27 March 2016

Happy Easter!

We tried coloring some artificial eggs this week.  They didn't absorb dye well, but they were easy to color.

Here's a photo of Abe with his favorite egg.

Sofi, Joey and Ireland spent 4 days at the Oregon coast.  They planned and paid for their trip by themselves.  They camped in a yurt and visited lots of cute tourist spots.  Their biggest adventure happened after they left a box of taquitos outside overnight.  They were awakened by ravenous (and possibly rabid, judging by their description) raccoons devouring their taquitos.  When the terrified girls needed to use the bathroom, they armed themselves with a broom to beat off the raccoons.  Fortunately, the raccoons left the scene of the crime after they finished eating and the girls made it safely to the bathroom and back without incident.  This is a photo of Sofi and Joey before they left on their trip.

Gibson turned 9 on Saturday!  We held a birthday party to celebrate.  Gibson loves all kinds of building so we planned a building birthday party with lots of choices for activities.  This table held a variety of electrical components which the kids could connect to AA battery packs.  Becky and Gibson had fun looking through drawers at Radio Shack for buzzers, lights and switches for the party.  In the photo are Eddy, Brandan and Tayvon.

The different buzzers needed different amounts of voltage to work.  Helen and Eddy worked together to figure out how many batteries they would need to connect to make three buzzers sound simultaneously.

Sofi helped everyone build a scribbler.

Here's a close up of Abe's scribbler.  The scribbler used an upside down plastic cup for a base.  The kids wired a small 1.5V motor to a AA battery and taped the motor and battery to the bottom of the cup.  They connected a small piece of hot glue to the shaft of the motor, making sure the glue was off center so the motor would wobble.  They taped markers around the sides of the cup.  The wobbly motor wiggled the cup enough to let the markers draw on a piece of paper on the floor.  We found 3 markers worked best.  The scribbler was stable, but agile enough to move across the paper.

Here are Gib and Caleb working on their scribblers.  The kids enjoyed experimenting by adding more markers or batteries.  After Caleb built his scribbler, he took the motor off and used it to build his own fan.  We loved their creativity!

Helen is holding the paper her scribbler drew on.

Another activity was building catapults out of paint stirrers.

The last activity was our earthquake simulator challenge.  We asked the kids to build the tallest structure they could with marshmallows and toothpicks on a layer of jello.  Then we shook the pans to see which tower stood the longest.  Both towers outlasted the earthquake, but Helen and Eddy's was a little taller.

Eddy and Gibson share a birthday, although Eddy is a year older.  We sang Happy Birthday to both boys.  Gib is a bright light in our family.  This boy knows how to laugh!  Except dinner and church, he has been building for the past 2 days straight.  Gib has a quick mind, an independent spirit and a good heart. 

20 March 2016

Becky made the neighbors pie for pi day on Monday (3.14).  She also made little pies for the kids for an after school snack.

 On Tuesday, Helen and Gibson's class held a showcase for their passion projects.  Every Friday the class has time set aside to learn about anything they choose.  The kids can work independently or with a partner.  They create a project to present what they learn.  Helen and Clara created two magazines.  They dressed like magazine editors from New York for the showcase.

 They called their magazines "imperfect" and while the articles are witty (peanut butter breaks up with jelly!), you wouldn't want to follow their advice (broccoli tastes bad so it must be bad for you).

 Caleb and Gibson are working on a comedy sketch series called "Crazy Kids."  They've finished two films so far.  Caleb and Gibson think up the sketches.  Becky films them.  Then Sofi works some iMovie magic to edit the sketches, boost sound quality, add sound effects, music and titles.  This is a photo of Caleb and Gibson introducing their movie "Crazy Kids 2: Even Crazier" to a first grade class that visited the showcase.  The first graders thought the movie was hilarious!

 Tuesday was the last day of school before Spring Break.  Sofi's school had a "dress like a tourist" day to celebrate.

 We found two half eaten cakes and this note on our porch Tuesday night.  The cakes looked less than tasty, but if we had thought about eating them, the note would have discouraged us.  We threw the cakes away.  We found out later the cakes were left by Sofi's friends.

Although the school district's Spring Break started on Wednesday, Sofi still had her all day college physics class on Friday.  Becky, Helen and Gibson met her for lunch.  The downtown area around the college has a fun food truck culture and we enjoyed gourmet lunches from 4 different trucks.

With Sofi and Abe's help, Becky and Brandan celebrated their 21st anniversary with a night away at a mountain lodge.  While we don't take our marriage for granted at any time, it was wonderful to reflect  and give thanks for our blessed life together.

 Saturday was the Spring music recital for the piano teachers association.  Gibson went first.  He never seems nervous.

 Here's a photo of all the kids after the recital.  It was a small group, possibly because of Spring Break.  Gib played "Old German Dance" by Michael Praetorius, Helen played "Short Story" by Dmitry Kabalevsky and Abe played the first movement from "Sonatina in C" by Muzio Clementi. 

 We're studying President Monson's talk "Ponder the Path of Thy Feet" for our Easter countdown this year.  Each egg contains a path Jesus walked, a few scriptures to read and some Easter candy (of course!)  We recommend the talk, especially for its reminder that Jesus walks with us through sorrow and happiness.

13 March 2016

We drove to Utah last week for Brandan's dad's wedding on March 5.  Dan and Martha were sealed in the Salt Lake temple.

Parker grew a lot since we saw him last summer.  Sofi is no longer the tallest cousin.

 Lots of cousin love at the wedding.  Sofi packed a bag of snacks and treats to pass out during photo time.  Smart girl.  In the photo are Maddie, Xander, Dallin, Sofi, Salem, Logan, Sasha, Gib, Helen, Kaylee, Sutton, Zoey, Emma and Abe.

Here are Helen, Kaylee and Emma.  Their bright colors stood out against the granite of the temple.

Beautiful-- Abe, Helen, Sofi and Gib.

 After the wedding we went to the Joseph Smith Memorial building for lunch.  This was our first chance to meet most of Martha's family.  She is one of 10 children and has 5 children of her own, so there were a lot to meet!  Most of the cousins sat together at their own table.  Becky was delighted with their excellent manners!  Clockwise from the top are Helen, Salem, Xander, Gibson, Sasha, Sutton, Niko, Zoey, Nate and Kaylee.

 We were lucky enough to share a table with these three handsome men-- Logan, Abe and Parker.

Here are a few photos from other parts of our trip.  Brandan's sister, Becky, is expecting her third baby later this month.  We'll be useless when her baby comes, so we took an afternoon while we were in Utah to fill her freezer with dinners her family can eat after the baby comes.  We exceeded our own expectations by preparing 12 meals in a little over 2 hours.  Here's a photo of Abe mixing meatloaf with his bare hands.

Our family stayed with Drue and Maggie and enjoyed long conversations and lots of play time.  It's still winter in Park City, but we enjoyed the hot tub and fire pit on their patio.

 We stopped for lunch on our drive home at our kids' favorite restaurant: The Pig.  

6 March 2016

Here's a funny photo from last week we forgot to post.  Since Brandan and the boys weren't hiking very far into their camp, Brandan didn't worry about packing light.  His 50+ pound pack included things like a full size folding chair and 2 sleeping pads (twice as comfortable!)  Abe couldn't stand up with the pack on, even with Sofi's help.

Four years ago on February 29, 2012, we each filled out a short questionnaire and sealed it in an envelope for our leap year time capsule.  Time flies and we opened our time capsule Monday night.  We had a great time reading our answers to questions like "What book are you reading?"  "Who will be president?"  "What would you do with $1? With $10,000?"  "What will you be doing in 4 years?"  Four year old Gibson wrote some of the funniest answers.  With $10,000 he would buy zhu zhu pets (hamster toys from 4 years ago we hardly remember now.) Gibson also predicted HE would be president "after he killed the dragon and found the treasure." Abe guessed correctly what he would be doing in 2016: HOMEWORK!

 The set for The Lorax is finished and it looks awesome!  We're sad we won't get to see the show, but we'll get to watch a recording at the cast party next week.  Here's a photo of Helen standing in front of the backdrop we painted in our garage.  It looks suitably gloomy and smogulous.

 Here are Helen and Gibson in front of the Once-ler's Lurkim-- his decrepit factory.

 Here are some of the sunnier props including truffula trees and the axes the Once-ler uses to cut the trees down.