High Speeds

Kimball and Kade worked hard for three days on his Pinewood Derby car. It paid off because Kade took home the first place trophy (in his age group)!!!!

His buddy Mikey was there to witness it which made it even that much more fun.

Kade didn't realize his trophy said 1st place until we got to the parking lot, he can be a little non observant sometimes...which leads me to my next story.

A few weeks ago I did a bad thing.

I got a $450 speeding ticket!

Yip, I sure did.

It sucked.

I was mad, at the officer and at myself for not noticing the 'reduced speed sign'.

I was almost home from a ninety minute drive...

so close.

Needless to say, I spent my Saturday here...

The first stage was denial then anger, denial then more anger.

I think now I'm at remorse and possibly having an

epiphany that I need to slow down, not be in such a hurry to get places

 and most of all...

be more observant.

It's unfortunately one of my downfalls.

xoxo,

Cub Scout Cake Contest

It was the Blue & Gold Banquet for my little Kade tonight. We had a lot of fun working together on our cupcakes for the contest.

I'm loving these gold cups & sprinkles (hmmm, I feel an Oscar party coming on). Oh and the spray food dye is the bomb! I'm going to be buying it in bulk I think. If you have a Cub Scout and a cake contest coming up, we used these Scout themed stickers. I just took the little cupcake sticks and stuck one in between two stickers...so buy two sets. Honestly though, I got them at Hobby Lobby for about half the price, but if you don't live near one your could get them here on Amazon.

The hamburger cake was my favorite (I'm imagining if it were real it would be a Veggie Boca of course!) it looked incredible. Kade was  awarded the BEST BLUE & GOLD THEME! Woo hoo Kade!!

A good time was had by all and Kade LOVED having the support. Next up...Pinewood Derby, consider yourself warned that Kimball knows all the tricks to make a fast car so I hope the other dad's bring their 'A' game! Ha! :)

Love you Kade!!

xoxo,

Mommy

It's A Wonderful Life

I love this time of year! I had my tree up a week before Thanksgiving for the first time ever, the only problem is I really haven't had much time to do any other decorating. Here's a look at my decor, for loads of ideas go HERE. Tomorrow I'm going to put up some lights outside and decorate my front door step. Life with three little ones is keeping me super busy and I've been out of town...and sick but it's a wonderful life. Here's some things we've been up to.


Tonight was a great night all around. Jaxon received his Arrow of Light award for Cub Scouts and Kade sang in the Christmas program at his school.

To top it off, an old friend showed up at our door just in time for dinner. His name is Joey and he's a 52 year old man with autism. He can recall things like nobody's business! We met him about 6 years ago when our friend (his brother) introduced us. For some reason he's taken a liking to us and calls, emails and visits now and then. Tonight he took a bus from Mesa to Gilbert and by using Mapquest ended up right on our doorstep. We hadn't seen him for about a year and a half so it was a big surprise. He hadn't eaten, and luckily I had a decent dinner prepared so he joined us and then went along with us to the boys programs. It was a good time. I'm not sure why God has allowed certain people to have mental and physical disabilities like that, and Joey really struggles with that question too. He has hopes and dreams of having a wife and a family someday. It's sad to watch him worry about it so much. He thinks about it constantly and tries daily to somehow move toward that goal. I don't fully understand God's plan, but I do know that when he's around, I feel calm and peaceful. I'm certain he's a very special spirit and that after this life he'll have a perfect mind free of obstacles. I'm so grateful for the chance I have to know Joey and for the compassion and humility I hopefully gain from being around him.

Boys II Men

On Jaxon's 10Th birthday I gave him his first deodorant. He's looking at me like, "what?". Then he was in panic mode because he knew it would eventually make it on the blog. I should have handed him some shaving cream and a razor too.

Last week Jaxon received his Bear award at scouts. He (and I) worked very hard for this. Anyone who thinks an Eagle Scout does it on their own are sorely mistaken! Thanks also to his fabulous leaders who help him in scouting.

My Manly Man Kade reading the cartoon section. Back to the deoderant. Kade has been wearing it more than Jaxon. In fact, he puts it all over his entire upper body...seriously! When I tell him it's only necessary on the arm pits he replies, "I am a man!"

Brave Kade at the doctor's office. Oh if only he had always been this calm at his ear appointments!! He was getting a check up on his ear tube. It's been bothering him lately and we were hoping the doc would say it'd fallen out, but unfortunately it is clogged and not working. Since we have a $5,000 deductible we are praying that he can make it until spring without any ear problems. His ear drum should be healed by then. If not, he will go in for his 3rd hospital proceedure and we'll be forking over our deductible for the 3rd time. I know it's worth it but we are going to try and avoid it if possible. Cross your fingers.

The Man of the House playing a little hoop with his city league team. This is Kimball's second season on a city league. He really enjoys it. The picture is poor quality, sorry my camera's about dead!

Character Building

Character building - this is one of the things I love about home school, you not only build strong family relationships (which I'm seeing all ready) but you also can really work on helping your child learn to become a good person, friend, citizen, church member etc. My recent primary lesson was on being a good friend. I gave them each the start to a 10 day Friendship Bread/Cake recipe. I'm sure most of you know what it is but if you're like me and you've never made it, here's how it works. You gradually mix/add ingredients throughout the 10 days, on the 10th day you take a portion of the batter and give it to a friend along with a copy of the recipe. You then take your portion, add the final ingredients, bake and enjoy.

For the recipe click on the link. After we made the bread we read a quick story on what it means to be a good friend. Here's a few pics of them in the process. I'm sure they get sick of me stalking them like the paparazzi but I just can't help myself. Since I made 5 or 6 of these originally for my primary kids, it made it super easy to just put it in zip lock bags. Every day or so, you have to mix the ingredients even if you don't have to add anything so the bags really made it easy. No refrigeration so having the bread right there on the counter helped remind us to add and mix each day.
They're off to spread the love, they voted and decided to take it to our good friends and neighbors the Celeya's.



Scouting
It's great being able to incorporate scouting into our school day. Jaxon's been working hard to earn his Bear badge since he's about to turn 10. I am so grateful to his leaders for being so caring and great with the boys. I know they put a lot of effort into it and they try hard to help turn the boys into men. They had a pack meeting last night.
Did you notice Jaxon's the only one wearing a yellow handkerchief? Oops, my bad! :(

Fire House - Field Trip

We took this field trip last summer when we thought we were going to homeschool. The fire house is a great field trip for scout troops or homeschool groups and hey you can fulfill two requirements at once! The boys had a great time and of course now Kade is going to be a fire fighter when he grows up.


Can you tell who loves the camera? Just like his Dad:)




They even let the kids go down the fire pole, but not the slide...it was too dangerous.