Losing the Locks

There was a time that Rex had long, curly hair. I loved those cute curls. I mean, just look at them:

And then I thought it was too long so I tried to trim it myself. And that was a bad mistake.  I did such a bad job on his hair that I agreed to let Matt fix it. And he fixed it, but the curls didn't survive. 

Howie is 12!

Once again, we get to celebrate this wonderful boy.  He continues to be a source of joy, laughter and peace in our family.  I often look at this young man and smile.  He works hard, he doesn't complain, he is grateful and gracious.  He notices when people need help and always jumps in to lend a hand.  He is the newest deacon in our ward, a big middle schooler, and quickly moving through Boy Scouts.  Oh how we love Howie!

Today he requested doughnuts for breakfast, BLT's for lunch and hamburgers for dinner.  

Matt made him a pretty hilarious Dungeons and Dragons themed treasure hunt.  This made Howie's day!  I would like to insert here that Matt is awesome. 

Howie overcame some strange creatures and found his presents in the garage.

Howie loved his new watch from Grandma and Grandpa Bentley.  He has been timing things all day long!

We loved getting some new clothes.  Or at least acted like he did!

And he's excited to use some of the new hiking and camping gear from Grandma and Grandpa Marshall.  What is not pictured are all the sharp items he got - a hatchet, a knife, a machete and something else that I can't remember right now.  

One Cold Race!

My friend Michelle made me an offer that I couldn't refuse. I could run for free in a 5K that her work was sponsoring if I volunteered to help pass out packets before the race. I was also able to sign up Donovan and Howie to help and they could run for free too. What a great deal!!

Then we saw the weather forecast and that deal didn't sound so hot. In fact, it sounded freezing cold!  It was only 11 degrees that morning so I had the boys stay home while I did the volunteering.  Matt brought them up to the park for the race and we all enjoyed running in the freezing weather along the snowy course.  I even placed 3rd in my old lady age group!

Top Quality Thanksgiving Pictures

No fancy food pictures (our food didn't look to fancy), or shots of our neatly decorated table (we didn't have one).  Just awkward pictures of our kids on Thanksgiving Day.  But the food was amazing and I am stuffed! 

Chess Club

This was another one of my babies.  I remember last year, a chess company advertised a chess club at the school for a whopping $90 per kid!  Howie and Cameron both wanted to participate, but it was way too much money for us.  I decided that I would do something about it this year.  After coercing one of my favorite teachers to sponsor the club, we were able to offer a chess club of our own to the students for FREE!  We had 25 kids come every Wednesday for 2 months.  It was really rewarding to watch these kids have such a fun time playing chess together.  Well worth the time.  I am grateful for the volunteers (mostly my own family) who taught kids how to play and offered to play with anyone who needed a partner.

A Neighborhood Snowman

Cameron has been wanting to build a snowman for a couple of days, but we have been busy with all sorts of things. Finally today's schedule looked promising for a snowman!  Unfortunately the snow was melting a little more quickly than we expected so Cameron and Rex had an idea to use the snow next door to make a snowman. They had to ask Dillon if it was okay to build a little man in his yard and Dillon was more than happy to approve this project. Henry joined in the fun too!  I'm happy to see these boys getting a chance to play together.  

Rex and His Art

I keep telling myself that I will do this more often, but I think I am fooling myself.  In a perfect world, I would snap a quick picture of my kids with every single art project that they bring home and then chuck most of them in the garbage.  Then my basement wouldn't be flooded with stacks of projects and I wouldn't forget who did what and when they did it.  

So here is Rex, with his amazing hair, and his more amazing tree collage.