March School Things

Owen did a special project for school in March.  He had to research the medieval feudal system, with a focus on knights for his part of a group presentation.  Each group had to create a mural backdrop and a short presentation to give several times to an audience.  Owen's group was pretty popular because they had cupcakes as one of the categories in their "wheel of unfortune".  That one was "trial by cake" where the participants had to eat a mini cupcake in one bite.  In medieval times, they were forced to eat cake that had an ingredient that made it easier to choke on.  If they were able to eat the cake, they were innocent.  If they choked, they were guilty.  Owen's group had some other challenges on their wheel of unfortune, but the participants hoped they spun the cake challenge.    

Savannah's class did an 80's day in March, which I didn't know about until the morning of.  We did our best to come up with something.  It doesn't look like their class did much better dressing up, but I wanted to show this class photo to document that the kids were still forced to wear masks in the classroom most of the 2021-22 school year.  It wasn't until mid-March when they didn't have to wear masks. I took a picture of what the inside of her mask looked like after wearing it so many times.  We had washed it multiple times, but it still got so dirty.  I can't believe she was wearing that all day much of the year.   

 

New Driver

In December, Jared got his learner's permit, but wasn't able to start his first driver's training until February.  That's when he also was able to start practicing with us.  Savannah snapped this picture after church one Sunday.  He did pretty well, but we still had a few crazy moments - one of those was not slowing down enough to make a turn.  He ended up going over the curb pretty fast that time!  Another time, we almost hit a couple pedestrians making a right turn (the light happened to turn green just as he was turning).  While it's never fun being in the car with a new driver, Jared mostly only made the same mistake once.  He learned quickly what NOT to do, but still had to make several mistakes in the process. 

He got his license in July - it's been nice to have another driver.  Not so nice on the insurance...    

  

BYU Bound

 

In February, Nathan got his acceptance letter to BYU.  He had applied to BYU, Kansas State, and Oklahoma State and got accepted to all of them.  He decided on BYU, after comparing costs and ease of deferring for a mission.  I would have been happy with any of them, but I'm glad he'll be one day's drive away instead of two - just a little closer to home.  I'm also glad he went ahead with the applications for college and going the deferment route for mission, since it was easier for him to do that process while he could still easily get letters of reference from teachers.   

Pinewood Derby

 

For Savannah's activity days in February, she got to participate in Pinewood Derby.  She got 3rd overall for design and an award for "Best Sportmanship".

She's had fun doing activity days, but she only has it every other week.  On the nights the boys have an activity but she doesn't, Savannah and I have been having a girls night.  We went out for ice cream one night.  Most nights, we pick a "chick flick" or "rom-com" on the TV at home and watch together.  

Savannah's 9th Birthday Party

We were finally able to do Savannah's party in February.  We did a flower-themed luncheon, with lots of flowers and butterflies.  I made a bunch of paper flowers and put them in pretty dollar store glasses for decorations and gift favors.  They got chocolate flowers as well as the paper flowers, butterflies, and vases to take home.  They also made bracelets and did flower-themed activities.  I made some bumblebee bags for cornhole, flower frisbee throw, flower word search, flower Bingo, a page for identifying flowers, and a watering can relay race.  They had to fill their watering cans and then race to "water the flowers" (fill buckets with water).  We had flower-shaped sandwiches, salad, strawberries with whipped cream, wafers and fancy cookies, and a raspberry sorbet and 7-up drink.  We had straws with flowers, lollipop flower prizes, and cupcakes with flowers on them.  It all turned out pretty cute!  And it was a pretty warm February day as well - almost like a hot summer day.  We had about 13 girls and 3 moms that came to the party (I didn't get a picture of Savannah with everyone).  It was a busy and fun party!      

 

February Camping

The first weekend in February, Alex took some of the kids and went camping with another family to Limekiln.  We'd made the reservation back in November, noticing it was available.  That was before we knew what our schedule would be like that weekend.  Although it's one of my favorite spots for camping, Nathan and Owen had basketball games that night.  So I didn't want to miss those.  So Alex took the others and went camping while I watched basketball games.  They had a lot of fun camping.  You can see that it's a beautiful location!

 

Just playing around...

Weston and the boys were messing around one day and made this little video.  I think Weston had on about 31 shirts.  It was hilarious watching him try to peel off each layer!  The boys are getting pretty good at making videos.  

 Weston's weight loss...