Arrow of Light

This past week was our final Cub Scout Pack Meeting to attend as a family. With McKay's 11th birthday, he moves into the realm of Boy Scouts and as there are no other up-and-coming Wolves or Bears in our crew, we're done!

McKay did manage to finish up the requirements for both his Webelos badge and his Arrow of Light award. He certainly didn't leave a lot of "wiggle room," but he got them done. We're proud of him!

The Cubmaster made a special plaque for McKay earning his Arrow of Light. McKay was very excited!

They held this Pack Meeting at a local museum called the Kwahadi Indian Museum. They let Scout troops use their facilities and since we had 3 boys (from our combined packs that meet together) receiving their Arrow of Light, they wanted to make it an extra-special Pack Meeting.

Birthday Girl

It's a busy week for birthdays at our house! Courtney celebrated her 7th birthday this past Wednesday (6 days after McKay's birthday). She's growing up way too fast on me.

Unlike McKay, Courtney had a definite opinion on what kind of cake she wanted. She changed her mind several times (or I vetoed some of her ideas because they were too complicated for me), finally deciding on a poodle cake. I found one idea online and kind of tweaked it a little, ending up with this:

One thing I've learned about making cakes for my kids is that it usually doesn't matter how many mistakes I think it has -- the kids don't care and love it anyway.

It just so happened that one of her presents was a Webkinz pink poodle, so she thought that was pretty neat to match her cake.

She put the candles on herself and spaced them out pretty good! So it took a few blows to get them all out.

Lots of fun birthday presents -- she even got to go against tradition a little and open them before dinner because of Pack Meeting right after dinner. She and her sisters were really trying to figure out what they all were before opening them.

She was excited about this weaving loom from Uncle Tyler:

And she loves her new Webkinz friends.

This doll actually came from our apartments and was out for sale at a little garage sale we had at one point. She had seen it and wanted it, so she was very excited when we actually gave it to her.

Courtney is doing so great in 1st Grade this year -- she continues to amaze all of us. She still has her fierce independent streak and can be the most stubborn of any of us, but she's got a tender heart and a super sweet side to her as well. We love her dearly. While I always think my kids are growing up too fast, I can't wait to see what lies ahead for her -- watch out for this girl!

Singin' Broadway

On Tuesday night we attended the 3rd-4th grade program at the elementary school. The theme was "Broadway Beat" and the kids sang a bunch of songs from different broadway shows. Hannah was excited and a little extra nervous because she had a solo!

A month or so ago, she told me she had made callbacks for a solo audition. (I didn't even know she was going to try out in the first place!). Later that day, she came home excited to tell me she had been picked to sing a solo in the program. Her part was the first couple of lines from "Tomorrow" (from the show Annie).


She wore her best dress and did a fantastic job! I was a little worried she would get stage fright at the last minute, but she did great. Here she is singing some of the other songs with the rest of the 3rd grade:

We were sitting on the top row of the bleachers, which let us see over most everyone's head but didn't make it great for taking pictures. My telephoto lens always gives lots of red eyes on indoor shots like this. (And as a side note, our elementary school really needs to get some more chairs! There just wasn't enough seating for all the families.)

Then it was time for her solo! Three girls had solo parts in her song.

They started the music a bit too soon, so she had to hurry up and grab her mike to start singing on time, but she didn't get flustered at all. We're so proud of her!

Birthday Boy

This past Thursday we celebrated McKay's 11th birthday. 11! Before I know it, I'm going to have a teenager on my hands (and he'll be taller than me too before too much longer).

McKay told me he didn't have a preference for how his cake should be decorated (other than it be a chocolate cake), so I looked through some ideas and finally settled on a computer circuit board (a motherboard to be specific), since that has been one of McKay's interests lately. I copied a design I found online and even though the placement didn't quite turn out like it was supposed to and McKay informed me I was missing a couple of elements, he was quite happy with it.

He told us he wanted to put the candles on his cake himself and started putting them all really close together. Brian gave him a hard time about it, so McKay finally (reluctantly) spread them out a little more. He said he really wanted to blow them all out in one shot because he didn't think he'd ever managed that before. Even with them spread out, he managed to do it! His comment afterward was that it must be because of his trombone playing because he can blow out air for a lot longer than he needed to for the candles!

He opened presents after dinner.

He got several books (the kid loves to read!) and a couple of new Wii games.

We told him his "big" present was still on the UPS truck somewhere and scheduled to be delivered, but it hadn't shown up yet. I had to leave for a Relief Society meeting at 7:00, and when I got back home he the UPS man had come and gone and McKay was extremely excited about his other present. Brian picked out for him a real computer motherboard, along with a CPU and some RAM.

McKay has been wanting to put together a computer (with Brian's help) and had been researching motherboards and other parts online for the past week or so. He was going to try to use some of his saved money to buy some parts, so he was thrilled to get them for his birthday. Now he and his dad have been busy hooking everything together.

McKay is a great kid and we're so proud of all he does. He tries hard in school and is always wanting to learn new things. He is a super big brother to his sisters and watches out for them (even if they do manage to embarrass him at times). He is very courteous and respectful and sensitive to other's feelings. I love to watch him with Brian -- his dad is his hero and he would choose to spend all of his time with him if he could. He is still set on being a computer engineer like his dad when he grows up. Our "big baby" is growing up into a big, (mostly) responsible kid! (Now if only I could convince him that he really does like to take showers...) We love our McKay!

Halloween Fun

Halloween seemed to be a pretty quiet affair this year -- not really sure why, but I'm not complaining. Maybe part of it had to do with the fact that I didn't have to buy or make any new costumes this year. Once we pulled out the costume box, the kids all found something they were happy to wear -- even if they'd already worn that same costume in the past.

Hayley was a "bat princess," which is the same costume she wore last year. She kept telling everyone she was "bat girl." The mask only stayed on long enough for pictures.

Courtney was a witch again this year. She wanted to take her little black Webkinz cat with her, but decided it was too hard to carry the broom, the cat, and her pumpkin for collecting candy.

Hannah picked out the angel costume. She wore this costume 3 years ago and it was almost too long for her then. Apparently she's grown several inches!

McKay had a hard time deciding. He finally pulled out this old toothpaste costume that I made when I was a teenager (I think it was 8th grade). It is made (not very well) from an old sheet and is definitely starting to turn yellow and fall apart. We made his hat from accordion-folded paper attached to a little sailor's cap I have. (And he got at least one comment -- like I always used to -- about how it looked like a lamp shade.)

Our ward had a Trunk-or-Treat at the church building (combined with the other ward that meets at that building), so we went to that. The kids love circling around the parking lot several times until their pumpkins are pretty much full. They really wanted to do "regular" trick-or-treating as well, so we told them that on our way home, we would stop in the neighborhood just below our house for them to go to a few houses. I noticed that many houses were dark, so they just went to 3-4 homes. But that was enough to satisfy their need.

I decided I'm not making such a big deal this year about how many pieces of candy they can eat at once (within reason). The sooner it's gone from the house, the better!