Pinewood Derby 2011

After our horrible luck at last years Pinewood Derby, I am happy to report, that this years Pinewood Derby was a success!

#1 Success was that Chad only had to help one child build a car
#2 Success...they designed a pretty cool looking car that Jared was thrilled with
#3 Success...Chad worked his magic and Jared's car was pretty fast. He came in second overall! Hooray!

Here is Jared with his cool black car


Getting Ready for his first race


All of the boys listening to the rules and instructions


Jared and his friend Kyler


Jared getting is award for "Best Batmobile" car and 2nd Place overall!


Here is all of the pinewood derby cars from the kids in our ward

Another Proud Moment

Landon really wanted to tell a story for the storytelling contest at Central Elementary. So, we talked and talked about a story that he might want to tell. Of course it is Landon, and he couldn't tell the traditional Three Bears, or Billy Goats Gruff. He had to come up with a really UNIQUE story called The Big Hairy Toe. We worked and worked and worked on it. First he had to tell it to all of the first grade classes. Then the teachers picked him and another girl to go in front of a panel of judges. They pick one from each grade level to tell their story in front of the entire student body He was so excited to be chosen! Shout out to those judges, because it really helped his little confidence! He did a great job! I got a couple of pics, and filmed it. I just didn't know that I had pushed the wrong button on our new camera so the video didn't work.

Here is Landon with all of the other story tellers! He was the only boy!


Landon on stage telling his story in front of the whole school

St. George EQUALS fun

Last weekend (March 4th), the boys and I loaded our Suburban with shorts and bikes and searched out warmer weather. I feel like this has been the LONGEST winter of my life. I had been getting a little stir crazy, when my friend Shari started talking about a Mountain Bike race in St. George. Kyle is really good at extreme sports, so I decided I wanted to enter him in the race (first one EVER). My dad moved to St. George and we hadn't seen him since last September...another good excuse to head South. Chad had to work, so I called my dad. It turned out that he was up here working, and decided to ride with me back home for the weekend and then come back up with me to finish his job. We all had the most fabulous time. Dad and I talked and talked and had the best time together. It was so fun to see him in St. George where he had always dreamed of being. He lives right next to the most beautiful red rocks and really feels like he is in paradise. I realized how much I miss him and just how much alike we really are! The boys also loved all of the time we got to spend with Dad and Cheri. They loved St. George and the endless trails right behind my dad's house to ride their bikes on. Dad hiked and hiked with us, while we rode our bikes and Cheri was such a great sport to drive Kyle to meet our friends for a longer Mt. Bike ride. Kyle took 3rd place in the race, I couldn't be more proud of him. Our friends daughter came in just 12 seconds behind Kyle, and ended up taking first place out of the girls. Not bad for their first races. We cannot wait to go back. But, I think we wore Dad and Cheri out, so we will give them a break for a couple of months!

Kyle's age group (10-12) getting ready to start the race


Kyle coming across the finish line


My third place winner


Kyle and Meryn after the race


Kyle's Cheering Team...and such good sports to wait so long for him


The boys and Grandpa Dennis in "slot canyon" which is in snow canyon


Kyle and Grandpa on the hike


This is my dad loving the red rock...he is so happy there, and I am so happy for him!


A view looking out of the slot canyon

Happy Birthday Landon...

I can't believe that Landon is seven! It seems so crazy! Landon brings so much happiness into our home. He is my right brain child who loves art and music and dance! He writes the best stories at school and is an amazing little artist. He has been taking dance classes for about a year now and has decided that he loves ballroom the most and doesn't want to do hip hop or breakin anymore! He is my little lover and at this point really gets along better with girls. He just started Freestyle wrestling and loves it. Chad took him snowboarding on Friday night for his birthday. Kyle and Chad said he did great. Chad took him right up the first lift. No Bunny Hills for my babies! This year, he wanted an airplane birthday party. Of course the first thing that I did was enlist Grandma Julie into making his airplane cake. You can see from the picture below how amazing the cake turned out. She is so talented. We appreciate it so much. I had a really hard time cutting into this cake! It was just too cute! We had a birthday party for Landon and invited 14 friends and 2 cousins over. I had the help of my sister Tera and my sister in law Lisa. Couldn't have done it without them. My other boys were all helpers too. Jared was our ground crew worker and help flag the "cars" to the right parking place. Kyle was our security guard and made sure that the kids went through our security check point where they had to remove their shoes and all metals. Tera was our gate agent, where she checked them in and gave them their seat assignment. Spencer checked in their "luggage" and put their present in a big suitcase. Landon of course was our captain and I was his first officer. We took the kids to Italy where they painted. Then we took them to Hawaii and had a snack on the airplane and played a game of musical airplane (we just passed a toy airplane around with treats in it, if you were holding a plane you would get a treat out of it). Then we flew off to China to make Oragami paper airplanes and had a flying contest! We had a first class meal of Hot Dogs, Chips and Jet Fuel to drink! It was REALLY Fun and Landon felt very special because his Dad let him where his special Captain hat and wings! Very cool!

My Cute baby Landon


Captain Landon on his 7th Birthday!


I thought the captain was suppose to fly the airplane.



Loved his face in this! Had to get all of the candles out!


Cutest airplane cake EVER! Thanks Grandma Julie


Landon with is friends Kyler and Carter


Night snowboarding with his big brother Kyle. Kyle took care of him that night and made sure he made it down the hill safely! Such a nice big brother!

Science Fair 2011

I was super excited when Kyle came home this year and told me that he was doing his science fair project with Harrison! We spent a TON of time on his science fair project last year, and I swore I would never do that again! I am happy to say that he and Harrison did this all of their own (okay, Jacquie and I did a little gluing at the end to help make it look nice)! They found out that people that buy Diet Soda at Hart's gas station buy more candy than non-diet drinkers. They also found out that the "fake" sugar in Diet soda's make you crave carbs or more sugar! As if we didn't already know that Soda is bad for you...too bad I still love my once a week Diet Coke!

Chad's Other Family...

For the past four years Chad has helped coach the PG High wrestling team. He LOVES it, and LOVES the boys on the team! It takes a TON of his time (especially with his schedule anyway). If I didn't see how much he loves those kids and how much the kids look up to him, it wouldn't be worth it! We are all pretty proud of the team's accomplishments. They were both the Region Champs and the State Champs this year.

This was after we won the State Championship. The school bus with the wrestlers had a police escort (which Kyle and Jared thought was pretty amazing), back to the high school where we partied it up with Root Beer floats.
This was the whole team and coaches!


After the team picture all of the boys wanted Brock (the head coach) to give a speech. He is a pretty quiet guy, but gave an awesome speech! I loved how the boys all knelt down to show respect for him. He got coach of the year at State Finals!


Team cheer after Brock's speech


These are three of our guys that won the state championship in their weight class.


Random shot of the party at the High School!

Kyle Wrestling for PG Jr. High

Kyle decided he wanted to wrestle again this year. Wrestling at this age is interesting. Even though he went to wrestling practice with other kids at the Jr. High (5th-9th) grade level, they don't travel as a team. Each kid can decide what tournaments to enter. We entered Kyle in a couple last year, but not many. He entered quite a few this year. I am very proud of Kyle. He didn't win a ton of matches, but he stuck it out the entire year and made his goal of not getting pinned.


This was at a tournament in South Summit. He usually wrestles at 86 lbs, but had to wrestle up the 94lb weight limit, cause someone else on his team was wrestling at 86lbs. You can see the other kid looks quite a bit bigger than Ky!


Kyle looking snazzy in his head gear.


This was in Roy at the Jr. High State wrestling finals. He almost had this kid pinned and then the dumb timer went off. He ended up losing to him.



He wrestled this kid 3 times this year. He had one of those wrestling Dads that yelled out of control! I don't think Kyle liked it very much!