Another Eagle Baby!

Sunday evening we celebrated and honored my Eli and 3 other boys in our troop who earned the Eagle Scout award. Following are some of our favorite pics from the evening. I'm so proud!

Colton helped with the flag ceremony, and Jake too, but no good pics :(

Taking the oath and getting his eagle wings by the mom!

Below, Eli chose his first scoutmaster, Kenny Christie as his mentor - very good choice!

The Master & Larsen families (minus Olivia - where'd she go? and their son, Ben, on his mission). They came from Austin for the event - thank you!

The one picture of the whole fam-bam and below my sweet-silly girl and very handsome boys!

And the finished eagle project in August - an ADA compliant wheelchair ramp, plus many pounds of crushed granite and lots of digging to reroute the water drainage that not pictured. This was a big deal!

First Day of the Rest of My Life!

For seventeen years I've been a Stay-At-Home-Mom with little ones always in tow wherever I go, but my five children ages 5-17 are off, leaving me with 8 hours of oh-what-shall-I-do-time!

 Highschoolers ready to go at 5:35 am - off to seminary, which starts at 5:45 every day! Colton is a Senior at Tomball High Schooland Eli a Freshman at the new high school, Tomball Memorial.

 

 Next off are the two going to Northpointe Intermediate, Jake in 6th and Olivia in 5th - the bus comes around 7 am!

 And my baby Caleb, on the first day, bus comes about 8:05, and he's off to Kindergarten!

 And he's so cute again on the 2nd day!

And the 3rd day was special also! No, I never cried.

I had my niece and nephew keeping me company these first few days. And they are all really having great experiences and learning and growing - tear :( It's all going to change next year, with Colton off the college. Having to enjoy this year to the fullest, fer sure!

Pioneer Trek 2011

Spring break this year brought a new adventure for my oldest boys. Our stake sponsored a pioneer trek for the youth ages 14-18 for 3 days and nights. Colton trekked in honor of Carl Magnus Olson, a great, great, great grandfather who made the trip from Denmark and across the plains as a widower with three children. Eli trekked in honor of Christian Andersen who came as a young man, around 1860, the only member of his large Danish family who joined the church and was then basically disowned. They were happy to go and it was the best spring break ever, as they dreesed the part, pulled handcarts, cooked their food, slept in tents, and had to hold it for the next port-a-potties! Not quite like the pioneers, but I'm ever so grateful for the many volunteers and the hundreds, maybe thousands of hours that went into making this experience possible.

Star Wars Party

I'm still doing star wars. I saw the movie when I was six, and fell asleep before Luke could blow up the death star. Now my five -year old (yikes, he's already 5!) is way into star wars. Due to the clone wars and xbox games, the empire keeps building and sucking in the young. Really, though I think it's awesome too!

Got help making these delectables (maybe too fancy a word for cupcakes) by my sweet daughter who aspires to be like her craft-goddess cousin (MH). Olivia baked them the night before and had me wake her up early before school so she could decorate. I only got one daughter, but I sure got the right one!

So cupcakes, check. Yoda Soda and Jengo Fett Juice, check.

The lightsabers, totally necessary for jedi training, check.

The goody bags, a score from Party City (which I usually dislike) for only 50 cents. Though I opened 'em and added candy, etc.

Use the force Caleb, use the force!

Fine young jedi now appropriately attired.

A celebration with the completion of training to become Jedi Masters.


A Kalani approved birthday party

Caleb ready for action. Though he tells me he doesn't really feel five years old. Get used to it buddy. Am I supposed to feel 40? Certainly not, but enough about me. Caleb is one fun little guy and our family wasn't complete with out him. The force is totally with us :)

February

Of course the month starts with Eli's birthday, Feb 1st, and this year he's 14. Notice the candles, with one on the first side and 4 on the other :)

And we promptly got hit by old man winter, quite severly for Houston as our car has never looked like this before. School closed for a day and about everything was canceled because no here can drive on icey roads. If you don't know this, know it now: I.hate.being.cold!

And just around two weeks after the freeze, when the kids had a day off on President's Day, they had to go swimming, not very long and still a little chilly @ 70 degress, but swimming they were!

And Caleb had mixed feelings about our little field trip to the fire station.

Below, while waiting their turn for the trucks, cousin Mason expressed his fettish for belly buttons (or pico in Hawaiian) and Caleb was sweet to indulge him patiently.

His favorite was the mobile learning station which filled with smoke (pretend) and they got to climb out the window.

And I'm excited to get my back yard in shape after last summer's pool building took a toll on my landscaping.

We had 3 yards of crushed granite, 2 yards of bull rock, a 3,000 lb pallet of moss rocks and around 700 lbs of flagstone delivered. We are fortunate to have these two strong boys to help. Colton had to play water polo with his high school team in a tournament all Friday and Saturday so he missed out, but he'll get to help during spring break when 5 yards each of garden soil and mulch are delivered. I have more "before" pics, but I'll show them in another post with the "after" shots, as that'll make me feel better.

And a local garden blog about foretelling the weather will make ya smile, at least us southerners. Check it out:

http://blogs.chron.com/lazygardener/2011/02/

You'll have to scroll down a few posts, but when you see the alligator, you're there!

W/my cubs @ the zoo!

When Olivia was in 1st grade (3 years ago) I was supposed to chaperone her school field trip to the zoo and she says that I was sick and couldn't go and I think she stayed home too and so I've been promising to take her for a long while. She remembers better than I and has often reminded me of the promise, but it's too hot in the summer and life is so busy during school that it has taken this long. So we ventured out along with the Farley family and finally got to the Houston Zoo on December 30, 2010.

If the famous albino crocodile ever dies, I think they could replace it with a rubber one and the public would not be the wiser -- or maybe they already have???

Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin!


Jake, Livvy and Eli becoming giraffe-like!

And we were priviliged to see the Rhino Exhibit with our own special Chevron employee, Matt!

The kids starting to tire as Mason can't give me a smile.

And Jake somehow gets a ride in the stroller -- he's 11-1/2! Why does the zoo get a person so exhausted! But now I've got a year long pass, so we'll have to go again and after this year, my kids will never beg to go again, so we'll enjoy it for a season!

Christmas Concerts

The last week of school before break and the activities for Christmas are all crammed in, along with finals for the oldest two. Olivia sings with the elementary school choir so I helped drive them to a couple of elderly resident homes and it was sweet to see them all sing their little hearts out. I couldn't get a good picture of the performance, but this is one while gathering outside.




Last night was Eli's concert for junior high honor band. He plays the euphonium (like a baritone) and it's really amazing how far they've come. They really play some good music.


I had all the kids come in support, and then made the mistake of having them all pose for a picture. Welcome to my real life!



So I made them take another one, this time I took the picture before the count of three with hopes it might be a nice one. This is my reality: