Scouts & Band

We've kept pretty busy this winter with lots of scout stuff and band stuff.  The weather this winter has been very mild too, which has been great!  If it's not going to snow I'd much rather have warm weather than cold. 

One nice Saturday Haley enjoyed raking the neighbor's leaves into a pile to jump into.


T-shirts in winter! 


One night Shanna wore this on her hair to keep it from getting messy. I thought that was kind of funny.


Remember how I mentioned that Clark is particular about his hair?  He especially doesn't like it to stick up in back.  One night after showering right before bed, he put these shorts on his hair to keep it from sticking up in back. I am guessing anyway...  I snuck this picture while he was sleeping.


I pulled out the job cards to clean them off for a new week and saw that even Ila joined in on Saturday jobs while we were gone to Nicaragua.  Wow, thanks Ila!


Clark has been playing rec basketball about once a week now.  It's been okay.  Clark doesn't know a lot about basketball so it would be helpful if they had practices.  Plus a couple of the kids like to play by themselves at times, so getting the whole team involved is harder.


The kids are supposed to help with dinner once each week.  I am really bad at pulling them into the kitchen.  Not that I mind them in there, I just forget or am in a rush or they are busy at piano or ..... lots of excuses.  But one night when it was Shanna's turn for dinner she told me she was going to make it all by herself.  She did sausages, potatoes and eggs.  Yummy dinner! I helped her prep some stuff but she did the rest by herself.


Our friend Mindy had a birthday recently and we brought over some cards and goodies.  Haley's Happy Birthday sign is on the left.  Cal's unicorn one on the right.  I thought his saying was funny, haha. And the happy, jumping stick person.


The install of the new door is done, just have to redo some grout and I'll do a "reveal".  By the way I have the two bedrooms upstairs to show off too!  A guy came while we were gone to Nicaragua and put in a custom threshold for us.  Lee and I bought several between Lowe's and Home Depot. After bringing them home and seeing how they would NOT fit in the space, we gave up.  We are not detailed wood craftsmen. The same guy that refinished our wood floors did the threshold.  I love it.  I had to do the polyurethane on it though.  Finally knocked that little project out.


A new fruit bowl.  I know you wanted to see it!


Now on to the scout stuff!  I am the cubmaster for our pack at church.  The pinewood derby was in January.  We didn't have any boys racing this year.  Kind of weird.  Elden will race next year though. Shanna helped me make some candy cars to give to all the boys.  One boy can't have butter, eggs, nuts and some meat.  I made some candy cars last year but he couldn't have them. I made sure I bought things that he could have. Not that any kid needs candy...but it's fun!


I thought they turned out cute!


We had a GREAT turnout for the derby.  We were hoping for at least 15 to 18 kids, but had 13.  It was so fun seeing all the dads there helping their boys with their cars. And thanks to the young women for having a well stocked closet with plastic table coverings, markers, scissors and duct tape!  My friend Katherine is the president and I called her up asking if I could use some of their items.  She gave me free reign.  Now I know what I need to buy next year.  I wasn't very well prepared!






Lee saved the day by setting up a round robin on an Excel sheet.  He kept track of the scoring too. 




I made car sugar cookies for people to decorate.  One of the other leaders brought a rice krispy treat for the one boy made with coconut oil.  That worked well.


I started getting sick on Friday and Saturday my voice was shot.  But I made it through! 


After the pinewood derby we did a little shopping.  I found these yummy treats for $0.49 at Ross!!!  I found some pillows there that I really liked too.  I went back the next week and they were gone.  Boo hoo.  Should have bought them.  Cal was at a merit badge university, and Clark at "honor's band" so they weren't with us during the derby at all.




Lee, Elden and I went to Clark's band performance that afternoon.  Elden did not want to go.  Lee literally had to carry him out to the Chevy. Cal didn't know we were going to be gone to the concert, so we left the girls home to greet Cal. (Cal was at that merit badge university all day.)  But I didn't want Elden hanging out with the girls.  Thankfully Clark's honor's band was at our local high school.  SO NICE! Last year it was an hour away.


Clark was first chair!


He really enjoyed honor's band.


When I got home I found Cal already doing his Saturday jobs!  And he completed TWO merit badges!!!  Clark and Cal went to the merit badge university to get Citizenship in the Nation and World.  Some local scouts whom we know (well, the parents) were also going, so we were able to coordinate rides with them to Charlottesville (about 50 minutes away), which was so awesome and nice.  The boys had to do a lot of prep work for these merit badges.  One of them was to read the merit badge booklets.  They are kind of big and Cal isn't into reading.  Thankfully between an incentive and Ila helping him read while we were gone, he finished the books!  There were some other things they had to do also, like write a letter to a senator or congressman.  I am SO glad they have these merit badges out of the way.  Clark was able to get a lot done in just the one Saturday that he attended.  He met up with someone in our ward to finish them just last Sunday.  YAY!


The Sunday after the derby I stayed home.  I had a bad cold and woke up with a fever.  Lee didn't go to his meetings that morning and took all the kids to church for me.  I ended up working on a lot of scout stuff that day, along with some Sunday reading.  One merit badge book that I bought recently is out of date.  I called the scout store about it and he said he'd get me another one.  But that never happened and I just went ahead and hand pasted in the changes.  But it's not good that the scout store has an outdated merit badge book!!!  It's the "cooking" one, by the way.


I also sent out some messages that day too for cub scouts.  I tried to update a merit badge I worked on with the boy scouts, but couldn't figure that out.  But, I saw again Cal's patrol name: the Piggy Whales.  So cute! I think the name just reflects the young innocence of the boys in that patrol.  Again, just plain cute!


One morning a bit of winter came for a few hours.  We knew there might be some snow so I set my alarm at 5:40am to check my texts real quick to see if school was delayed or anything.  I didn't see any new texts so went back to sleep.  The kids looked out the window that morning and saw the snow.  They immediately asked if school was canceled.  Lee was really glad that school was actually on time!  They are cancel happy here.  Well, Lee checked a news station just as Clark and Cal were outside waiting for the bus.  Yep, school was canceled.  I still don't understand, being from Minnesota and all.  Oh well.  It was fun to have a day off. I took the kids sledding, minus Shanna.


No joke, this was that same afternoon.  All gone, practically.


I tried out a blueberry buckle muffin recipe.  So yummy! Thanks Lena!  We picked these blueberries this summer in Mississippi and have kept them frozen in our freezer.  It's been fun using them.


Quite often Cal brings home drawings for me.  One day he brought home this 90s wall paper boarder.  Too funny.  I threw it away later, after I took this picture.  It seemed like he was a bit sad I threw it away, but I reminded him I had the photo. 


He dug the paper out of the trash and made this cute "card" for me.  So sweet!


One night after scouts Lee, Clark and Cal stopped at our new Krispy Kreme.  I was quite disappointed with the custard filling!  The donut itself was awesome, but they failed on the "kreme" part. 


Clark's hair is thick and grows fast.  He decided to wear it tall and poofy one day.  Loved that he didn't mind rocking this look at school.  Hopefully a sign of self confidence?


As you probably know I do copies once a week for lots of teachers.  I finally got a photo of EVERYTHING I copied that day.  This is about how much I do every week.  Sometimes I do more.  Rarely is it less.


My youngest brother just turned 27.  Sheldon is in California doing an accounting internship with Ernst & Young.  Pretty awesome!!!  We sent him a package.  I thought the cards the kids did were really funny.


I loved the "activity" Elden incorporated into his card.  The kids thought it would be funny to make holiday cards.  They knew that it was his birthday. It reads "Find the presents and circle them."


Haley had a cute pop up cake.


I loved Shanna's "Cake, Yum" bit.


Cal's Hallow"ing" card was fun.  I like the word bubble for the pig. 


So, the kids watched the Jungle Book a few weeks ago.  Know the song, the Bear Necessities?  Well, Cal and Elden made up this thing called Bear-a-sesames...or however you want to spell it.  I guess it's this freaky, pretend zombie killer.  Something like that.  Elden wrote Bearusesumy on the back of his card to Sheldon for a shock factor and showed it to Cal.  So funny.  Elden said: "Look Cal!  Bearusesumy!"  I am sure Sheldon is kind of clueless on what in the world Elden wrote. 


Clark's was funny too.  Thank you Sheldon for sticking with college!  You are doing great! I am not sure if he is remembering wrong about the crayon thing....that was Uncle Roger, not Sheldon....


Lee and I had a date one night.  We got dessert, talked about some business stuff, and watched a movie later.


I have weird shadow streaks....


Shanna selfie.


So there has been more of everyday stuff than scouts and band, but I feel like that is what we've been doing a lot of lately.  The very next weekend after honor's band, Clark had district band. This performance was an hour away.  We all went to this concert together.  One of his friends from church was in this band too, Stanley.  That was fun.  Several school districts participated.  






One of Lee's old contract doctors gave him a gift certificate to Bella Luna.  We decided to use it that night.  Such yummy pizza.  Though the gift card covered less than half the meal.  I want to go back again sometime-fun restaurant!


We had about a 10 minute wait before we could get a table.  I thought it was crazy that this couple was playing games.  Well, I'm not sure what he was doing (sounded like he was playing by his comments), but the girl totally was.  I am not into computer games at all, and I think of it as a kid thing in a way.  So it was kind of weird that these people were at this fun restaurant, playing games on their phones.  It's been so nice not having our kids play any type of electronic games anymore at our home!  I love it. They've adjusted to it well too.  They can play when they go to friend's houses. 




In addition to the pizza we ordered a cheese and meat platter.


The last scout bit.....Clark now is a LIFE SCOUT!!!!  YAY!!!!!  He has four merit badges left and his Eagle Scout project.  He has no idea what to do for his project, and we don't have any good ideas for him either.  We need to all come up with something and get started on it.  That is the plan....Eagle this year!   I am so glad I now how to use a sewing machine.  I don't like to sew for fun, but it's a useful skill.


Clark put in a lot of work for each of these merit badges (and so did Lee and I!).  Clark has four more merit badges that he's earned, but we don't have, and then four more left to get.  He can earn more, but 21 merit badges is the minimum requirement.  He started on merit badges last January.  Whew.  Lots of work in over a year.


Hope everyone is enjoying the new year thus far and that your goals are going strong!!!