End of March

In all the years we have lived in Edgewater, we have never seen fireflies at night. A few months ago we saw one and then one night we came out and there were tons!! I tried to get a picture of them, but it just doesn't do it justice. It was really cool to just stand there and have a bunch of fireflies around you.

The sickness descended on our family!! Rett caught it first, he was lethargic and had a fever for almost a week. Then he ended up with a lingering cough and congestion for at least another week or so. James caught it next and missed a few days of school, then I got it. My mom came into town to watch Rett for us during the Pinewood Derby and after she went home, she got sick and ended up having the flu! This year hasn't been great for us with getting sick. Hopefully we will have a break from illness for a long time.

Rett had his first soccer game! It hasn't been the greatest season. He missed a lot of practices and at least one game in the beginning because of being sick. He also has been really distracted and hard to handle during practices and games. He wants to "race" the other kids, run around in circles, fall on the ground, basically anything but play soccer. It doesn't help that all of his games are at 6:45pm, which is past when we normally start getting ready for bed. On the game day we had soccer pictures, the game didn't start until 7:30! He kept running off the field wanted to lay down and at one point he ran off the field to ask me to scratch his back (like when we are going to sleep).

I was put in charge of our Stake Pinewood Derby and I put a lot of work into it this year. Our stake primary president was out of town, so even more of it fell on me to do. We asked my mom to watch Rett so that Anthony could come and be my right hand man. Together we pulled it off!

I custom ordered trophies for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. Having real trophies makes things so much more exciting for the cub scouts!

Then I made this participation prizes so that everyone would go home with something. They are yoohoo boxes with candy on it to make it a race car. Thanks for the idea pinterest :)

This year I decided to make a balloon arch as a part of the decorations. We got pvc pipe from Home Depot for two dollars to make the arch, put the ends of the arch in flag stands, and covered the flag stands with tires that were left in our yard by the previous owners. I spent the morning blowing up balloons and twisting them around the arch. Everyone loved it, and it I couldn't believe how cheap it was to make.

Our stake only has one derby track and it is pretty old. Maybe one day we can get a new one that will tell electronically which car won. We had two judges that sat at the end to say which car won, but surrounding them were parents (mostly dads) with their cell phones, videoing so that they could play it back slow mo just in case there was a close decision. Those parents weren't messing around!

James had a good time testing out the track with his derby car. This is his third car he was made with Anthony, so when he does an officially one in two years, it will be old news.

Trophy table:

Weigh-in and pit passes:

I made a parking garage out of black poster board and a gold paint pen, so that when they signed in and got a number, they would park their car in that number parking spot.

Look at that crowd!! I think everyone had a good time, but I was so relieved when it was all over.

It is going to be awhile before we start getting eggs from our chickens, so we decided to do quail again. It has been awhile since we used the incubator, so I bought a lot of eggs just in case only a few hatch. We put 53 eggs in there!

Fun in the bubble bath!

Rett's hair was always in his eyes and I couldn't take it anymore so I put his bangs up in a pony tail. James laughed and said now he looks like a girl, but I didn't have to constantly push his hair out of his eyes so it was worth it.

Anthony took James to the park to race his remote control jet ski on the water and they ended up finding a few painted rocks. It adds an extra level of excitement to go to the park when you get to search for rocks.