Star Wars Slumber Party

OK, I'm going to start by saying we are NEVER doing this again. We've had girls spend the night, more than once, and they have been a piece of cake. 5 eight-year old boys are a different story! We started at 6:30, after dinner. They each got thier light saber, thier Padowan braid, and started thier Jedi training. This took quite a while actually, and covered all parts of thier training. They tested thier powers of observation to find a small lego figure hiding in plain sight; they tested thier brains by solving Star Wars word searches; they tested thier listening skills by doing Yoda Says, and SW Bingo; they tested agility by balancing on a board, running an obstacle course, and balancing on one leg while distractions occured around them. They also worked on their team building skills by working together to move a pretzel with thier light sabers together. I may have left one out, but it was a lot of fun. Finally we had cake and ice cream, presents, and then they watched Star Wars I - Phantom Menace. OK. So then I thought that after all that running around, and the lateness of the hour, and the young age of the kids, they would go to sleep pretty quick after the movie....wrong. I fell asleep before they did, and Kipp was up until 12:30 trying to get them to settle down. One of the boys said it was 2:00 before they went to sleep....and they were up by 6:20am! Kipp and I both got up (Kipp got to go to his men's group), and I started the waffles. Again, they didn't eat as much as I thought, but that wasn't a big deal. The problem was the parents weren't coming until 10am, and they were starting to get bored by 8am! One kept wanting to go out and have light saber fights, and some others wanted to watch a movie, and one was still sleeping upstairs. He finally woke up, and they made it until their parents came. Kyler had a great time, and the party was a success, by kids' standards. I guess that's what really matters...

Cub Scout Flower

So last JULY when we were at Cub Scout Day Camp, one of the activities was to plant some seeds. So we did. And they did eventually sprout, but being so late in the season, they didn't do much. But we kept watering them. Then, this week, Ta-Da! We got a flower! I think it's from a Cosmos. Kyler was so thrilled. Who would have thought, 7 1/2 months later, in the middle of winter?

Coal Garden

Have you ever been to Black Diamond? What a great place! There's a fantastic bakery that serves food all day, letterboxes, and a museum, all at the same place. At the museum last summer we picked up some coal, which makes this unusual formation. You only have to add Blueing, ammonia, and water. I knew what blueing was, but couldn't find it at Fred Meyer. Luckily some older ladies came in the aisle and found it right away. The first thing out of her mouth was, "Are you making that Coal Garden?" Too funny! So dad helped Kyler carefully measure and pour. The stuff grows pretty fast, which is fun! It looks like cauliflower. The picture from above is after a day or two, and the one below is from about a week. Don't know how long we'll keep it. Apparently as long as you keep adding the liquid mix, it will keep growing. They are super fragile though, and any bumping causes it to fall apart. Anyway, look for your own lump of coal to make your own Coal Garden.

LadderBall!

Last weekend was really nice, around 60 deg and sunny! We've had a great Feb, by the way. So we broke out one of the kids' new games from Christmas. It's called Ladder Ball. There are 2 ladders, and 3 sets of balls connected by rope. You place the ladders apart, and try to swing your ball onto one of the rungs. It's kind of fun! Very portable, and anyone can do it. Come on over and play!

What will Heaven be like?

I just had a fun conversation with the kids today at lunch. It started with Kyler making up some creatures, and then trying to imagine what the ones in Heaven would be like. They went back and forth with some ideas, and we got onto whether there is food in Heaven. We think our new bodies won't need sleep, but not sure of course, and speculated on the food question. Kyler finally decided there was, because we know the angels have a party when someone accepts the Lord, and so there must be food at the party! I like it! I'm sure there are no calories however. Perfect bodies shouldn't get fat! We talked about how fun it will be, and how it will get better and better every day. What a great conversation we had!

Kyler's Loft Bed

Well, this weekend Jenny and I decided that we need to move some of Kyler's toys from Christmas that have been hanging out in our dining room. The only way to put them into his room was to somehow make more space in his room. Jenny had been thinking about making a raised loft bed which would give Kyler another 20% of floor space in his room. Jenny did a lot of searching and in the end we agreed to get the plans for the loft bed at www.collegebedlofts.com for $10.


On Saturday, we bought plans for the bed, shelves, and desk and I went to Home Depot to pick out all of the wood and hardware. Even with a checklist for all of the things I needed, it took me about an hour and fifteen minutes. I was getting quite frustrated trying to locate a few things (what is masonite anyway?). In the end, I came home with $185 worth of supplies. It was getting pretty late so I ended up just stacking it under the car and called it a night.


On Sunday, after church, I spent the rest of the day using a bunch of tools to prepare the wood as suggested in the plans. It basically involved cutting all of the pieces to length and drilling multiple pilot holes in each board. There was some gluing and screwing involved. Probably the biggest task was cutting notches in the 2x6 legs of the bed to accommodate the 2x4 ladder rungs. The instructions suggested using a dado set, multiple single blade cuts or a drill to form the notches. None of those sounded like too much fun but we bought a router a few years back and don't routers allow you to cut notches? Yes, they do... So looking in our router bit set, that had never been opened, I tried to find the right bit to make the cut. I could have done it with a couple of the bits if all I was trying to do was make a 1" deep notch but it turns out that 2x4's are 1 1/2 inches deep so I had to make a second trip to Home Depot to purchase a 2" router bit and a few clamps. I got out of there $55 lighter. This was my first time using the router so it was a bit scary. I clamped all four 2x6 legs together and marked where the notches had to go. Then with the router (after reading the manual and a router book a few times) I started making the notches (4 of them). The first notch was took about as long as the other 3 combined, which is typical when I'm doing something new like this. Even though this wasn't the fastest option, it was pretty fun after I got the hang of using the router. In the end, I was covered with wood shavings but the job was done and it didn't look too bad.

On Monday (President's day), I started to get all of the pieces together and realized I still needed to drill a few holes and sand a couple of rough spots. After an hour, I was able take all of the pieces up to Kyler's room and start assembly. Of course the plans didn't have assembly instructions so I had to improvise. The first attempt didn't work out so well (join all four legs, build ladder) so after a bit of discussion, Jenny came up with the obvious way to put it together (build ladders, join ladders).


So now we (I) still have to build the desk and 3 shelves and it will be done (but that will have to wait for next weekend). I was surprised that I only had to go to Home Depot twice and that everything went together so well. I'm sure that having decent plans helped. It has taken longer than we expected. I thought I'd be able to get the bed portion together on the first day and then the desk and shelves on the 2nd.

Last catch-up post - Christmas!

Christmas was fantastic, as you know if you read the Snow post! Many things were canceled that last week of school, and although I missed seeing some friends, I loved staying home each night. It was the quietest Christmas ever, and I really loved the time home with family and watching the snow.

Jenny makes PJ's for the kids every year. Kyler's were red and Ilea's had unicorns on them. The kids are looking at thier stockings, which Grandma Howard made when they were born.

One of the presents for the kids was a play tent from their Aunt Kori and Uncle Ken in Texas. They set it up right away in Kyler's bedroom, and both "slept" in there. Actually, when we went to bed at almost 11pm, the kids were still talking and telling stories! But it was vacation, so no harm done.

All in all, a great vacation, and time with family. Hope you had a good time also! Merry Christmas!

Catch-up Post - Snow

So by now I'm sure everyone knows about , or lived through if you're in this area, our snow. We got a few inches, and it stayed cold, and then a few days later we got more snow, and then a few days later, more. It just kept on coming, with no evaporation or rain in between. First big amount his Sun, Dec 14, and so the kids had a late day on Mon, and the next 2 days. Thrs and Fri before Chirstmas were snow days, and school was cancelled. The temps were very low, hitting 14 at our house one night. The highs were in the upper 20's some days. Then the snow just kept coming, including snowing all day on Christmas day. It was gorgeous! I loved it, and we didn't have to get around too much. The roads would clear up later in the day, with sand laid down, and people driving on the roads. My parents came up from Calif, and had a tough time coming through Portland, but got here safely, and we all had fun. The snow got so deep that it buried the lawn lights. I loved it! They glowed in the snow, and kind of melted little holes around them. Everything was so beautiful. The kids made a great snowman, who lasted for days. I wish we could have a white Christmas every year!

catch-up Post - Santa

Here are a few pics from Dec - The kids visiting Santa (I really love our collection of pics of the kids), and the Gingerbread House the kids made. They didn't actually get it until after Christmas because of all the snow. We couldn't pick it up! In fact, our Santa pictures were really late this year also, for the same reason. Unfortuately, everyone had the same problem, and we spent over an hour in line. It was worth it (to me!), but we'll try to get things done earlier next year. The snow started mid-Dec, and just kept getting worse and worse. See another post for Snow pictures!

You can sit here!

Our green couches were about 15 years old, and the support was starting to come loose. They didn't fare well in our one move, and have been going downhill ever since. So we put them on Craig's list and on New Year's Day some guys came and took them away. Which was great! Except that the new couches we bought weren't going to arrive for 6 - 8 weeks. So after 6 weeks of make-do sitting in the family room, we now have couches! They are comfy, and we hope they will last at least another 15 years! Come on over and have a sit!

Ky Kwon Do

 
 

As you can see by these pictures, Kyler has started Tae Kwon Do at a dojo in Covington. His first day he was so excited, he was hopping around after each exercise. He couldn't believe that he was actually being taught how to kick something. He had a smile on his face the whole time.

He's been doing it for about 3 weeks now and he has calmed down a bit during the classes. Every once in a while he gets a stripe on his belt. You can see in the first picture that he has one green stripe. I've seen kids with as many as four strips so he still has a way to go until he gets yellow belt.