Peter and Blake's Santa

This is Peter and his friend Blake. They often have late nights together. This weekend they were amazing and built me a minnion Santa. They made this one at Halloween time which I really loved. 

Scouts - Game Design

1. I designed a board game. It's called Castle War

2. I am current on my Cyber Chip

3. This is my game. I had to draw all the pieces.

4. I played this game with my Dad and my friend Jack

Scouts - Maestro!

1a. We attended Christmas around the World at BYU.

2a. I made my own guitar and played a silly song on it.

C. I played Christmas Bells and In Dreams on my piano

Bethlehem

A few days ago I took the boys to the BYU museum of people and cultures. I'd heard they had an exhibit of things from Bethlehem. It was a wonderful experience with so many beautiful treasures. The museum is tiny, but they utilized the space very well. I feel like we've found a hidden gem, even though we literally were there for 15 minutes.

Time for an upgrade

For the past two years I have put "new king bed" on our December calendar. When the month rolled around though, I couldn't justify the expense. This year though, we made it a priority. I ordered from the custom built furniture shop here in Springville. It took about 8 weeks to get built and installed, but we really love it.

My main reason for getting a bigger bed was so we could all pile on the bed comfortably. The boys are getting bigger now and it was getting very squishy when we all piled on. Since we do a lot of our school work on my bed, I consider it an investment in their education. That's a funny way to see it, but that's how I feel.

I have very fond memories of gathering on my grandmothers bed when I was a little girl, and my parents bed when I was little, and not so little. Those were cherished times and I hope my boys have similar fond memories of their childhood.

Pre-bed

Post-bed

Webelos - Art Explosion

1. Visited the Springville Art Museum. We got to see a lot of paintings, but also some sculpture. This painting of the stars was my favorite piece of art.

2. Created a self-portrait using drawing and painting

3a. Painted a picture using spray paint

 3b. Created a logo and put it onto a t-shirt

Pictures for a school assignment

Seriously, sometimes the things you have to do for a college class make you crazy! My teacher wanted us to upload pictures for an assignment, but it wouldn't let us upload them directly from our computer. Just from a URL or Flicker account. Thank goodness for our family blog. It was kinda fun going back thru the years and searching for these "gems". Golly gosh, I'm sure glad that days in braces are over. That wasn't very fun to deal with, but the results have stayed pretty amazing.

Family Pictures

Last month we met up with a photographer and had family pictures taken. It was a bit of a pain because we traveled up to Granite Flats up American Fork canyon - and they are doing construction up that canyon right now. Yikes!

We ended up with some darling pictures, so in the end, it was worth it. My only regret is that Brandon doesn't look like this anymore. Oh well, next year.

Provo River Falls

At the beginning of the summer a neighbor told me about these awesome waterfalls that are up past Kamas. I put it on our summer bucket list to do. Well, that didn't happen during any of our summer weekends. But, we made it happen this Saturday. It was a long drive 1 hr 40 minutes each way. But, we split up the trip by stopping to eat ice cream in Heber. It was one of those amazing days where you just feel so grateful for everything. The kids were happy, the car got us there and back safely, and we had a wonderful time while we were there. We even got to see snow. That was a surprise. Especially because the boys were in shorts. Thankfully, we made them get shoes on. Typically they are wearing flip flops.

On the way home, we stopped at two campsites that Brandon might take the boys too next summer. It was a fun way to also split up the way home. I am SO thankfully for my darling family. The boys are at such a fun stage. They generally go along with anything Brandon & I want them to do. On this trip, they really had a marvelous time. It makes me excited for snow come to our house.

Scouts - Make it move

1. My Dad and I created an exploding craft stick reaction.

2. We worked on learning about pulleys. We made one that helped us life up the tv remote.

3.  I made a seesaw. It wasn't hard because we used one that we have in the game Smugglers. Then we played around with stuffing things in the putty and seeing how the seesaw balanced.

4a. I drew a Rube Goldberg machine.

Scouts - Robotics

1. Identify six tasks performed by robots:
-A frozen yogurt machine
-Cars
-Computer parts
-Animitronics at Disneyland
-Cook dinner
-Sew clothes

2.We talked about the froyo machine that my Dad bought for his work.

3. I built a robot hand

4. I built my own robot.

Building a computer

Our family computer has slowly been dying for the past two years. This month, we finally decided it needed to be replaced. Thankfully, Brandon was up for the challenge of building one from scratch. It saved us at least $500. We think this one will last until the kids go to college. At least we hope it will. Peter was beyond excited to help Brandon put it all together.

Fieldtrip with Papa

We got the chance to go with Brandon at the Loveland Aquarium today. We went with our homeschool friends, the Thomas'. Peter and Talmadge always have a blast together and today was no exception.

Luke loves the sloth, so I was super glad that we were able to get a video of him actually moving.