A new calling

Julia was called as a ward missionary today at church.  I am so grateful she will have this opportunity to work with the missionaries.  It will be a great tool of preparation for her as she gets ready to go on a mission in just a year.  She will only be in our ward until the end of May so it will be a short run for her.  I hope it will be a great growing experience for her.  She has a strong testimony for herself and I hope this will help it grow even brighter.

A loose tooth

Joshua has been waiting and waiting to get a loose tooth.  About a year ago he started telling me he had a loose tooth.  I would wiggle the tooth he thought was loose and say its not very loose yet.  A couple of days ago he came to me and said he had a loose tooth. I was busy fixing dinner and wiggled it just to make him happy.  I was so surprised when it really was loose.  He actually has two loose teeth right next to each other.  He is so excited! He is wiggling it all the time and can't wait for it to fall out so the tooth fairy will come.  It is fun to see him so excited about growing up.

Phillis Wheatley

In fourth grade at Parkside the children do a biography book report.  They choose a person, study them and then dress up and report to their class.  MaryAnne was Phillis Wheatley.  She practiced hard and learned her speech. She knew it well and didn't even need her notecards.  I think she really liked dressing up in her costume that we made for her.  She did a great job being Phillis Wheatley.  I was very proud of you MaryAnne!

Happy 18th Birthday to our favorite hobbit!

Julia turned 18 on Thursday she is really a hobbit at heart.  She is so easy going about things that she didn't really care what kind of cake she had.  She loves J.R.R Tolkien so I thought it would be fun to make a hobbit cake.  I looked online and found a cute hobbit hole cake that didn't look too hard.  I decided to give it a try even though I had a busy day on Thursday.  It was fun to do for her and it turned out so cute! It even had a pretzel fence around the yard.

Neil brought Julia beautiful flowers to celebrate her birthday.  He also worked hard to make her a beautiful hope chest.  It took a lot of time and effort on his part.  It turned out beautiful!

At Christmas time I had the thought that the perfect gift for Julia would be the Lord of the Rings books.  I had already gotten her Christmas gifts so I bought them and put them away for her birthday.  She loves having her own set of her favorite books.  I did some research and found a nice set that she really loved.

Happy birthday dear Julia! You are my favorite hobbit ever!  I love you so much!!

Tickling the ivories

Julia had her winter piano recital a few weeks ago.  She doesn't love doing recitals, but I do love listening to her play.  She typically plays something from the Lord of The Rings  or Hobbit movies.  She didn't disappoint the audience that has come to look forward to her music selection.  She did a great job! I love to listen to her play and I don't get to often enough.  She practices each morning, but she does it downstairs in her room on her keyboard.

Lydia's movie

Before Bethany moved back to the dorms she showed the children the dvd of movies that the kids had made together.  Lydia loved watching little Rebecca, Bethany, Julia, Matthew and Emma in the Harry Potter movie.  Matthew and Julia think that the Harry Potter video shouldn't be talked about on my blog.  They are not in favor of seeing themselves as younger children.  I thought it was priceless. She also loved the Counting Sheep music video the girls all made together.  She kept telling me she wanted to make a movie like they did.  She told me she knew exactly what she wanted to do.  She dressed up as Tinkerbell and I just recorded what she did. I think she might like to be on the stage as much as Rebecca does.  Here is Lydia's movie debut.

Last Sunday night we watched Singing In the Rain as a family.  Lydia danced every song.  It was really cute.  When there wasn't a song on she would come and ask me if there was going to be another song coming up.  It was kind of dark so it might be hard to see how adorable she was.

Dallin's first pine wood derby

We had the triward pine wood derby last Saturday.  Dallin enjoyed helping make his car.  Neil likes the time with the boys, but doesn't love the whole process of building the car.  I think his least favorite part is getting the wheels on right.  He is a good sport about doing it with the boys and letting do all they can.  Dallin picked the design for his car, helped sand it and paint it.  I loved the eagle sticker that Dallin picked to decorate it with.  This year each boy got to race 10 times.  There were about 45 boys involved so it was a lot of races.  Dallin went 5 and 5.  I think he enjoyed his first pine wood derby.  I was proud of him and his good sportsmanship.  There were some really neat looking cars.  I love seeing the creativity that is shown in making their cars. The wards go all out with decorating and treats at the pine wood derby and it is a classy event. 

I kept trying to get a picture of the finish and wasn't ever successful.  He won this race.

Here are the cub scouts getting their pit passes

Dallin's picture for his pit pass

The Eagle

Some of the cars

Dallin and the Eagle