what to do at a soccer game

 Play soccer!  Jacob is #4 with the blue and white stripes (kicking the ball). His team won some and lost some, but had a good time either way.

 If you're not playing soccer, you might as well be rolling down the little embankment to the soccer field.

This was taken at the last game of the year and Matthew was bored of the playground, so he created another way to entertain himself!

angry bird cupcakes

How could I forget this picture?  Ryan decided that Matthew needed angry bird cupcakes for his birthday and so he set to work.  They were awesome!

jared's birthday

 We celebrated Jared's birthday a few days ago by going to see the new movie "Avengers" and eating dinner at Texas Roadhouse! Mmmm!  He was a good sport and agreed to show off a few of his gifts -- t-shirts, money, and...

 a new ipod touch!   He loves it!

Jared doesn't like cake, so we celebrated with one of his favorite treats -- ice cream sandwiches! 

 Happy  Birthday, Jared!

matthews birthday

 Matthew had a birthday a couple days ago!  He started the day with his breakfast request of toast and bacon!

 Next item of business was to open a couple of gifts -- bubblewand and Star Wars puzzle.

 In the afternoon we had a Superhero birthday party.  These four boys have been doing playgroup together all year and get along well, so I decided to just keep the number of guests to these kids.  I made each one a felt superhero cape (each had the initial of their first name on their capes) and gave them sunglasses for masks.  The boys loved them!

 We played some fun superhero games.  For one of the games, I hid a bunch of dollar store frogs and lizards around the yard, gave each of the boys a container, and told them that frogs and lizards were taking over and that the only way to stop them was for the superheros to find and capture them!  They ran off and had a great time hunting down the evil frogs and lizards.  All were captured and our yard is back to normal!  The above picture shows Matthew sorting through his creatures.

For another game, I froze two little superhero figures (Batman & Green Lantern) in blocks of ice.  I gave each of the boys a squirt gun and told them that Mr. Freeze had visited and frozen Batman & Green Lantern.  It was up to them to free their other superhero friends.  They set to work with their squirt guns and in due time Batman & Green Lantern were free again!  Other activities included superhero memory games, coloring pages and superhero popsicles!

 After a family dinner of hot dogs & watermelon (per Matthew's request) it was time to open the rest of the presents.  Matthew is loving the Cosmo pillowpet from G&G Vawdrey and the Star Wars ship from Mark & I.

 Although this remote control robot from Aunt Colleen stole the party!  So fun!

 We finished off the day with Batman brownies and vanilla ice cream. Yum!  Happy Birthday, Matthew!

missionary week

Our ward had missionary week for the youth.  It was awesome!  These are our two missionaries!  They kicked off the week with a special speaker and then got their "calls" and "companions" for the week.  Jared was called to the New York New York mission with the Monsons as instructors.  Ryan was called to the Portugal Lisbon mission with Bro. Boren as the instructor.  They each had great companions who were from the priests quorum -- James & Jeremy.  Each morning they had to be dressed up and at the church at 6:00 a.m. to study the gospel for a half hour before having breakfast.  Then they came home and got ready for school.  Each evening at 8:30 they had a devotional at the church.  During the week they were asked to give up tv, cell phones, video games, and computer time (unless they needed to do schoolwork).  Getting up so early was kind of hard near the end of the week, but they didn't complain.  They didn't even complain about setting aside the media for a week!  On Friday evening, each companionship went to a ward member's home to have dinner and teach the gospel lesson (apostasy & restoration of the gospel) they had studied all week.  Jared & his companion went to the Weed's home.  Jared loved dinner -- pasta! They had a great discussion and the Weed's threw them a couple of loops during the lesson for fun -- i.e. we would love to be baptized, but we're not married, is that a problem?!  Ryan and his companion ate dinner with the Hansen's, who have lots of little boys.  Ryan loved the spaghetti and homemade bread! They had a great discussion with the family and showed the little boys an awesome object lesson using 3 cups and 3 knives representing the church, prayer, & scripture study as a foundation for a strong testimony.  We were also able to host a set of missionaries (Clint & Rykker) for dinner & discussion.  It was fun to have them here and they did a good job on the lesson. Following dinner and discussions, all the youth missionaries went back to the church and had zone conference, i.e. testimony meeting.  Jared & Ryan had a great week of testimony building/strengthening experiences. I am so grateful for the good experience they had! I'm also grateful that they were willing to follow the "rules" and participate in everything, thus allowing themselves to have a memorable experience.

pinewood derby

 We survived another pinewood derby!! Wahoo!  Actually, this was Jacob's first derby.  He was very excited about designing and racing his car.  Mark really dislikes building these cars, but I must say he's getting faster and better with each one, as long as we keep the same basic design, which the boys are completely happy with! 

 A brief look at the competition.  All the cars were awesome.  I especially like the yellow car in the middle on the top row -- it was Colby's car and was made to look like cheese with a mouse on top -- very cool!

 This was the quickest derby ever! Pack meeting/derby was complete in just over 1 hour! Every car raced four times, once on each lane of the track.  The track was hooked into a computer which automatically averaged the times and came up with four winners.  Jacob took second place!  He was so excited!

One of the cubmasters made an awesome car rack for each cubscout. The top says what their award was (Jacob's award was Best Use of Color -- The judges obviously like blue) and then it has two pegs that balance the car and a hook on the back so they can display it on their bedroom wall.  So cool!

this is the place field trip

 I went with Matthew's preschool class to This Is The Place Heritage Park.  I had never been there before, so it was fun to explore a new place.  We started off by visiting a house where everyone got to learn how to card wool and watch a spinning demonstration.  The kids enjoyed playing for awhile at the little playground that is a miniature village.  Matthew enjoyed ringing the school bell.

 All the little houses had furniture inside, so the kids could pretend.

Next we took a ride on the train around the whole park.  I didn't realize it was so big!

 Then we visited the house where they talk about the chores that the children would have done during the pioneer days.  The kids got to try out various chores like ironing and churning butter.

Here's Matthew with a couple preschool friends outside the barn where we visited the baby animals -- lambs, rabbits, chicks, goats, and I can't remember what all!  There's lots of other houses and buildings to discover on another visit. It was a fun outing!