Pinewood Derby

I know what you're thinking "Pinewood Derby? They don't have any kids in scouts!" Or not. Our ward does a family pinewood derby every year. I have to say it was so fun. We invited our neighbors Chris and Pat to join us and they made a really cool snickers car. Our car was sparkly blue, with silver and gold details. Jarin cut out the wood and left the rest to us. He was VERY PLEASED when I told him we didn't decide to paint it all "sugar and spice." Since we're new to the pinewood Derby world, our car didn't weigh nearly enough. So when we arrived at the church, we were hastily drilling holes in it so we could add weights. With help, we got it from 2.9 oz to 5.0. Hooray!! But it looked a little clunky with fishing weights all over it. Next year, we won't make the same mistake.


Hannah was in charge of the paint job. She was pretty excited about how it turned out.
Chris and Pat let Jesse keep the snickers car. He was so excited. (If you want to see it closer up, just click on the picture.)
Here are our cars facing off against each other. We had so much fun. The only thing missing was Dad.

Happy Easter!

The easter bunny came a day early and sent the kids on an easter treasure hunt, leaving little notes in plastic eggs. The kids had fun figuring out the riddles and finding their easter baskets (buckets).


Here are Hannah, Elle, and Jesse in the outside shower with their loot.


Nate gets more active every day. The world is his oyster and he is in heaven with all the big kid toys we have in our house.


Elle is talking to her friend Madisyn on the phone, thanking her for the new bunny ears.

We sent Daddy off on a trip early this morning. We'll miss him while he travels the world.

The beach

We took trip to the beach this weekend as the weather has been creeping up into the 80's. It was a beautiful day to enjoy God's creations. Jesse parked himself in the trailer, I guess he didn't want to get sand on himself.



Hannah and Elle held hands and bravely faced the waves. They had so much fun!



Jesse did finally loosen up a bit and played in the sand, but it took him a while to give in.



Hannah was constantly in motion. I think she ran, jumped, and swam for 3 hours strait!



Elle took it all in one piece at a time. She crawled, walked, built sand castles, and jumped in the waves. Needless to say, they all fell asleep very quickly that night.

The boys...

Poor Nate has had a sad little diaper rash which has neccessitated some nudity. Turns out he LOVES to be naked!! I just couldn't resist those curvacious little cheeks!!Jesse started swimming lessons this month. I have been so surprised with the progress he's made in such a short period of time. Its usually pretty cool at swim lesson time in the morning, but they keep the pool around 83 degrees, which is soooo wonderful.

Jesse's birthday report

We started a "happy breakfast" in bed for Jesse.  He smiled that sleepy smile, then dug into his breakfast.

Jesse got a bike for his birthday.  The kids always ride in the cul de sac, now he can ditch the super-cute tricycle and move on to bigger and better.

All of  a sudden, Jesse was gone.  His bike was left in the middle of the street and he was nowhere to be found.  A minute or two later, he emerged from the garage with all the appropriate pads in place, all ready to be SAFE!  "OK, I'm ready!!!" he said.

Nate really enjoys our evening walks.  We've met a lot of our new neighbors and really enjoy our neighborhood.  Sunday night, some neighbor girls showed us a goose's nest with her eggs in it and we walked around the lake.

Happy Birthday Jesse!

My little boy is getting so big! Jesse turns 3 tomorrow. He's so sweet and so wonderful! Tonight, I told him he can have all the strawberries he can eat for his birthday. I bought a beautiful flat of strawberries in Plant City today for only $7 (yet another thing we love about Florida!) Jesse LOVES strawberries and always has. Of course, we got him a few other things, but I'll try to post more about that tomorrow.