5th Grade History Fair

Bud for the 5th grade history project had to pick a famous person. He initially chose Benjamin Franklin but after some slight persuading chose Albert Einstein. I figured choosing a physicist when we have a physicist in the house (N8's degree is in physics) would be a better choice.

It's been a month long project with a written report, including a bibliography, cover and title page as well as a presentation board and oral report.

Last night was the history fair and parents are students could come and see the presentations boards. Students could dress up as their famous person for extra credit.

Here's the board in the making.

And it's complete (and trying out the costume!)

A little silly!

Another boy in the other 5th grade clase (who happens to live on our street) also chose Albert Einstein!

He did an awesome job!!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve...

This morning we took our annual Sunday before Christmas pictures! We got some good ones this year!

And of course we have to do a "CRAZY" picture!

Tonight N8 and Bud have the wonderful opportunity to be in our Stake's live Nativity. It is put on annually the weekend prior to Christmas and each year we love to go and experience the Nativity. This year N8 signed himself and Bud up (they need one boy who needs to be at least 10, he made it this year!!). N8 was asked to participate, but they already had the Shepherd boy. Unfortunately for the boy he got sick at church and Bud was asked if he could do it! It's cold and windy, so they're very bundled up under there! Our good friends Spencer and Megan got to be Joseph and Mary.

Henry was checking out the baby Jesus:

School Christmas...

I love that our kids go to a school that celebrates Christmas! This year Emma's class sang Jingle Bells in Spanish. I would write the word in Spanish, but I'm sure I would spell it wrong, so I'm not going to!

She was very excited to sing and to see N8, Mo, Henry and myself sitting in the audience!

A gal at school that does the pictures for the yearbook, Bambi, took this awesome pic!

Benjamin's class sang Silent Night in German and then the Song of Peace:

They both did an awesome job!

Before & After

This past week Bud got his braces off, here's a before any braces:

 

 Here he is just before getting them off:

And here's the after!!

He has a lingual bar (a metal bar on the tongue side of the teeth that holds them in place) until he's ready for the next phase of braces! Yay!

Pow Wow!!

Yesterday I spent my morning frying up some Indian Fry Bread at the 5th grade Pow Wow! The night before I made 5 or 6 batches (I lost count!) of dough. I messed up 2 batches, oops! The kids all really enjoyed coming in and smashing and stretching their dough and watching it be fried up into yumminess!

Lots of kids asked if we bought it or how it was made and were very surprised when I said that I had made part of the dough. I explained that it was much like making homemade bread or pizza dough. Most kids had never had homemade bread or pizza before! Crazy I know.

This is me and Bud's teachers husband. We were the official fryers for the day!

Bud and his Best Bud enjoyed eating the fry bread, playing games, making dream catchers, headbands, and sand art!

Hopefully I'll be out of Fry Bread duty for a few years  until Emma is in 5th grade. It was fun, but very tiring!

10 years!!

I can't believe that it has been 10 years since Benjamin was born!!

Here are some interesting facts about Benjamin:

• He has braces (and a rubber band in the back which he always forget to put in!)
• He loves to read (he has read all of the Harry Potter books now and just started Eragon)
• He is a LEGO fanatic
• He just got his Bear in Cub Scouts and will now enter Webelos
• He has decided he likes "tween" shows on TV, like Good Luck Charlie, Jessie and Gravity Falls
• He is becoming a better soccer player with another season of soccer
• Others tell me he's turning into a runner (which makes N8 excited!)
• He LOVES geocaching!

It's amazing to think we've gone from this:

to this in 10 years!

We love you Benjamin,

Happy birthday!!

My little backpackers....

N8 loves the outdoors and loves that Bud and Emma love the outdoors. He and some other friends got together this weekend and took the kids on a little backpacking trip. (I stayed home with Mo & Henry who were deemed too young for the trip.) It was a few hours north of here and a 1 mile hike in. They did another little hike this morning as well. From what I can gather everyone that went had an awesome time.

Benjamin & Emma ready to head out!

The start of the hike. Jason & Wade carpooled with N8 and the kids.

The Fitt's from Bishop joined them.

I think these kids all had a great time!!

They needed to get this trip in before soccer season starts in a few weeks. N8 thought that both Bud and Emma handled the backpacking really well and could have done a longer hike. I know he's looking forward to being able to take them on more and more backpacking as they get older.

School wraps-up...

The school year is quickly coming to a close. One more week of full days and then one week of minimum days. Last night was the elementary schools open house. We got to check out the classroom and see some of the kids work. Bud made a PowerPoint presentation about Wolves:

His teacher Mr Grizet is retiring this year. We have been very happy with him as a teacher and are disappointed he won't be around when Emma goes into the 4th grade!

Emma has the same teacher for first grade that Bud had for Kindergarten. We have loved having her as a teacher and look forward to Mo having her in a few years! She puts together a memory book of much of their work throughout the school year that the kids get to take home at the end of the year.

Our fingers are crossed that we get as awesome of a teacher for next year!

Today was Mo's last day of Park Preschool. He has grown a lot and really made some fun friendships. Today they got to go to the city pool and then picnic after. Next year he will be in Pre-k!

On a mission....

Fourth graders in the state of California study California Missions. Over the Christmas break Bud was assigned to make a model of the San Juan Capistrano Mission (he will be writing a report and doing an oral report as well). Luckily one of the books we checked out from the library had very useful information on building a model!! We started it yesterday and finished it up today Woohoo!

Bud using an exacto knife and hot glue gun was interesting, but we made it through without any injury!

Measuring:

Cutting:

Assembling:

The mission before roofs and grass:

More gluing:

And cutting:

And it's complete!

Let's hope the report goes this smoothly!

Crazy Cub Scout Day

Saturday was Crazy Cub Scout day!! It began with us dropping Bud off at 9:30am for the annual city Christmas Parade. The whole district is together and the boys walk, ride bike or sit on the float. this year Bud was right up front so we could get a picture of him walking along.

 

 

Mo, Emma and I walked directly from the parade over to McDonalds for a birthday lunch "Birthday Party" for Mo. Our timing was a little off. We estimated the parade finishing earlier and also did not plan on the entire city stopping at McD's after the parade! Mo had a great time and hopefully so did his friends. Everyone got a Happy Meal,we opened some gifts and they played on the playland.

After lunch we came home for a total of about 5 minutes before N8 took Bud and Emma over to the church for the annual Cub Scout push cart races. I forgot to send Bud's bike helmet so I left right after to bring it and left Mo to enjoy the races.

Henry and I did some quick grocery shopping and a breathing treatment then headed back over to the church for a Cub Scout Pack Meeting.

As we drove home N8 and I discussed our lack of planning for Christmas cards. As we pulled in everyone ran in and changed into a solid colored shirt and then we were off to check out some trains parked in the desert. We hoped to make it out quick enough for some light to take some family pictures that we could use for a Christmas card.

 

 

It was a very full, but fun day!!