Pinewood Derby

Aaron was soooo excited to build his race car for the pinewood derby, but I'm not sure if he was more excited than Nick was to help him.

Aaron designed a really cool car. He painted it black and put skull and flame stickers on it. He was pretty sure it was going to win.







In the end he didn't win, but his car did well and the whole experience was fun!



He also got his first few awards, including a pin for me!

Math Wiz

Over Christmas Break (yes, this post is long overdue) Aaron was sent home with 20 addition and subtraction sheets with a note that said he would be tested on these after vacation. Each test would have 70 questions and they would be given 5 minutes to complete each sheet. Any student who could pass both the addition and subtraction tests without any errors would get to go to a pizza party at school!

We worked very hard on those tests. We practiced almost every day, but he always fell just short of the 5 minutes. We found more math sheets when we ran out of the ones his teacher provided and I even bought him a math game for his DS. He did finally finish within the 5 minutes, but only once and we were unsure if he would be able to do it again under pressure. Aaron had given up hope on the pizza party and hard as I tried, I couldn't bring his confidence back up.

Then the night before he went back to school I was reading over his homework before putting it in his backpack and I realized that we had made a mistake! He had to complete 70 questions in 5 minutes... and the sheets the teacher sent home had 100 problems on them! He had been doing it all along!! When I explained this to him a slow smile crept over his face... a smile of relief!

On the day of the tests he finished in plenty of time and even went back to check his answers.

He was so excited to tell me that he passed the tests when I picked him up from school!

Snow Days 2011

Jordan and Stephanie invited us up to the cabin again this year. I kept it a secret from the kids until the day before because we hadn't finalized the plans yet and they were so surprised! We bought some more snow gear so that the kids could play out in the snow a little longer. They were out there almost all day, and when they weren't they were begging to go! In fact the only pictures I took were outside.





Lila didn't really last too long, but I give her another year or two and I bet she will be right there with the rest of them!





















I was surprised at how much of a trooper Elsie was! She stayed out the whole time with everyone.

Sisters

New Years Eve

New Years Eve this year was spent first at our friends Sarah and Steve's house at their annual party. The camera was left in the car for that portion of the night though. We had fun visiting with friends and eating yummy food as always.

From there we headed over to the dance with music provided by the Freeman Brothers. It was really fun to watch my dad perform with all 4 of the brothers together. It was also fun to see and visit with out of town Freeman's who were visiting for the occasion!

Elsie's 4th birthday!

Now that Elsie's birthday is officially one month behind us, I thought I would post some pictures from her special day!

After her present hunt, which I took zero pictures of, we had her request of cinnamon rolls for breakfast!







We had a low key day at home playing with her new toys, mainly her dress up clothes, shoes and accessories!

Around lunch time we got dressed in real clothes and went to the grocery store to buy something for lunch and for ingredients to make her cake.

She chose lunchables for lunch with capri-sun and fruit snacks. I wasn't too surprised! I was so tired of cake by this point and was able to convince her of a rice crispy cake so we bought marshmallows and rice crispies.

But before all that we had to pose for some birthday pictures!

None of these poses were prompted by me.









After our lunch, we played some more, made her birthday cake, and waited for Daddy to come home so we could go out to eat at Red Robin before her party. We had 4 free kids meal coupons and this was the perfect time to put them to use!







As our guests started to arrive she decided that proper birthday attire was one of her new dress-up outfits.













She loved being the center of attention and having all of her wishes granted... and just like last year she came running into my room crying the next morning because "Charlotte said it's not my birthday anymore!"