Look who's TWO!

Jacob turned 2 on Saturday!

Jacob loves Elmo so we had a little Elmo family birthday party for him.

He loved his birthday and all the attention.

Lydia is such a good big sister to Jacob, she became the party planner for his birthday. She planned some games for us to play, decorated the house for his birthday, gave him cards and gifts.
We all love and adore this sweet little boy, and don't know what our life would be without him.

Happy Birthday Jacob!

Pinewood Derby 2009

The pinewood derby snuck up on us this year. Right after finishing all the science fair projects Zeke and the boys got busy planning for their final pinewood derby as cub scouts. The boys always want to have a theme for their cars. We laughed this year when Landon wanted a doughnut truck. (his dream is to one day be a doughnut maker). After some discussion we decided that a doughnut truck would probably not go very fast and instead he could just decorate his car with his favorite doughnut logo "Krispy Kreme". Mason on the other hand wanted a college team so he picked a Utah State car titled "Big Blue".

Making two pinewood derby cars at once for a dad can be crazy, but Zeke handles it so well and always has a good time doing it with the boys. This year Zeke and the boys decided that a wedge cut car would be the easiest to make and from years past had proved to be pretty fast. The night of the race we showed up a little early to find out that both cars weighed 1oz over the allowed limit. Here Zeke is drilling holes in the bottom to loosen up some of the weight that the boys had put in.

Some of the Webelos before the races. After drilling holes in the bottom of their cars the boys were a little nervous about how they would perform.

Then the races began.

It's always fun when Landon and Mason's cars get to race one another. Here you can see Mason's car on far right and Landon's on the far left. "Big Blue" won the race and "Krispy Kreme" came in 3rd.

"Big Blue" ended up winning all the races it competed in. Mason was ecstatic!

Landon's "Krispy Kreme" did alright. He won two races and came in 2nd or 3rd on the others.

In the end Mason placed 1st overall and his good buddy Caleb placed 2nd. Landon (pictured on the bottom) is such a great sport and was happy for both of them.

Jacob enjoyed a movie in the nursery during the races. It's hard to believe that the next pinewood derby we will participate in will be 6 years from now when Jacob's a cub scout.

Science Fair

We all had a lot of fun at this year's science fair. Mason wanted to do something with static electricity so he made an electroscope. It was interesting to see which materials created the most static electricity.

Landon took an idea he got from his cousin Kaitlyn and he made a Catapult. He tested how far the bean bag would go when he changed the arm length.

Lydia was one of two Kindergartners to do a science project this year. We were very proud of all her hard work. She tested different colors and what primary colors make up secondary colors using coffee filters and Vis-a-vis pens.

As part of the science fair, they had a Science Olympics Competition. Lydia won 1st place in the Kindergarten and 1st grade group. She had to use nuts and bolts along with a Styrofoam nugget to create an object that would only float in the middle of a jug a water.

Jacob doesn't get science yet, however he understood that the science fair was in a gymnasium and took full advantage of running around or away from us. He did however, take a moment to stop and show his excitement for Lydia's discovery.

National Junior Festival

For the last 3 years Landon and Mason have participated in the National Junior Festival. This is were they choose from from a list of approved songs to play for a panel of judges. They worked so hard the last several months fine tuning their songs. We all at times got very tired of these songs, but after the Festival we were all so grateful their long practices paid off. Each of them played two songs each. We weren't allowed to video tape during the festival so I had them play their songs again at home so we could remember how great they did. I have included a video of each of them playing one of the songs they choose.

Mason playing "Majestic Mountian" and Landon playing "Slavic Dance"

Quick trip to Texas!

Last weekend Jacob and I took a quick trip to Texas. My brother Josh lives in Austin with his cute family. We meet Melissa and Kaitlyn there too, and wouldn't you know Melissa and I showed up wearing the same shirt (this has happened to us before), unfortunately I never got a picture us wearing them together.

It was so great to spend time with everyone. The first night we ate on this deck overlooking Lake Travis, and enjoyed this beautiful sunset.

Is it really February?

Taking Jacob on a 5.5 hour plane ride to Texas wasn't the easiest thing I have ever done. But it was worth every second to see how much he loved being with Amelia.

Jacob thought it was so much fun to ride in the back of the car with Amelia. They laughed and carried on their own conversations in their own language.

We spent one day in San Antonio. Being from Seattle we had to see San Antonio's version of the Space Needle called "The Tower of the America's"

It was neat to see San Antonio from so high up. Without the mountains you could see forever!

Up on top there was an inside and an outside. It was very windy outside.

Amelia loved it and wanted to be only outside, she was so funny! Jacob has always shown a fondness for Josh. He liked hanging out with him.

It was a beautiful day to walk the River walk in San Antonio.

It was also neat to see the Texas State Capital.
The University of Texas is a short walk from the Capital so we went and walked around one of top 10 largest universities in the U.S.

The Campus has a neat art piece of hanging yellow noodles. We all had fun walking through it and swinging on the noodles (surgical tubes).

The biggest highlight was meeting Jett. He is my six month old nephew. Isn't he cute?