Pinewood Derby-Brownie Style

Jordan's brownie troop had a really fun pinewood derby. Yes, it is really a boyscout thing, but a very creative leader....namely my friend Carla Price....thought it would be fun to do so she started it a couple years ago.


Darin wasn't too thrilled about it when he heard we were doing it. He and Jordan took the car over to the Price's house and Chris helped cut the car for us. Luckily he did because it only took about 10 minutes. If we had to use the tools we have at home, we wouldn't have made it!!


Jordan picked her colors and painted it herself. She picked butterfly stickers to decorate it, and was so proud of herself! We had a little trouble with the wheels, but Darin did get them on. The troop had a pizza dinner before had wit the families, then we got the derby started. Here's Jordan giving her car to Chris to start.
Here is Jordan's car actually winning a heat. We were pretty happy about that-so glad that she could say she at least "won" once. We heard an ecstatic "I won" when her car was first. Very fun:)
Jordan after she one a heat. She was actually first in a couple heats, and was ecstatic about it. I don't know if she really realized that the cars were competing to see who would win the most heats. One time she looked at her car and said to her little friends "hey...my car is number 3 and I lost 3 times..." then she giggled. So funny.
All the girls with their cars.
Jordan had the most "girly" car of any of them. A couple of the girls had skull and crossbones stickers and one of them had 'gse" on the front and she said it meant "girl scout evil." One of the girls made one to look like a popsicle. They were pretty creative.


It was a pretty fun night. The best thing about it was that none of the girls were upset or mad. Not one of them cried or were upset when they didn't win. They all cheered for each other. It was great!!

Great Falls

A couple weekends ago, I asked Darin if we cold go to Bull Run Park in Manassas to look for fields of blue bells. He wasn't so keen on that idea, so came up with one of his own......Great Falls Park. I have often thought about going there, so was excited about it. The weather was nice, and we were pleasantly surprised that the entrance fee was waived for a week...extra bonus for us!

There were 3 different trails leading to different views of the falls. We did 2 of them which were stroller friendly, then Jordan, Spence and I went down the not so stroller friendly one. I was happy we didn't have Lanny because the rocks were big and and he would have been a "disaster" as Darin puts it. Jordan and Spence loved it, but I was a nervous wreck. Probably because they had sandals on...yeah, not so smart. If we ever go back, I know-tennis shoes!!

The views were beautiful. It is an amazing sight and the kids loved it.
We had fun in the visitors center. The boys especially loved playing in this kayak.
There was a kids area where you could color and play with lots of "touch" things. Spencer loved these antlers.
Jordan totally posed herself for this shot. Hmmm, should this worry me?
I love this girl!
This was interesting-it marked all the years the river flooded. My year is on there-'72.
a fun effect called cinemascope
this was really such a beautiful place. We really enjoyed it. Spencer especially loved hiking in the woods and climbing on all the rocks. We didn't really go so far because we didn't wear the best shoes, so I really want to take the boys back.
pencil sketch
The kids loved playing in the woods.

more of the falls.
Spencer had a blast with this branch. He was determined that he could bring it home...if only he could move it first:) Boys and sticks...
I love this effect. Pretty cool, I think.
A nice view of the falls.
I forget the name of this effect, but I really love how the pic comes out.
I think this guy was training, or something. He was paddling into the current-trying to go upstream. I couldn't imagine trying to do that. You would have to be very strong and an extremely good swimmer! There was a sign in the visitor center that said only the olympic kayak team does the falls. Seems pretty scary to me.
I have a thing for trees. I love to take pictures of trees I think are cool.
A view of the river down from the falls.
We really loved Great Falls. If you live in Virginia, you really must go there!!

Ramblings....for my sake mostly. Read if you are bored.

I have been very slow to do my blog lately. Last week mostly because last week I was entirely too stressed out about getting Landon potty trained. We have all come to the conclusion that we need to take a temporary hiatus....I need to be a little better prepared mentally.

Anyhow we have been busy. Jordan is doing well in school. Her reading is getting much better-she doesn't fight it as much as the beginning half of the year. Last Sunday her primary teacher told me she did a really good job reading in class. I was so happy to hear that. She still is a bit resistant to doing homework, but we manage to get it done every week, which I feel is great! She continues to love going to Brownies, playing with her friends and wants to go to my exercise class with me. It's funny when she is awake when I get home from the gym, she has to have a run down of what I did. She is unfortunately picking up some not so nice behaviors from school, namely teasing her brothers. I am looking forward to the summer away from naughty kids at school!!

Spencer has now asked to read the Bob books, and is so excited to learn to read. He reminds me every night at bedtime to read them. He really loves it and is so proud of himself. It is funny because at the same age, Jordan was really excited to write, not so much for reading. Spencer on the other hand isn't so much into writing, but is so excited about learning to read. She is such my little sweetie, and is usually the first one to help me and to follow directions-he loves to please Darin and I and is so proud when I point out that he was the first one to listen. Today Spencer told his preschool teacher he wants to marry her:) He really is my tender heart. He loves babies-whenever I babysit or he is around little ones, he is so cute with them.

Landon is my challenge. He is currently in the mood to push limits and boundaries. He's curious-see previous post-and gets into everything. We are doing a Mother Goose Time preschool coop at a friends house and he seems to enjoy it. He turns 3 next week...cannot believe that 3 years have passed since we spent that week going back and forth to the NICU. He keeps me on my toes and if I were smarter I would be learning patience from him....maybe someday.

I continue to absolutely love teaching my primary class. I can't express how fun the kids are. Every Sunday I laugh at something one of them says. This week we talked about the Savior fasting for 40 days and one of the girls who is very dramatic says "NO WAY...that is impossible....you would DIE" but I can't type how expressive she was. So funny. I have now spoken at 2 of their baptisms and have loved it. Such a memorable time for me and it get me so excited for Jordan's baptism in a little over a year.

I still struggle with figuring out how to keep the house organized...any ideas would be great. I joined the gym about a month ago and really love it. It is nice because it is a recreation center, and since I go between 5:30 and 6:00 am, I see more retired and older people and not young skinny "gym rat" types. It is more "normal" people and I love that about it. I take a drop in class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and everyone is so nice. There are also a bunch of people from the ward that go early in the morning as well, so that is nice. One of them I visit teach, so I saw her at the gym at 6:00 this am, then went and visit taught her at 9:30, plus I also have her little girl in my primary class.

I just feel so blessed to be in our ward and to have all the friends there and the friends I am making being involved at the kids school. I am besides myself with sadness that Landon can't go to the preschool that the other kids have gone to for the last 4 years! I have just gotten so close to all the teacher and kids and love them all sooooo much. I so wish Lanny could go there next year. Ah well....

The little guy Patrick that I babysit plays Tball so we went to his game last Saturday. There are also 3 other little boys we know on his team-one in our ward, one in the other ward, and one a gal in our ward used to babysit. The kids loved the game and Spencer wants to play this fall. It was a bummer he couldn't be on the team now but the cutoff for turning 5 was April. We'll for sure sign him up this fall. We were going to go to the game tonight until it rained out, and Spencer was asking if he could practice hitting the ball. I have to say that I would much rather be a "baseball mom" vs. a "soccer mom." I played softball, so I feel like I could contribute a lot to the team; but I know absolutely nothing about soccer except for the using feet only rule.

Lots of rambling here, but these are my thoughts I just wanted to make sure I got down before I completely forgot.

A mix of Curious George and Dennis the Menace

Landon........This child is something else. I have lots of stories that I could tell about him. He is truly something else. Such a crazy little kid. The title of the post is really the truth!! He is sooo curious!!! He wants to see and touch everything and once he sees you doing something he will remember it and try to do it himself. Such a smart little fella!! Some of it I laugh at, some of it I get so frustrated and just want to cry, so I just get my camera out take pictures so I don't lose all sanity!!

Here we are during the time we tried to learn the potty. This is his idea of what to do with underwear. We were reading books waiting for him to use the potty. I think we'll wait a bit longer.....

One day I was mopping the floor. I used some paper towels to dry it so there wouldn't be streaks. Well, I didn't put them away quickly enough and when I was working in the kitchen, my little "helper' found them.


This is the best game ever!!
I cannot leave the same floor Landon is on for even a minute. Not to do laundry, put clothes away, go get something. This is what happens:

Caught ya buddy!!!
Oops, dropped some. Can't let any go to waste!!!
He does get his love of ice cream honestly-his mommy and daddy are pretty big ice cream eaters!! Too bad he learned how to open the freezer.
One night a while back I made some chili. Landon, as usual, was on his little "perch" I call it-a stool he always has right next to me the whole time I make dinner. He was my little helper and saw me put spices into the chili pot. He has also seen me put rubs on meat, etc, so he is acquainted with my spice cupboard. When he is on his perch he can reach the bottom level of the spices. So anyhow, I made the chili and after dinner Darin put water in the pot and put it on the stove to soak.

I had not washed the pot yet, and the next day Landon found it. I went into the kitchen to witness him "making soup" I had recently had a pampered chef party and bought a bunch of their rubs for meat. A couple were open and a couple were still sealed. There were about 5 of them in great flavors. Unfortunately for me there are no seals on the pampered chef rubs so they were quite easy for my little chef in the making to get to! He dumped about 3 whole things in and parts of a couple more before I realized what he was doing.

Yummy!!!
Here is one of the containers that used to be completely FULL of spices.

Oh man, what do I do? It's a pretty good thing this kid is sooo cute!! His little smile saves him quite frequently:)

Shades of Green

Green is my favorite color, so when we went to Huntley Meadows for playgroup today, I was in heaven.

(ok, not green, but pretty awesome reflection!)





(this isn't green, but I thought it was cool-it's looking down into the water)



(another one not green, but the color against the green is very striking and I loved it!)

Easter Festivities Part 1

The Saturday before Easter, we had a fun day. In the morning, we had an egg hunt at the kids school organized by my good friend Carla. Landon had a birthday party as well. Kids had a fun morning. We tried to watch Conference, but missed a lot trying to get the kids to listen. Someday.

Darin found an Egg Hunt at a local place so we decided to go. It was at Woodlawn Plantation. Here is the link: http://woodlawn1805.org/

We were so excited for the possible fun to be had. We got there and had something fun right off the bat-we saw a black snake going across the sidewalk. It was so cool-we watched it slither up the branches of a tree. Soooo cool!!! The lady who saw first and pointed it out wasn't so happy, but we loved it. Turned out to be the best part of the day.

The kids did a couple activities-they made Easter Bonnets and played old fashioned games. There was face painting, but there was only one person doing it and tons of kids in line. Same thing for the balloon animal line.

Here are a couple pics of the day. There was a cool tree with great leaves and pinecone type things that were on the ground and Spencer loved it.
Jordan was very excited to find the Easter Bunny. She was the only one who would have her picture with him.
Easter Pig? We wondered why there was a pig there....maybe the mascot for the BBQ place that was there serving food. Nonetheless, it was quite entertaining for the kids.
The actual hunt part of the day was a joke!! In the words of a friend, "you get what you pay for.
I am seriously not sure what the deal was. Everyone tried to rush in at the same time. It was crazy. We finally got into find the ggs and there weren't any....I'm not kidding. I don't know how many they hid, but it was empty. There were tons of kids and parent walking around shaking their heads in confusion. Kids were crying because they all came up empty. Well, we know we won't go there next year.

After the "egg hunt that was not" we went home to color eggs. The kids were so excited.


Landon loved spooning out the dye everywhere. He made a huge mess, but loved. it. Oh, he also loved mixing the colors.
daddy's little girl!
Spencer's favorite color....orange!!

Jordan loved her eggs!!
I kept trying to get Spencer to hold his up, the best we got.
We were able to see a bit more of conference, and tried to have the kids color pictures of things they heard. It worked for a while. Someday..... I did hear part of one talk about teaching your children the gospel. Was really good.