Jonas Turns TWELVE!!!

We woke Jonas by singing Happy Birthday... he informed me he doesn't like being woken up by singing.  Poor guy.

Eliza worked hard to make him breakfast.  She knows he doesn't like milk, so she made him some lemon aid to wash down the cinnamon toast and banana.

That afternoon I took doughnuts into this class, but I didn't get any pictures.  Then in the evening we took the family bowling!

Jonas invited his two best friends to join us.

And the birthday boy tied for first place!  This was the first time I've bowled since breaking my arm and I think because my arm isn't able to straighten as much as it used to I was really off my game.  I can usually get the ball to go straight down the middle but it was pulling to the left like crazy all game!

After our game we got everyone dinner.  It was really fun just hanging out together.  Bolton was sad because he only got water for his drink...

After dinner we made a quick stop at the BX to buy a gift for Eliza to take to her friend's birthday party in the morning and it was home for cheese cake and presents!

He really wanted a Lego set and we told him over and over that we weren't getting him one, but Abe came to the rescue and gave him this. :)

Brotherly LOVE!  We gave Jonas some new shoes and pants, a basketball, and a backpack for scouts.    We ended the night by putting the younger set to bed and the older boys got to watch the first half of Pirates of the Caribbean.

He also got money from grandparents and one of his friends so we took him shopping the next day.  The BX was having a super awesome special on their clearance.  The more you buy, the bigger the percentage of savings.  Because we bought more than 7 things we got 60% off the lowest clearance price on each of those items.  Jonas got new basketball shoes, two pair of basketball shorts, and this new shirt/hoodie all for around $17!  He was stoked!

Saturday afternoon we went out to play 21 and then a few games of Knock-Out (what I grew up calling Lightening).  It was a lot of fun!  That night we finished the boys' movie after going to a sort of pizza party at the church.  Our ward conference was Sunday so we had Stake leaders visiting from far, far away.  We were able to go and kind of get to know them a bit.  I was surprised to discover an older brother of a good friend from high school is in our stake leadership!  Its a small, small world!

Random Beginning of March

The beginning of March brought one more snow campout for the scouts.  This time they decided to snowshoe/hike into their site and build snow caves/igloos to sleep in.  

 While they were hiking in they ran into a little problem the river was in the way of getting where they planned to go.  Ethan told me that he left his gear so he could hike up a steep incline to try to figure out the best course of action but several of the boys decided to follow him, all pulling their stuff up the steep incline with them.  Unfortunately, Jonas' sleeping bag wasn't secured tight enough to his sled and ended up falling down the incline and into the river!  The scout master had to rappel down to rescue it.  Jonas got to tie the knot to secure the two ropes together.  I thought that was pretty trusting of his leaders!  The bag was wet, but thankfully they weren't too far from the cars so one of the leaders walked back to the car to an extra sleeping bag for him!

Jonas slept in this snow cave even though he'd worked for hours on a different one.  No one would sleep with him in it and he needed body heat to stay warm.  Bryant was supposed to sleep in it with him, but he didn't trust that it wouldn't collapse on him... and it was pretty tight.  So Bryant and another deacon slept in a tent.

I asked Eliza if I could please do her hair for church and she decided she wanted curlers put in the night before...

The curls really did their job!  We told her she looked like Shirley Temple and then had to show her some little videos to show her who we meant.  I remember begging for the movie, The Little Princess when I was her age!

Ethan and I are on a volleyball team for his squadron.  We are having fun, but have yet to win a game.  I think our teammates are really annoyed by that.  I'm just really annoyed that I bruise so easily.  I look like an abused woman!

We make the kids come watch us, though I don't think they spend much time watching us...

Abe is our photographer... not too bad for a 4 year old I guess.

Our most recent game was on Pi Day!  So we went from the game to the club for pizza!  Jonas got the last piece of pie from the dessert table.  I think he liked it!

I got to make a baby quilt!  The lady it was for had very modern taste so I designed the quilt to (hopefully) suit her.  She didn't want too much pink and gray and black were all over her registry.  I think she liked it.

Thursday I was heading out to go grocery shopping.  Bryant had done his chore of loading the dishes while I made my list.  He asked me what setting to use on the dishwasher and I was surprised that it was full enough to run... we don't usually run it until after dinner.  But I didn't check on it, I just told him the setting.  When I got downstairs I realised I had left my bags at home so I ran back upstairs and when I walked it I saw this...

Bryant had used Dawn dish soap instead of dishwasher detergent.  So... we both got to work and spent the next hour cleaning out the dishwasher.

Thankfully our clean up worked and we didn't have any more suds when we ran it for real.

The youth got together for some first aid training.  We have a couple theatre folks in the ward and they did the girls' make-up pretty amazingly!  Ethan told me that the boys were pretty freaked out by some of the things they encountered!

Ethan, Abe, and I went to try a Thai restaurant here in town.  The curry was a little too spicy for my taste.

But the sticky mango rice was AMAZING!  We should have ordered one for each of us instead of sharing one!  The mango was perfect!

The first half of March was pretty full.

March Activity Days

I let the girls choose the activities this year.  They were really excited about the two planned for March... painting and sewing!  Our painting activity was really ambitious.  First we talked about and looked at a lot of different works of art and artists.  We ended with Monet and VanGogh.  I presented these two paintings to them and let them choose which one they wanted to create.

We actually ended up doing a little more mixed media using oil pastels and paint to create their works of art.  Here's the VanGogh table.

And the Monet table.

Some of their finished works.

This activity could have been better for me... though the girls LOVED it!  I think if we did it again I'd just choose one painting for everyone to do and I would lead it at the front of the room.  We ended up starting a little late (always have girls show up late) and then ended really late (A full 30 minutes! Sorry parents!).

Our sewing activity got postponed because we were asked to help with a service project!  A woman in our ward served her mission in Venezuela and had been collecting clothing, toys, and shoes for the people there.  We were tasked with boxing it all up and getting it ready for shipping.  The girls really had fun!  And we had a lot of work to do!

We started with about 20 bags of clothes/shoes and ended up fitting it all into 6 big boxes to send.

Some of the girls thought they might like a trip to Venezuela too.

I love working with these girls!  They are awesome!