April Fools!

Every April Fool's Day Troy talks about the pranks that his mom used to play. This year I decided to try a little prank of my own! So I set the table with a big plate of cupcakes! The kids looked a little confused when I asked what color cupcake they each wanted. When they asked what else we were having I told them hamburgers...but those are for dessert! Caleb got pretty frustrated with his drink (jello)...he said "Hey, what's wrong with my drink! It's not a real drink!" The kids had a good laugh!

My not so sweet cupcakes...(mini meatloaves topped with potatoes)

And hamburger dessert!

(sugar cookie buns, rice crispy treat patties, green coconut lettuce & frosting ketchup & mustard)

Ben's Last Race

Last night was Ben's third and final Pinewood Derby. I think Troy is going to miss the Pinewood Derby more than Ben!! He and Troy worked really hard on his car and it turned out to be a good one! Each year Ben sketches out several different cars and then chooses his favorite. This year he made the St. Louis Ram's Stephen Jackson #39 car complete with fins in the back and painted in Ram's colors...blue, gold and white.

A thick coat of graphite had to be applied after each and every trip down the track. The boys...and the church...were all covered in the silvery dust by the end of the night!Caleb watching one of Ben's races...his car is in the middle.

A Day Out with Mr. Moose

Ben's 4th grade class has a traveling "pet". They each get a turn to take Mr. Moose home for a weekend. He comes home in a rather large hatbox that contains little treasures that he's collected on his different adventures. There's also a journal that the kids can put pictures in and document their time with Mr. Moose. I flipped through the journal and knew right away that Mr. Moose was going to have a pretty boring weekend with the Taylor family!! There were entries and pictures from someone's Christmas morning, a trip to Disneyland and even Hawaii!! To save Ben the horror of having to journal what we really do on the weekends, which would start something like this, "Today Mr. Moose watched as my family did Saturday chores...", we decided to try to find some kind of fun adventure. Luckily for Mr. Moose it happened to be a very warm weekend, so we ventured out of the Arctic Tundra to a park in Provo to play. Then we went to the Bean Museum at BYU. It certainly wasn't a trip to Hawaii...but we had fun!

Full Contact Basketball

Ben loves all competitive sports but his favorite by far is football. He passes the long months between football seasons participating in anything else he can. Even though it may not be football he still plays like it's football. He is physical and aggressive and hates to lose. Basketball to him is nothing more than football in a gym with a ball that you bounce! I'd like to apologize in advance to others mothers whose children are tackled by my 4' linebacker while playing "non-contact" sports...please know it's done with love!

Coconut Nuttiness

Our kids are completely fascinated with Coconuts! They beg for one every time we are at the store and I usually say "Umm, not today". Well, I finally brought one home for them and their excitement was uncontrollable! After a few hours of the kids shaking it every time they went past it and Caleb saying "There's something in there mom! Hear it?!?" Troy cracked it open...I'm sure there was never so much joy over an opened coconut! After another few hours of trying to get the meat out of the shell (we are NOT professional coconut openers!) not one of them would eat any of it! I guess it wasn't anything like what they had thought it would be! Maybe after another few years of hearing "Umm, not today" they'll want to try it again!

Snowshoeing....

We took the kids snowshoeing a few weeks ago and had a great time together. We followed rabbit tracks through the trees, followed some trails and made some of our own...

The Science Fair

Ben participated in his...and my...first science fair. He was really excited about it and decided he wanted to do a project based on a chemical change. He soaked eggs (one hard-boiled and one raw) in vinegar for about a week to dissovle the shell. I was excited that we could actually make a science experiment work! It was fun to work on it together and even though he was very dissapointed about not placing...we learned a whole lot about Calcium Carbonate! He's already planning a project for next year's fair!