28 February 2016

Gibson received his Wolf badge at pack meeting this week!  Cub Scouts changed their rank advancement requirements last year and it has been a challenge for our pack to catch up with the changes.  This may have been the single hardest patch for either of our boys to earn in the 5 years our family has done scouting.  In this photo, the cub master, Pam, is asking Gib which was his favorite requirement to fulfill.  He answered, "All of them!"

Abe was inducted into National Junior Honor Society the same night.

Friday was western day at Helen and Gib's school.  Gib made himself a sheriff badge.

Helen's class voted for her for Student of the Month.  Her teacher, Miss Jenny, is kneeling behind her.

 Brandan and Abe went camping with Abe's scout troop this weekend.  Our church owns a girls' camp on the edge of a mountain lake.  They backpacked from the highway into the camp.  Brandan went snowshoeing along the frozen lake on Saturday morning.

 Here's a photo of Malakai and Abe leaving the camp.  Not knowing what the roads would be like, they took snowshoes.  You can see how deep the snow is compared to the road sign.    The boys had a great time sledding and having snowball fights.

21 February 2016

Becky, Gibson, Helen and Abe went hiking on a foggy Presidents' Day.

 We eventually got above the fog to blue skies.  The fog below us looked like a white ocean.

 Sofi turned in a large lab report for physics.  Her report took 20 sheets of paper.

Helen and Gib's class is getting ready to perform The Lorax  next month.  We'll be out of town for the  performance so we're helping with costumes and set design.  Becky made costumes for the Barbaloot bears this week.

We invited their class over to paint a backdrop for the play.  We put a tarp down in our garage and most of the paint ended up in the right spot.

Here's Helen working on painting a dead stump.  In The Lorax, a character named the Once-ler cuts down all the truffula trees.

Abe's math team competed at our region's Mathcounts competition on Saturday.  Their team came in 3rd place.  Ashton and Jake are also on the team.

14 February 2016

On Wednesday our ward held its New Beginnings night for Young Women.  The Young Women invited all the girls who will turn 12 this year to join them for a special night to learn about the Young Women's program.  It's also a night for the older girls to rededicate themselves to their standards and Personal Progress goals.  This was a special night for our family because it was Helen's first New Beginnings night and Sofi's last.

We planted these funny cabbage looking plants in the fall.  They've grown slowly through the winter and this week we harvested a nice crop of brussels sprouts.

 Here is our harvest-- enough for a couple of meals.  The plants behind the brussels sprouts are red Russian kale.  We planted it in the fall, too, and we mostly feed it to our turtle, Lily.  It's fun to feed Russian kale to a Russian tortoise.

 Helen made Valentines for her class by decorating Twinkies to look like minions.  She wrote "You're one in a minion" on each card.

On Sunday we started breakfast with a plateful of Valentines from each other.

 After church we made Valentine cookies: sugar cookie dough rolled in sprinkles with a Hershey hug on top.  Sofi took a plate full to her mission prep class and delivered a bunch to friends.  Once in a while, having food allergies works in Abe and Helen's favor.  They got to keep all the gluten free cookies we made for themselves.

7 February 2016

Monday was a teacher work day and the kids didn't have school.  Becky and Andrea took Helen, Gibson and Eddy hiking.  We did a good job avoiding the mud.

Eddy came to our house after the hike and we made suckers together.  Sarah sent us the supplies.  It was our first time making suckers and they taste slightly burnt.  The kids eat them anyway.

We woke up Tuesday morning to snow.  The schools started 2 hours late to give the snow a chance to melt.  Gibson, Helen and Abe somehow scraped together enough snow to make a snowman.

We're thankful for the 2 hour late start because the snow was gone before the kids got home from school.  If they went to school on time, they'd miss playing in the snow.  Here's a close up of their snowman.

Helen and Sofi made some crayon art.  They unwrapped crayons and hot glued them to the top of a blank canvas.  They added a picture, then used a hair dryer to melt the crayons around the picture.

Here they are with the finished canvasses.  Sofi's has a picture of a couple under an umbrella.  Helen's has a picture of a bird and a quote by Salvador Dali, "Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings."  Helen gave her artwork to her art teacher at school.  

 Brandan took Abe, Helen, Gibson, Camden and Eddy to Snowcapades on Saturday.  Snowcapades  mixes  sledding and other outdoor winter activities.  This is a photo of Gib and Eddy snowshoeing.

 Here are Helen and Eddy.

This is Abe going down a sled run.  Snowcapades requires the kids to wear helmets when sledding.  It's a good idea-- the kids had some spectacular wipeouts.