad that he had never been before - it's hard learning something like this at an older age, he was probably embarrassed to be so slow.  But he really did improve and was doing much better towards the end.

 We went to McDonald's after and everyone enjoyed their food and playtime.  Even grandpa enjoyed the Happy Meal toy, (a deck of cards) :)

 Mom and Dad left Saturday morning early.  It was a great visit.  I am grateful that they spent the time and effort to come.  We made some great memories.

Saturday was the beginning of Flag Football for Damon and Tyler.  Tyler has a good coach and he scored the winning touchdown for his team.  Damon's team is lacking is leadership and we can hope that things will improve as the season continues.  The lost by quite a bit.  I wasn't able to go, but Doug was there.

The boys were invited over to a neighbors house to have a game night so they had a good time there and it made it a busy Saturday.  We had checked out a movie to watch from RedBox, but had to wait and watch it on Sunday instead.  It was a fun busy week!

Halloween and Fall Fun 2016

It's that time of year - costumes, decorating cookies, carving pumpkins, and trick-or-treating. 

From the beginning the girls asked to dress up as the Tooth Fairy.  I made their skirts early in the month -very grateful for that.  The boys had decided on Kylo Ren and Jedi, which was great - I bought Damon's and made a new tunic and boot covers for Tyler and Chris used our old ones.  Then one day the girls put on the R2D2 and Darth Vader costume and I thought: "We need to do a Star Wars theme this year!"  So for the trunk or treat we were a Star Wars family.  I was Rey and Doug was Han Solo.  I thought our costumes would be pretty easy to make, and they were simple enough, but they still ended up taking a lot of time.  But it was mostly because I was being picky and wanting to do a good job.  I made my belt, tunic wrap thing, sleeves, and staff.  I made Doug's vest, holster, and boot covers. They were fun to make but I wish I hadn't started so late.  The last week before the activity had lots of late night sewing.  

 

 

 

Here are our creative masterpieces this year.  It's fun now that they can do their own. 

 

 The girls painted their pumpkins and the boys carved.  Doug and I still have to help with the carving, but Tyler and Damon designed their own and Chris told me where to carve. 

Chris's is a Pokemon Jack-o-lance, Tyler's is a T-Rex, and Damon's is Kylo Ren

The girls had a fun party at Preschool and decorated soda pop pumpkins.  

Halloween day the girls were Tooth Fairies.

Here is our loot!  We only let them keep a bit and then we gave the rest away.  

It was a great night, short sleeves and sandals for me - I don't miss the cold trick-or-treating of Utah. :)  Happy Halloween everyone!