Snowman!

The snow has started melting, which makes it more packable.
After listening to Riley & Lily cry and yell at Zach many, many times for throwing giant snowballs at them, I decided to have them do something more constructive with the snow.
So, they built a snowman.

Although I am very over the snow (and the cold), it never seems to get old for the kids. =)

Happy Birthday Jeff!

Today Jeff turns 35!
Happy Birthday to the most loving, caring man I know.
You are a wonderful husband, father, and person.
We love you SO much!!
Happy Birthday!!!

Finally!

That's what the kids said when they got to play in the snow after school today.
They watched it snow Monday night and all day Tuesday.
Then they looked at it all day Wednesday.
It was just way too cold to go out in it.
It was even too cold this morning still, but by the time the boys came home, it wasn't too bad, so we headed out.

There is a lot of snow on our deck!
Poor Lily had a hard time wading through it.

We also have a lot of drifts in the yard.
We have spots with no snow at all, and then spots where the snow is up to the kids' knees!

This snow is not very pack-friendly, but somehow Zach got a snowball out of it.

Don't worry.....

Riley got him back.

This is right before I told Zach to NOT throw those at me.

Lily is such a big helper!

Silly Riley.

My three snow angels. =)

They didn't last too long out there.

It's still pretty cold!

Is it sad that I am looking forward to 30 degrees tomorrow? ;-)

Bead Art

Riley's 100th Day of School was supposed to be Thursday.
But, since this is our second snow day this week, I don't think that is happening now.
We still took this opportunity of being snowed in to work on his 100th Day project though.
He had to make a picture using 100 objects.
Riley chose colored beads.
We started out making a rainbow.
It takes a lot of beads to make a rainbow.
100 beads seems like a lot, but it really isn't.
So, we switched to a sailboat.
Riley counted out how many beads we used for each thing he made.
(We tried to keep them in numbers of 5's & 10's so it would be easy for him to remember how many beads we used.)
After he had his picture made, we hot glued the beads on.
Here is his picture:

After we had it made, we realized there were only 99 beads on it, so we had to add one more.

At least we caught it before he turned it in. =)

(This picture does not have 100 beads. I didn't include all of the blue beads for the water. I cropped the picture.)

When Zach and Lily saw what Riley was doing, they wanted to make a picture too.

So, after Ri was done, I put the rest of the beads in bowls (I got 500 beads for under $2.00 at Wal-Mart) and gave them just regular white glue.

I did outline Lily's butterfly and flower with glue, but she filled them in with glue and added the beads herself.

Riley made another picture.

This time he made a smiley face.

This is Zach's picture.

I'm pretty sure it says Hello I'm 8.

This actually kept them entertained for awhile and it was a cheap art project.

We will have to do this one again soon.

Boy Fun

Zach got a BB gun for his Birthday, but because of the hectic weekends before Christmas, plus cold weather, he had not been able to shoot it yet.
He also got a marshmallow crossbow as a prize from selling popcorn for Boy Scouts.
Again, we had not been able to do anything with this either.
So, on Saturday, we took advantage of the beautiful weather & headed over to my parent's house to shoot both.
The boys started with the marshmallow shooters.
You place a marshmallow in the chamber and pull back on the strings.
Then you can launch a marshmallow in the air (or at your little sister, or your Granddad...whatever you choose.)

The boys had a lot of fun with these.

Here they are trying to shoot pop cans with them.

The marshmallows are hard to see, but they are next to the arrows.

Finally Lily got to have a chance.

She wasn't as enthralled as the boys were.

I think she only shot it a few times before going back to sit with Granddad.

Then Zach got to shoot his BB gun.

Riley got to shoot it too.

Zach started out shooting pop cans, but then he ended up shooting the marshmallows from the crossbow.

He shot this marshmallow from 35 feet away!!

What a great shot Zach!


The boys (including Jeff) had a lot of fun with their "boy toys".

Pinewood Derby

This was our second year for Pinewood Derby.

This year, Riley was able to make a car too.

They have the Scout's Races and then they have the Outlaw Races.

The Outlaw Races are everyone else who wants to make a car or scouts who want to make two cars.

The Outlaw cars can weigh more than the scout cars, so some scouts like to do more than one.

Jeff & the boys had been working on their cars on and off for weeks.

They cut the wood, smoothed the axles, drilled holes for the weights, painted the cars, and added graphite to the wheels to make them faster.

They even got cool stickers to add to their cars!

I think they did a great job!

Last night, we headed to the boys' school for the competition.

Here are some of the other cars after weigh in:

There were 22 scout cars total.

The boys sat patiently in a line waiting for their turn to race.

When it was Zach's turn, he got his car into place and went down to the other end of the track to wait for his car.

The first time his car beat another car, he was excited:

The second time his car beat another car he was elated:

Last year he was out right away.

This year, Zach got 5th place overall in the scout races.

That's pretty good for just his second year in the races!

When it was time for the Outlaw Races, Riley got excited.

He had waited patiently for so long.

Luckily he was in the first race.
The track was taller than him!

I think that he was excited just to be there, he really didn't pay attention to whether he won or not.

Here he is winning his first race:

I'm not sure he actually knew he won.

He was happy either way though. =)


Here he is winning his second race:

I think he figured it out by this time. ;-)

Riley won second place in the Outlaw class.

Yeah Riley!!!

(And yes, we did have a small melt-down when Zach realized his little brother was second he was fifth, but he got over it.)

After the races, it was time for Pie In The Face.

If a scout sold $700.00 or more in popcorn, they got to throw a pie in the face of one of the leaders.

Zach got to throw one pie.

He was super excited about it.

Poor Stacey!

Zach and the other scouts who got to do it loved it though!

The boys are already excited about Pinewood Derby next year!

Ballerina Lily

After having her dance class canceled because of weather last week,
Lily was super excited to be going again this week.
She got her leotard with a skirt, tights, and ballet slippers on.
I even got her hair up in a little bun.

Then she showed me some of her "moves" as she calls them.

Then is was time to go to class!

Seriously, this is SO cute to watch!!

(I might be biased though....)

The last 10 minutes of class is designated to tap dancing.

All of the girls were excited to get their tap shoes on.

This was the first time they got to do it!

Lily loved making her shoes click. =)

She can't wait to go back next week!