An Update and A Good Race

I had lots of requests for an update from the last post.  The tooth fairy left Calvin $5 for his special tooth in water.  Guess she decided to compromise and meet him in the middle.  He was still pretty pumped that it was more than the usual dollar.

And now...

A couple of weeks ago Calvin had his Pinewood Derby Race.  The pictures I have are not good ones, but they will have to do.  Here is the man in charge explaining the rules and some tips about their cars.

Cars....wait....I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the car.  What was I thinking?  Daddy and Papa both helped with it.  Papa glued a lego Luke Skywalker holding a tiny lightsaber right into the car.  The funny thing was...when we got there it was over the weight limit by just a tiny bit.  We had to take the head off the guy.  When it was racing it was a headless guy holding a lightsaber.  The sick thing is he was a finalist for Best in Show...meaning the other kids LIKED the headless jedi.  Strange.

Here is the other man in charge starting Calvin's car and the others for his race.

And here is the picture I tried to take of them coming down the track.  Wouldn't you know that when I took it the cars were right behind the finish sign. 

Each car raced 4 times.  If I remember correctly, Calvin got 1st place once and 2nd place three times.  There were 23 kids racing, and the first four places got a trophy. 

Calvin placed 5th.  He might have been more disappointed, but he finished just behind this guy....

His best buddy Walter.  He figured if he had to get beat out by somebody, this was a good guy to get beat by.  They had a great day racing and cheering each other on!

A Little Bit of Pixie Dust...

Calvin lost a tooth tonight.  It's probably number 10 or something.  Each one has it's own story...some more exciting then others.  He lost his first tooth during a t-ball game.  Very appropriate for those who know him well.  The second one was at the 4th of July carnival.  He took a bite of pizza, and it was just gone.  We looked all around on the ground, but eventually had to write the tooth fairy a note.  She was very understanding. 

Once, we even caught it on video.  These are some of my favorite videos ever.

Tonight is going to be interesting.  Who wouldn't want to try this?  After his tooth came out he took it in the kitchen and put it in a cup of water.  I had to ask,

"Calvin, why the water?" 

"My friend told me that if you put your tooth in a cup of water....in the morning the water and tooth will be gone, but there will be 10 dollars and a little bit of pixie dust!"

Calvin's Winter Sport

I'm jumping ahead for a post...to this week.  For the second year in a row Calvin is curling.  He really enjoys it.  A couple years ago Marc and I took a curling class and were in the league, so we at least understand it a little.  It really is a fun sport for all ages!  At this age they aren't doing a full length match yet...just practicing skills.  Sunday night Marc's parents and grandma came to watch.  I brought my camera to catch some of his moves.



Here he is being the skip.  He's letting his teammate know where to throw the rock, and which way to spin it.




Here is his coach sweeping the rock toward him.





Calvin preparing to throw the rock...



The back of his curling sweatshirt says "Future Olympian". 

I'm afraid that just may be true. 

But then again...I'm his mom.

Christmas...Again!

Goodness I am BEHIND in my blogging.  I always have several posts in my head, tonight I'm just going to cover a few!

This year we had my family's Christmas in the middle of January.  I'm going to cover this mostly in pictures!



Nathan and his best friend, Sara.  These two are quite a pair!




Here's Max with baby Olivia...the reason we had a late Christmas.




Tate and Olivia




Jillian taking her turn...while Tate watches!




All the kids and John sitting down to eat.  The kids all think Uncle John is one of them.



Calvin, Jilly, and Will



Calvin wanted one of these SO badly.  Papa and Nana pulled through.




Nathan has about 1000 stuffed animals.  He was still THRILLED when Papa and Nana got him this cute puppy with it's own kennel and bed.  Right up his alley!





This is a weighted monkey he got from Ben...great for kids with sensory issues.  It is so cute!




Baby Jill got a new outfit for spring!  She's stylin!





Papa made fences for the three middle boys.  They thought they were great!



 Here is the whole gang!  Are they a good looking bunch or what?  

We are certainly blessed.

Comic Relief

Tonight was just a funny night.  Do you ever have those?

Marc has been gone all week, and sometimes my patience is thin....but sometimes we just roll with it and have a great time.  Tonight we were all in the living room.  Calvin was working on homework...

Jillian was trying to cause trouble...

And Nathan was building a house.  That's right.

This might be one of those stories that you had to be there for, but...I can't stop now.  When we were playing Nathan said he was a builder, and his name was Peapod.  NO idea where that came from.  When Calvin was doing his homework I mentioned he should put his name on his paper so the teacher didn't have to wonder who it belonged to.  I continued to work with Nathan for a little bit, then I turned around to find this.

Is it weird that I thought this was hilarious?  Oh and also it's been our thing lately to speak in a British accent.  Calvin can NOT get enough of it.  I start speaking that way and he just falls apart.  So we had a great time imagining what his teacher might say if he turned in his paper this way.  (In a British accent) "Excuse me, might you raise your hand if your name is Peapod?  I've not heard this name before."  You get the point.  And to top it off...and bring Calvin and I to tears...it turns out Nathan can do a fabulous British accent.  Good stuff.

Then, as if our night hadn't been good enough, I sent the boys to get their jammies on and Nathan came out like this.

Thank you God for giving us laughter!

Love

Do you know what one of my FAVORITE things is? 

Today I picked up Calvin from school early for an eye appointment.  When we were done we stopped at Target...just the two of us.  As we walked across the parking lot holding hands, I realized he was skipping.  Skipping.  I LOVE THAT.  I mean does that just scream, "I'm happy" or what?  I smiled the whole way in.

Isn't It Exciting?

Isn't it exciting when Daddy calls from work to see if we want to go out to dinner?  That happened to us last night!

Isn't it exciting to head to the new bakery after school to pick out your very own cupcake for a snack?  (Mom too!)

Nathan wasted NO time diving in to his chocolate peanut butter cupcake...

Calvin had chocolate with almond frosting.

Then he tasted Nathan's...

Before we got there Jillian insisted she wanted to get a PINK cupcake.

She managed to find red velvet with a pink flower on top.

They were ALL delicious!

Isn't it exciting to do something fun with your hair?  Have you heard of this thing where you wrap the wet hair around a headband and sleep on it?  I saw it a long time ago and tried it once, but I had the wrong type of headband.  It's cute enough like this...I can't wait to see how it looks tomorrow!

Jillian is VERY excited too!