Pinewood Derby - 2011

This year's Cub Scout Pinewood Derby was last night. It went well and all of the boys (and girls who raced after the main race) had a great time, though once again Ian was bummed that his car didn't win the speed race. Next year will be his last derby so we're going to have to go all out to see if we can make a super fast car. But, his car looked sweet! It was a rocket (or missle or bullet) that was painted gold and had decals down the side. Cami's car was a wedge of cheese with a mouse on top. The reason his car didn't win was it was too light. Even with the weights we added it was only 3 ounces, so that by the time it got to the end of the track it was starting to slow down while the heavier cars kept going. We weren't willing to screw washers and glue quarters to it to make it heavier. The pictures below are the steps to making Ian's and Cami's cars. Sorry for the slightly fuzzy photos. I'm getting used to my new camera thingy. Step 1: Mark the blocks so we know where to cut them. For Ian's car cut the block in half top-to-bottom. Ian's car had a more detailed shape, so cut that shape to save ourselves some time. Cami's was an easy shape to cut, but we were a little spazzy while doing it so we power sanded it to remove the wavy cut. This picture is before the wavy cut was sanded off. Ian's required major sanding to make it round. Daddy hand carved it using a carving knife and then the sanding wasn't so bad.

Once it was sanded we spray painted it gold.

Cami painted her block as a piece of cheese, and prepared it for the mouse.

Ian's car was so light that we had to hollow it out and add as much weight as we could.

Here are the final cars. They both looked really cool and the kids were happy with them, but as I said earlier Ian wasn't happy that his did not win. He was also sort of upset that his design award was lame. He won the "Rocket Car" award. I have to agree that the Bishopric could have been a little more creative.

School Talent Show - 2011

In the video above Cami is the girl to the farthest right.

Last night was the annual Terrace School Talent Show. Once again this year Cami participated with her Girl Scout troop. They did some little dance about peeling bananas. The video above is a short snippet of it.

There are a lot of talented kids at the school and it makes me feel like a bad parent that I haven't gotten our kids more involved with something where they can develop their talents, but we're working on it. We're hoping that next year Ian will be able to play his bagpipes or maybe they can do a skit together. We'll need to get Cami involved in something she can do. She has expressed an interest in bagpiping. Woohoo!

One of the worrying things about the show is the number of young girls who dance to some of the latest pop music. Some of the music has some unhealthy messages for young girls, and some of the dances and lyrics are sexually suggestive. I remember one dance where three girls turned their butts toward the audience and started to sort of grind them around and there was a loud whoop of approval from the parents that were in attendance.

Here is Cami with her participation award. She was very excited about the show and she was very pleased that she and her group did a great job and had fun doing it.

The Leprechaun Traps

Last night the kids put out some Leprechaun traps. Cami's had a ball of aluminum foil that was supposed to entice her Leprechaun up the ladder and then he would fall into the hole at the top of the box. Ian's trap was a hole in the ground that was surrounded by sticks. In the hole was a couple of screws and some peanut butter crackers.

Ian was very excited to find a piece of green cloth stuck to one of the sticks this morning, but Cami was disappointed that her Leprechaun was not in the box. The box however was torn like he struggled to get out, and the ladder steps were broken as well. Cami is going to try again tonight, even though she knows that Leprechauns only come out once a year (on St. Patrick's Day), but I told her that maybe he'll come back tonight now that he knows there are treats in our yard.

St. Patrick's Day, 2011

Well, St. Patrick's Day is on a Thursday this year, so it is mostly business as usual. The kids had to go to school and Daddy had to go to work. Bah, humbug. But, a small treat is the ability to wear goofy green attire and knick knacks. The kids had green feather "ears" and blinking clover necklace thingies.

You know, I have to be honest. I don't really like corned beef and cabbage. Yuck! I have bad memories of my dad eating corned beef and then whiffing up the house with corned beef toots for the next three days. Ugh. And cabbage, well...'nough said.

At the kids' school a surprising number of kids had their hair dyed green. I wished I had thought of that with our kids. Also, a lot of kids had clover stickers on their faces, so many in fact that I thought it was an organized thing. Hmm, we must have missed the memo.

Cub Scout Go Carts

Last night the boys finished their go carts that they started a couple of weeks ago. They had a blast pushing each other around in the church parking lot. This little snippet of video shows Ian, in the background under the post light, taking a major dive when the kid he was pushing did a weird zig zag manouver. Ian wasn't hurt, at least not seriously, and it was funny not so much because he fell but because of all the other mishaps that had occurred up to that point. The adult leaders were getting sort of giggly.

Scouts is a lot of fun because of this very thing. By the way, sorry about the quality of video but it was very dark out. I'm surprised that my camera caught as much as it did.

Tie-Dyed Cami

A few weeks ago Cami's Brownie troup (pack, gaggle?) made some tie-dyed shirts and bandanas. She wore them to school today because they had a dress rehearsal for their school's talent show. I haven't seen the skit (or song) they're doing, but I saw it in print and it has something to do with peeling bananas and squeezing oranges. Whatever it is I'm sure it will be cute. I'll post what pictures and/or video I get. I think the show is later this month.

Notice in the picture Ian helping by making faces behind Cami.

Cami's Church Drawing

The other night Cami sat in bed with mommy and set out to draw herself a picture, and a wonderfully detailed picture it is. I love this picture. It is our family (including "Puppy") going to church. And it has all sorts of nice little notes about how she loves Jesus and Heavenly Father, etc. I think I'll frame this one and put it somewhere. I hope she keeps this level of devotion and optimism.