Pinewood Derby

Great event yesterday. Third year is a charm and now the event is well organized and ran smoothly Here is Ben's car sitting on the starting line. His car was the slowest in each race, way too much wind drag on that tail fin!!!!

Still, he won first place with his car design, the cars were voted on by the teachers at the school & apparently the vote was overwhelming for Ben's car. He really did do a great job with it

He got a trophy for his car this year, he was very excited about it. We need to get a shelf up in his room to accommodate all the trophies he is accumulating

This is a picture of the boys in the troop, it has grown to an impressive size in three years

Skating at Steinberg

We went ice skating at Steinberg rink in Forest Park (well, not me of course!!). It's the first time I have taken the kids there & they loved it, well Ben loved it anyway. They don't allow skating aids on the rink, so Maggie pretty much just clung to the side the whole time. Ben is getting really good, he is even learning to skate backwards

Ben &Julie tried to coax Maggie off the outside fence

but, it wasn't very effective!!!

It was a beautiful day, almost 50 degrees and clear blue sky. It was warm enough for DeeDee and me to sit outside without coats!!!

Unfortunately, the weather is supposed to be getting cold again this week & more snow on Tuesday and Wednesday!!!!

Maggie's pyjama party

Maggie went to the women's basketball game with Jan& Julie and then spent the night with them. They had a pyjama party after the game. Maggie got to help make breakfast in the morning

Sit in front of the fire

and she particularly liked walking Will in the morning.....

Sam said it looks more like Will was taking Maggie for a run!!!!!

Pinewood Derby day has arrived!!!!

......and it is time to unveil the car!!!!!

National chocolate cake day!!!!!

We definitely have too many National days for something or other. Sam told me that according to HR at Enterprise, today is National chocolate cake day. I guess that meant I was honour obliged to make my new favourite recipe. I think it came out even better than the first time I made it. It was absolutely yummy. This time, I decided not to put the glaze on the cake, but just keep it separate, it means we don't have to keep the cake itself in the fridge & hopefully it won't dry out as much. I will try to write up the recipe this weekend. It's too good not to share.....

Pinewood Derby car 2011

Well, they just keep getting better & better!! I thought last year's car was great, but Ben managed to surpass himself again. Jan & Julie took him this weekend and they worked on his car the whole weekend. They decided that they were going to make an alligator. Ben did the whole thing himself, with their help of course. Jan sent us some great pictures....

Here is the finished project.....

Ben & Maggie sledding in our back yard....

Snow day (again)

We had a significant amount of snow last night and we have another day off school (at least more justified this time). This is our third snow fall this year and seems to be unusual for us. It snowed all night, so the roads have still not been cleared and we are stuck at home. The birds were trying their hardest to eat this morning, I am glad that I went & filled up the feeders last night. They keep landing in the snow and disappearing or losing their footing on the snow on the tree branches. You have to wonder where they spend the night when the snow is falling I always think the snow looks so cool when it is light & fluffy and sits so well on everything in the yard.

The kids were so excited to get a snow day. They both got up at the usual time and didn't want to go back to bed. Of course, if it had been a snow day they would have been grousing and dragging their heels at getting up. DeeDee got up, looked at the snow & said she was going back to bed!!!!

Ben & Maggie had to go outside and experience the snow first hand. Ben cleared all the snow off the things on the patio

They didn't last too long outside, I think it was too deep & wet and they got cold really quickly.

They are forecasting really cold temperatures for next week, there are worse things than snow!!!! I must have jinxed everything, I had just commented yesterday that we have had a pretty good winter.......

More gymnastics pictures

Jan took these. They were way better than anything I took. Here is just a sampling of what she took

Poor Maggs

Maggie got up this morning and said to me "Mum, I have very terrible news, I have been throwing up". I looked at her face and she has petechial hemorrhages all around her eyes. I was hoping this wasn't some horrible obscure virus she picked up, so after a quick Internet search, I found this:
The most common cause of petechiae is through physical trauma such as a hard bout of coughing, vomiting or crying, which can result in facial petechiae, especially around the eyes. Petechiae in this instance are completely harmless and usually disappear within a few days.
Thank goodness it's nothing too serious. I hadn't seen this with her before, hopefully it will soon go away, but right now it's pretty spectacular. Sam said he had heard her in the night & she was up really early this morning, but she never said anything to us for ages and never came to ask us for help.
This really makes me wonder if orphanage kids get programmed not to seek help at an early age and it never goes away....

Happy Birthday DeeDee

We went to Fitz's for DeeDee's 17th birthday. "The girls" sat together & are both big fans of Sprite now!!!! Dee Dee took a rare photo of Sam & me together....

Maggie & Dee Dee waiting for dinner

DeeDee did not have enough money to bribe me into not posting photos of her eating an enormous chicken sandwich!!!!

Ben's sandwich wasn't any smaller...

Aaahhhh.....the free birthday sundae

Unfortunately, this will be the only one of her birthdays we get to celebrate with her. I am so used to her being around and am already trying to face the fact that she will soon be going back to Ukraine. She has been with us for 5 months & will be leaving in 4,so we are more than half way through her stay with us. This year is going by so fast

Gymnastics photos

We finally got the photos from Ben's gymnastics center. They look very professional..... Ben was so proud of his splits photo, but now he can get so much further down!!!

Ben's gymnastics meet

Ben's first gymnastics meet was on Sunday. He was very nervous about it and didn't sleep very well on Saturday night. He told me that his "eyes didn't go to sleep until 4am". We had to get up at 6 am to get out to Chesterfield by 7:30 for Ben's team meeting. It wasn't as busy as we had thought it would be, there were plenty of places to sit and stand around as necessary. This is the team getting ready to start their warm up, one of Ben's coaches was coming over to talk to us. There are two coaches for the team, they are both great and work really well with the boys.Here's Colby giving a last minute talk to the team before they get started.

Ben had quite a fan club come to see him. Jan and Julie arrived shortly after I had taken this picture. It's hard to believe that Anne was actually up at this time on a Sunday!!!!

This is Ben landing after his vault-he won first place for the vault with a score of 14.9

The boys had time to relax and get a quick drink between competitions. They all get along really well together & this has been a great learning experience for Ben.

The start of Ben's rings routine. I took some video of him doing each event, but unfortunately can't get it to load here.

There was a gymnast from the Olympic team signing autographs after the competition-he had trained at SLGC

The medal ceremony seemed almost as long as the competition!!! They have different age categories & skill levels and there are 6 events & the overall awards.

Ben won medals in 4 out of the 6 events (he missed floor & pommel, although I think his floor routine is great). He won second place overall in his category, so he had 5 medals and a trophy. I'm sure that will keep him enthused about gymnastics for a while longer anyway!!!!
Not too shabby for a morning's work!!!!
We all went to lunch afterwards. It's a sign of how well the boys get along together, they really are like a big family. They are all very supportive of each other & they always greet each other when they get together for practices. I'm always surprised at how Ben interacts with them.