It was really nice that Christopher was able to work from home for a day and watch the girls so that we could have a fun day in Salt Lake. We shopped the outlet malls, tried out restaurants we saw on Food Network, and then dashed back home in time for the pinewood derby.
The pinewood derby had been postponed a few times, but they finally found a track for us to rent. And Christopher kept telling me that he didn't want to make the car too early, because he didn't want the kids to wreck it. So a couple of days beforehand, the kids helped cut and sand their cars down.
And then they got to spray paint the cars. The nozzle was a bit too hard for them to push down, but they tried. Green is for Tyler!
And then, the night of the derby, Daddy went to put the wheels on . . . and they wouldn't fit. This was discovered with about a half an hour to go.
See the car Tyler is holding? Yup, not the car he made. A car we had lying around the house from an adult pinewood derby date night. When he was weighing in and people said "oh Tyler! Is that your car?" He would just kinda look at them strangely and say a slightly concerned "yes". I don't think he liked the switcheroo, but he wasn't fully aware of what happened.
So he DID make a car, had fun with Daddy doing that. And he had fun racing a car. So what if they weren't the same car? He was all smiles.
Notice Jasmine in this picture. She thought seeing the cars whiz by was hilarious. Everybody was smiling at her reaction, because she busted a gut every single time.
My mom told me that after raising five boys, she honestly had been very sick of pinewood derbies. She was sick of the attitudes, the competitive boys, the dads that wouldn't let their kids touch the cars and protested rules and so on. But I gotta say, our pack is awesome. We didn't see a single bit of that. Everyone was honestly cheering for each other and laughing at it all. Even the Dad with the winning car (who makes custom cabinets for a living, so I think we could have called that before we arrived) only had a small little fist pump you had to look closely to see.
And everyone seemed genuinely happy for Tyler - who was the happiest boy I ever saw when he got a third place trophy.
He spent a lot of time admiring it and talking about it.
Daddy said it was the first time he made a winning car, so he was pretty happy too.
We had a few days of just hanging out and working in the yard before Kaitlyn had her "Kindergarten Celebration".
She told us it would last "as long as regular school", but they actually just sang cute songs for 15 minutes.
In fact, I better post one for Grandpa to see. Here you go.
This was Kaitlyn's teacher, Mrs. McAllister. When asked to list three things she loved about Kindergarten, she said that "I love my teacher", "Mrs. McAllister is really fun", and "Kindergarten is great". And I don't blame her. She was a person who just sounded like the perfect Kindergarten teacher from the instant you met her. The sweet, calm voice, and the cheerful disposition, with the cutest laugh. I'm so glad Kaitlyn got the have her!
After school that day, we headed up to the cabin for the weekend. We got the cabin ready for spring, and Grandma broke out some bubble wands for the kids. (Jasmine and Tyler dumped them all about ten minutes later, but it was a fun ten minutes.)
And then Jasmine decided to give Grandma rocks. Jasmine really does like repeating a sequence of events over and over and over again, as Grandma discovered. I'm pretty sure they were doing this for over a half an hour straight, but as long as Grandma would paitietly tell her where to put the rocks, Jasmine would return to shout that she had more ready.
Oh, and you'll notice in the video that Jasmine started out the week calling her "Am-Pa", but by then just called her Pa. Yup, that's my mom - Pa. She has quite a few words, but when she feels like there should be more to fill in a conversation, she just adds nonsense in between.
Once my aunts arrived, we had lunch and took a walk. I never get tired of the views up there.
While we were walking, my mom spotted what looked like a moving speck of dirt.
And despite my protests, this lizard was quickly adopted by a very adoring little girl. Now named Liz the Lizard, he (she?) is attempting to live in an old fish tank with all the ants my kids can find to feed it. Given how much it has been carried and played with by all of our neighbor kids, I feel really sorry for the little critter. But we've never let our kids have a pet of any kind before, so they are on cloud nine. Hopefully we can keep it alive . . .
My mom spent the rest of her vacation with her sister in Salt Lake, and then flew out right as Kaitlyn was getting ready for her ballet recital.
We laughed at how serious they all looked. No matter how many people told them to smile and have fun, most of them looked very straight-faced at their teacher off to the side to remember their steps.
I love how these activities stretch her. She gets to have fun and work hard to learn new skills. And her teacher is great- she just opened up a studio in her basement. Since she had a class that needed one more student, she let Kaitlyn join in return for me making accessories and costume bits and alterations for all of her classes. Deal!
Love the girl next her posing!
Of course, the hilarious part was that her class was doing two dances - the tap song first, and then the ballet song. They brought me the costume change parts, and so one she was done with the tap dance, we switched her over. But then when they all got up there, her teacher stopped them- because Kaitlyn was still wearing her tap shoes! She had switched shoes in the hallway before the show and left her ballet shoes out there. So everyone had to wait while she ran out and found them . . . a bit embarrassing. Thankfully it was a small (and patient) crowd.
Whew! A lot of videos for this post!
Now we just have one more week of school, with all the dance festivals and parties that entails, and it will be time for summer school at home!
