Pinewood Derby

Saturday was Derek’s first Pinewood Derby.  He was so excited (although I think I might have been the most excited).  It was also Glenn’s first Pinewood Derby as far as he can remember.  Derek designed the car and got some help from Glenn and Grandpa Ludwig in making it.  Evan suggested the name “The Flaming Dagger” and Derek went with it.  We put the finishing touches on it Saturday morning and headed off to the race.

Derek is super competitive, so I had the chat with him Friday night about winning and losing and being a good sport.  I gave him a few scenarios that involved him losing until he finally told me it was making him upset just thinking about it and asked me stop.  So much for convincing him that winning isn’t important!

The chat must have worked because we noticed when Derek was asked to say the opening prayer, he prayed that everyone would be successful rather than praying for his car to win!  Whew!

The Pinewood Derby is much more high tech than when I was growing up.  There was an electronic track that logged the times of the cars and a big screen set up displaying the standings.

The scouts all sat along the track and the energy level was high.  There was a lot of excitement when those first cars whizzed past!

One of the scout leaders took some pictures of Derek’s reaction when his car won a race.  I think it is a fun progression.

The best part is Evan’s reaction to the win.  Those boys do love each other!

Some of the heats were extremely close!

Derek ended up coming in third place overall, and he was thrilled!  It was fun to watch Derek and his friends cheering for one another and having fun.  Take a look at the total satisfaction on his cute face!  And he didn’t even win!  He was proud of himself anyway (though I’m sure the trophy and ribbon helped).  Another rite of passage successfully completed!

Unexpected Change of Plans

About a week ago Glenn’s Uncle Robert passed away unexpectedly.  He was a great man and an important influence in Glenn’s life.  My mom and dad watched the boys so that Glenn, Amelia, and I could fly to California for the funeral.  I don’t typically love funerals, but this one left me feeling uplifted and like I want to be a better mother, wife, sister, friend, and community member.  Despite the sadness, I felt lucky to be there because of the motivation and inspiration I left with.

It was nice to have a couple of days with Glenn’s family!

Amelia enjoyed being with her cousins and having some special grandma and grandpa time.  She was able to see the only great-grandmother that she hadn’t met yet!

It was really nice for Glenn to be there with his relatives.  I love how short he looks next to his cousin Vonn (and he isn’t even Glenn’s tallest cousin).  Vonn and Glenn grew up together and were living together when we started dating.  It was fun to see members of the family that we don’t see often enough!

The views were gorgeous out the airplane window on the way home!  On the first leg of our journey we were on a little prop plane.  I felt like I had gone back in time and was flying on a 50’s airplane.  I loved watching the sun go down through the airplane window!  It just confirmed the feelings I had during our time in California that there is so much to be grateful for in life and how much better life is when I stop stressing about whether the plane will crash or cleaning the house or disciplining children for a minute and just enjoy what I have in the moment.

It’s always hard to get back to normal life after something like that, but I plan to make normal life just a little better for my family going forward.  I’m glad we got to go!

Cousins

A few weeks ago Scott and Amy came out for a few days.  They brought the main attraction, their cute little Cooper!  According to Adam, Cooper is his “best friend.”  I think Adam’s adoration of Cooper was cemented the first day they met when Adam became fascinated that Cooper had no teeth.  He never seemed to notice that little fact about Amelia, but with Cooper he thought it was pretty amazing.  Still, 5 months later, Adam asks when Cooper is going to grow up and get teeth.  I think he’s anxious for a little playmate!

Cooper is 2 months older than Amelia, and just about double her size.  I may be biased, but I think he is one of the cutest little boys I have ever seen (and I know a cute boy when I see one)!

Here are some iphone shots of the cousin bonding (I should have used my real camera for this much cuteness)…

I think Amelia is slightly jealous that Copper’s eyelashes are 3 times as long as hers…

Here is what Cooper and Amelia think of their mothers trying to get them to smile.  We must not be very funny!

And here is Adam with his to best friends.

Cousins are the best!

Back to Regular Life

I dropped Derek and Evan off at school yesterday with a little knot in my stomach.  We had such a great Christmas break!  Sometimes the boys fight and drive me crazy, but they were really good (for the most part) over Christmas break- sharing their Christmas presents, laughing,  letting Adam be part of the fun, and having a great time.  It is so fun to watch them growing up together, but at the same time I slightly panic every time I drop them off at school.  I think I kind of picture them suddenly walking out the door at the end of the school day as grown adults or something.  They just grow up so fast, and while I love to watch them grow and learn, part of me would just prefer to freeze time and keep them little forever (that part of me typically goes dormant while I’m wrestling them into bed in the evenings).

I love these boys of mine!

I’m counting down the days until summer break (or at least until Saturday)!!

Security Announcement

Well, I have some bad news.  I’m going to have to password protect our blog.  The past few years we’ve managed to keep it private enough that I’m fairly confident that I’ve known everyone who is looking at it.  I just got an email with statistics for 2012 from Wordpress, and unfortunately this past year there were views from 26 different countries.  That means there are quite a few people viewing the blog who I don’t know, and I would like to keep the blog fairly private.

I realize this decision will make it somewhat of a pain to access the blog, and I’m sorry.  If you have made a comment on the blog in the past 2 months I will automatically send you an invite because I know you read it.  Otherwise, if you would like an invite just leave a comment on this post or send me an email.  I will make the change in 2 weeks.

Again, I’m sorry about the change and the annoyance of needing to login to read the blog, but I just don’t like the idea of any old creepy person reading about my kids and what they’re doing.

Happy 2013!!!