January 28, 2009
An icy Day....no school for Mom or Kyle
We were hit with an ice storm last night which coated North Texas and meant...no school today for anyone. Yay!
Pinewood Derby
For our first experience with being racers, we did very well. Despite appearing to not do well (coming in third in each race), we actually were racing the 1st and 2nd place winners overall in the WHOLE pack in each race. Kyle's den had the fastest cars in the whole competition, so he in reality came in fourth. Yay!
Here is Kyle in front of the race sign at the American Legion (they sponsor Kyle's pack).
Here are the competitors in the race. Kyle's car is the blue one with flames on the top.
This is a proud Kyle with his car. He should be proud. Unlike some of the other competitors, Kyle picked out the design of his car, sanded it, painted it, put the stickers on...all by himself. Mom and Dad put the wheels on and the weights...which come to think of it...might be why he lost. Oooops! We'll figure out what we are doing next year. 
Kyle begins his race --- here he is handing his car to the scout leader in charge of setting them up for the race. After handing the car, he went to the racers box to watch his car come down the track. 
Kyle's second race....the cars in motion.
Kyle and CJ watched the older boys' cars come down the track.
All in all it was a good experience...lots to work on for next year but Kyle was happy with his car, his patch and his certificate. We are proud of him!
The Den Goes to the TV Station
Kyle's Tiger Cub Den went to the tv station to see how they do the news. Mom, Dad, CJ and Alyssa tagged along. Here is the den with the weather man.
Kyle and Cj and Daddy watch how they connect satellite feeds to what we see on screen.
After the weatherman explained everything, the boys got to try out what it was like to be on the green screen and have a weather map behind you. If you look closely at the picture, you see Kyle in front of the green screen and then on the tv in the background, you can see the weather.
Here is a close up of Kyle and CJ on the tv --- they are watching themselves on a monitor while standing against the green screen.
Here are John and Alyssa on the green screen and tv.
and of course, we had to get Daddy in front of the sports set. :-)
January 13, 2009
Winter Fun
We had a lot of fun as a family over Winter Break from school. We went to see the miniature electric trains at Northpark mall, we drove to see the lights at Loy Lake, we spent three days at Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, we celebrated Christmas at home and at both Grandmas, we went to see Great Grandma in Arkansas and we had a wild New Year's party at the house. Wow....no wonder we all went back to work and school exhausted!
Pictures from the trains at Northpark. Kyle, CJ and Alyssa were all fascinated by the trains...made it hard for Mom and Dad to keep up. I think that we actually managed to watch every single one of the trains go around the tracks and some more than once.
We celebrated Mom's 35th birthday. Kyle and CJ had to help her with her candles.
We spent three days and two nights at Great Wolf Lodge. We stayed in a kid cabin suite which gave the kids an area to sleep in and John and I a separate area. We went to the water park five times, made crafts and solved all the magical quests. We didn't work up to fighting the dragon yet, maybe next time...
Alyssa likes the theme of the Wolf Lodge. We brought the boys stuffed wolves from our last visit and she entertained herself in the room playing with them.
One of the first things we did was unpack our suitcase and Alyssa helped mommy. She thought it would be fun to try on CJ's underwear over her pj's. It was funny because after she got on one pair, she reached for two more.
The boys and Dad got comfortable on the bed to watch some TV.
Kyle and CJ on a quest
In the Cub Club making a wooden snake and a suncatcher ornament.
Pictures from the waterpark...Kyle is our daredevil as he tried out all the big slides and ran all over the water fort, Alyssa is our little mermaid as she loved being in the water and splashing around and CJ is our relunctant adventurer as it took him awhile to get up courage to go down the kid's slide and did not want his upperbody to get wet at all.
In this last picture, John and Kyle are under the giant bucket on the water fort. Every ten to fifteen minutes it drops 100's of gallons of water on the people down below. This is them getting caught in the water (on purpose of course).
Christmas
Kyle and CJ picked out cookies for santa and poured him some milk.
On Christmas morning, Kyle got up first at 7:00, followed by Alyssa around 7:30. Last to get up was CJ around 9:00! Kyle and Alyssa played with what Santa brought until CJ woke up but they were rather impatient that CJ wake up!
Kyle got a robot dinosaur from Santa
and Alyssa got a Kitchen. (CJ got a remote car that bounces and flips over when it hits obstacles).
We got a lot of noise makers, hats and poppers with confetti for New Year's and celebrated at 8:00 because after all it was midnight somewhere.
Our New Year's Cuties
