Jared's Blue & Gold Banquet

Last night was Jared's Cub Scout Blue & Gold Banquet. We enjoyed a great spaghetti dinner and the fun tradition of the Father & Son Cake Decorating Contest. The teams show up with an unfrosted cake and whatever supplies they will need to decorate it - then they are given five minutes to create their masterpiece!



Here is the team hard at work...



...and here is the finished product! Those of you who know Jared well will not be surprised in the least at his cake!!



For fun I took pictures of all of the cakes -

Monster Truck Rally



This one I'm not sure - I don't remember what they announced it as...I'm going with volcano



Sand Castle



Spaghetti



Eagle



Hamburger



Army Tank



Basketball



Cinnamon Bears (Scouts) Fishing



Graveyard



Ants vs Worms



Meredi vs Worm

Happy Valentine's Day

Sometimes, she's worse than a puppy!



We had a fun Valentine's Day this year. We woke up and had heart shaped pancakes with white chocolate chips in them!



Brandon and I exchanged gifts. I got beautiful red roses and a...well...I don't know what it's called. But it holds a dozen tea light candles and fits perfectly above our kitchen window!



I gave Brandon a Palm Centro - mostly b/c we are just big geeks! Combining his cell and his palm into one just made sense though! lol



We spent the afternoon and evening at grandma Janet and grandpa Gary's house. The kids were spoiled with Valentine candies and movies while mom and dad chaperoned the youth dance at the church...which was a whole "blast from the past" experience for both of us! lol

Bubbles with Dad

It isn't very often that Brandon and I are both home on the nights that the kids have Boy Scouts and Activity Night at church. This week it worked out for our neighbor to take our kids...Brandon didn't have any meetings...I was able to move my meeting to another day...it was almost like a date night at home with him and only five children! :)

The kids found some little bottles of bubbles and we started blowing bubbles on the kitchen table.



Joseph must have popped 100 bubbles...



...then he decided that he wanted to blow bubbles like everyone else!



His patient daddy helped him...



...he tried and tried...



...and finally blew little bubbles!!



Meredi enjoyed the bubbles too! You'll have to excuse her hair and face - dinner time is a whole body experience for her!

Family Night

Last night we met up with the Lee aunts, uncles & cousins for Family Night. It was a short, but fun visit! We had enchiladas for dinner and then we spent time visiting and catching up.



Joseph loved this funny toy that blew plastic balls out of the top...



Emma was fearless jumping to her mom...



We're scheduled to do another Family Night together in April at our house. The kids came home last night anxious to plan a menu and some activities. We sure are glad that we made the decision to live near family so many years ago - it has been such a blessing!

Math Team III

This is our third year rooting Jacob on through Math Team competitions! Last night was the first of the season. His team got off to a rocky start this year when we learned that the middle school wasn't going to provide a coach/teacher - the only way the kids were going to be able to go was if they found someone. Jacob asked all of the teachers and none of them would do it. We realized that if the kids were going to go, Brandon was going to have to coach...so coach he did.

The teams (3 teams of 4) crammed as many practices as they could into the three weeks before the competition. Last night was their big night! They knew they were going up against some tough schools - everyone went in to it with a great attitude and a desire to have a good time!!

Ribbons and a plaque are given to the schools that placed 1st - 5th. We knew it was a stretch to hope for a plaque, but when you compete you always hope to win something! 5th place was announced and it wasn't us. That was really all we dared hope for...and it was a long shot at that! Some of us held out itsy bitsy amounts of hope for 4th place...you know, just in case by some fluke we made it...we didn't. I shut off the camera and started to bag it back up. 3rd Place is announced and I'll be darned if our little Bad News Bears didn't pull it off!!!

This was the best I could do after scrambling to get the camera back out of the bag and turned back on!



Here they are, minus Walter Matthau.




Jacob had another great year in the individual competitions. Jacob wanted to add video because Grandma Janet wasn't able to be there this year (grandpa was sick and she stayed home with him). She has been a Math Team fan since day one!! He did make a call to her as soon as the awards presentation was over though...which was almost as good as having her there!

Jacob was awarded a t-shirt for Best in School by scoring the highest on the individual test out of all his own school/teammates.



Then he received a trophy for 5th Place Over All (128 competitors) for his score on the individual test!



(Jacob is away at a Boy Scout Merit Badge Clinic this morning, but when he gets home I'll add a picture of him with his trophy & t-shirt!)

Do Overs!

Last weekend we had a Christmas Eve Do-Over at Grandma & Grandpa's house. The weather was so bad on the real Christmas Eve that we only stayed at Grandma & Grandpa's about an hour before we decided we needed to get back on the road and get home before the storm got worse. It was the right thing to do, but man it was disappointing not being with our family for Christmas Eve.

So for fun, we had everyone get together again and we exchanged Dollar Store gifts and the potluck ... just like the real thing! It was a lot of fun and we were happy to get to spend the time with family.

Auntie Lindsay & Joseph



Mom & Meredi



Lindsay, Rex, Kayla & Daniel



Melanie, Malorie & Kayla (Yes, we dragged the antlers out again, lol)



Joseph showing off his new gloves!



Later in the week, Jared had a Cub Scout Pack Meeting. They held a family game night that was a lot of fun.



Malorie, Melanie, Megan and their friend Jovee playing tug-of-war.



After the games we had some snacks. Just like at home, Joseph found a chair and dragged it to the kitchen counter and began to help himself. No mistaken which end of the family he's from...the "if I want it I'd better do whatever it takes to get it" end! lol



Joseph has several "older women" in his life! A lot of the older kids at church love Joe...and he eats it up!!



We found this funky icicle when we came home from church Sunday. It had fallen form the garage eves and landed standing up and froze into the slushy ice on the ground. I almost had to hog-tie Malorie to keep her from kicking it over before I got a picture...she's not our most dainty child.