Pinewood Derby 2012

 

 A few days before the Pinewood Derby we hosted a Popsicle Popcorn Pre-Pinewood Derby Party!

Right after school they ate popsicles outside then we watched Down and Derby with popcorn.

They all had a good time!

  

That is a lot of boys!

 Here is Zachary with his car!  He made a pencil car!

Here is Spencer with his sleek sliver car!

 In our ward the pinewood derby is a big deal!  It is considered a ward party.  They host a dinner and after the boys race everyone else brings their old cars to race.  It was fun and great to have the support for the boys.  They also had great decorations for the event.

 The owner of the track has chassis for a "banana derby" for the little ones.  Brandt and Rex got to decorate bananas and then race them!

 Zachary won second place!  He was so excited to get a trophy!  He car won the award of Most Educated!

Spencer car did great too!  He took fifth place!  His car won the Most Futuristic award!  This is the last time he will do a pinewood derby and he is kind of sad.  He turns 11 in October so he will move onto Scouts.

Eating Healthy

 Our boys have always been good at eating veggies but we do get complaints sometimes.  When I made this "Monster Dinner"  I got zero complaints and they ate it all!  They even asked for it a week later.

 We have also been enjoying a lot of smoothies lately.  Trying to have a healthy dessert.

Zachary's Baptism

Zachary brought this to me the morning of his baptism.  I was so impressed.  Some of the things he did in the portrayal of his baptism made me know he understood what was going to happen that day.  As you can see, this is him and me standing in the baptismal font.

Our family on this very special day for Zachary.

I'm thankful that I hold the Holy Priesthood and can baptize my son.  I hold that very sacred and hope that I will always treat it with the respect and worthiness that is needed to act in this priesthood. 

We are very proud of Zachary for making that decision to be baptized.  I know it will bless him for the rest of his life as he is faithful to those covenants he's made and to follow Jesus Christ.

Brother Seth's Wedding in Portland

A much needed break from the 12 hour drive from SLC to Portland to see our Uncle Seth and Aunt Jen get married.

The Oregon Mountains were beautiful.

This river was a really pretty one to follow into Portland.

Of course, the day before the wedding we had to play with the Darts and go to the children's Museum.

There was face painting and everything their hearts desired.

That night we went miniture golfing in the neon lights to celebrate with Seth and Jen.

This right here was the main purpose of our trip.  We were so happy for Seth and Jen!  We were so happy to make the trip to see this special day for them.

Seth, Jen, Grandma and Grandpa, the Darts, and The Shumways. 

The Brother that I grew up with.  I'm grateful to have such a great friend in him. It would be fun to do some matches of these pictures back to when we were little.  I was much skinnier back then and so I think we looked more like each other.  Eitherway, I still feel the same about him now even after these years! 

Luke's Baby Blessing

This was Luke's Baby Blessing a few weeks ago. Our first family picture in our Sunday best.

Luke was blessed the same day with two other babies.  Oliver and Alithea.  Here are the proud mothers.  Oliver is a cousin to Luke and Alithea is Luke's cousin's daughter. 

Christmas

Christmas time gave me time to sport my beard. Looks kind of shabby to me, but that's probably the closest I'll get to having a full beard.

Christmas dinner was a lot of fun to have with our boys.  They really seemed to enjoy it!

As expected, Luke was ecstatic about his Christmas gifts!

 

 

 

Christmas treated each of the boys very well.  We're thankful to be able to provide a great Christmas for each of the boys.

After I took this picture, all I could think was wow, that's a lot of stockings.  It was fun to have a real fire place mantle this year to hang them on.  Thanks to Amy for making it look so nice.

Primary Activity - Humanitarian Activity

this was a humanitarian activity that the boys did last fall with their primary at church.  I thought it was great how each of the boys jumped right in and started loading bags.

Even Brandt got in on it. 

They loaded one bag, then got back in line and started a new one.  they did really well.

Windstorm in November

We had a major windstorm in our area in November.  We felt fortunate that everyone was ok.  Some of the damage at the golf course just by our house.

Our neighbor's house who was situated at the end of the street.  They got the brunt of the wind tunnel.

We did get to try out our survival kits though.  Our 72 hour kits came in handy with our windup radio here. 

Our roof held up much better than most of the roofs in the neighborhoods around. However, we still lost some shingles. 

The problem became that the damage was a lot of patches missing from the roof.

St. Nickolas and Santa

We kept the tradition from Germany!  St. Nickolas visits us still while in the US.  Look, he even brings German toys and Kinder eggs.

We struggled to get him to agree, but Spencer finally sat on Santa's lap.

There was no convincing this year for Brandt.

Zachary's always good at making a joke out of the situation.

Rex is just delighted to be with Santa.