Engineer Badge

Jacob missed scouts last week because of a stomach ache so we finished up his requirements at home. One of the things said to construct a catapult. He, of course, chose to build it out of K'nex. Here it is in action.

Pink Lemonade

"When life throws you lemons - make PINK lemonade"
Apparently, this little 'lemonade stand' is given when someone thinks your blog is positive and filled with happiness ...

As part of the fun, the lemonade stand logo has a few instructions -
1.- Put the logo in your blog.
2.- Nominate 5 - 10 blogs for having great attitude.
3.- List and link the nominees.
4.- Comment this award in their blogs.
5.- Nominate your favorites and link to your post.

My Pink Lemonade winners are:
1. My cousin Kristy. Her blog is actually called Fresh Lemonade. She has such thought provoking comments, poems, etc. She keeps such a positive attitude despite not fully understanding the lemons life has handed her.
2. Christy Bartlett. She has fun posts. She wins a lot of give aways and always has fun, excited posts about it. She starts thoughtful and spiritual conversations on her blog.
3. The Wellings have such hilarious post about such everyday things. It helps me keep a sense of humor as a parent.
4. My sister Nancy shows such love and compassion for her children. She posts all the cute and maybe not so cute things they do. She also does this with a sense of humor.
5. My sister-in-law Amy shares all the excitement children experience in life and the fun things they do as a family and enjoying the beauty of God's creations.
6. My college roommate Clare shares fun and exciting family celebrations and finds joy in the little things in life.

Thanks NaDell for nominating my blog. As you can see I actually made a bunch of post. I had to play catch up. You are an inspiration for keeping up on my blog!

Birthdays & Baptisms

Paige and Joe recently celebrated their birthdays. Paige made a little cake in her Easy Bake Oven to go on top of her birthday cake. Very cute! Joe got delicious cheesecake. Mmm! We had a small birthday party with some friends for Paige. They played outside, danced to Hannah Montana music (I'll post the video. Tee Hee.) and played Whoonu. It was pretty unstructured but they seemed to have fun.
The following Saturday morning Paige got to be baptized with two of her friends, Gabriela Welling and Hallie Parker. It was so nice to have them together to support each other. Paige got really nervous but her friends reassured her that it would be okay and they were nervous too at first and even cried a little too. They were all so sweet. Afterward Paige had a huge smile on her face and said it was great and she wished she could swim in the font. Thank you to all who attended and made it a special event. On the way to lunch I was asking her how she felt (trying to make it memorable) and what she liked about it. Her reply, "It was great because after my confirmation I got to hug Jason!" Jason is her Uncle (who I think she has a crush on). I was going for spiritual but hey. Love of family is good too, right?

Yummy!?

We've started giving Rebekah "solids". She actually likes them. She is swallowing them really good now. I just need to move beyond the rice cereal now and introduce some other things. She is always watching us eat and trying to grab our food if we are holding her. She's already growing up too fast!

Too Cute to Not Share

So I was going to actually post these pictures of Rebekah for Valentines Day and wish you all a happy Valentines Day. That didn't happen. No surprise. I'm planning on being more on top of things when she goes to kindergarten. Until then you all will just have to bear with me, my tardiness and forgetfulness.

Choices

Paige has been planning her birthday party since she ate her cake last year. She had her guest list made, her cake designed, and theme chosen. My kids get to have a "friend" birthday party every other year. So, this would be the year for friends. As time passed she talked about it less and less. Then as March drew nearer she started gearing up for her big birthday party again. Since she is turning eight she is also excited about getting baptized at the same time as two of her friends. We decided to make things easy we would go out to eat after the baptism with whatever family wanted to join us. This would be our Paige and Joe birthday celebration. Paige was excited because she got to choose where to eat and of course she chose Granny's Buffet. I don't think she has even eaten there before. She just gets a kick out of calling Grandma Hull Granny. Anyhow... One day I was feeling rather tired and lazy and thought I would try to get out of having a birthday party with friends. So, I asked Paige if she still wanted to have friends over for a birthday party or if it was good enough that she was getting baptized with friends and would get to go to eat at Granny's with family. She thought for a moment and said that getting baptized and going out to eat were enough. Well, a few days later I was feeling guilty about talking my daughter out of a birthday party. I asked her again if that was what she really wanted. I could tell she was thinking really hard. Here's what she finally said, "I do want a birthday party but, I really want to get baptized." She thought I wanted her to choose between a party or baptism. She chose baptism! I felt so happy that she made that choice. Then I clarified. She didn't have to choose between the two. I just wondered if she still wanted a party. So, we are doing a small birthday party with a few friends. Which reminds me, I need to get off here and make some invitations. I just love it when our children make good choices. Maybe we aren't such awful parents after all.

Little Monkeys

We recently took the kids to All American Gymnastics. It was a Christmas gift from my sister, Jennifer, and her family. (Thank You!) The kids absolutely loved it! They had such a good time climbing, swinging, sliding, bouncing, zipping, rolling. They were so sad when open gym time ended. We had to bribe them out with a promise to go to McDonald's. Sorry the pictures aren't the greatest. They are from Joe's cell phone, which takes better bright, outdoor shots. We were having such a good time and I thought I better get some pictures.