Spring Break

Chris and Alec joined the YM on their backpacking trip during the first part of Spring Break. There's currently mainly 1 active young man, and so Alec (as an 11 year old scout) often gets invited to join in on their activities when its scout-related. Alec was super excited about this. I'll let Chris put in some details about the trip. 

The rest of the kids and I tried to have fun at home. We enjoyed the beautiful weather and went for walks and went to the skating rink. Gwen LOVED skating at the rink. She got roller blades for Christmas and almost CONSTANTLY wears them around the kitchen/family room so she was particularly excited to use her newly honed rollerblading skills.  After just 1 or 2 laps at the rink she comes up to me and says with breathless feeling, "The wind, mom, the wind! I can go so fast it makes my hair fly back!!" She is truly a daughter after my own heart. I love the wind.

We wanted to go down to the coast for a night and go to the beach but we've had SUCH a rainy/stormy spell. It rained constantly and had severe thunderstorm threats down by the coast. So we just hung out around home.  The kids created an obstacle course with yarn and pretended they were lazer beams. Then they "kidnapped" Max and imprisoned him back on Charlie's bed and Chris and I had to try and navigate our way back to him and rescue him! Then we switched and Chris and I held Max hostage (adding on a few surprise components like the, Pokey-Bomb Alley, Slippery Paper Pass, and the Pillow Windmill of Death. It was really fun.

Pinewood Derby

With having my hands full at home night and day, I told my presidency that I'm ok to not do a Pinewood Derby this year. But everyone said they'd help out and I know a lot of people in the branch really enjoy it so we ended up doing it. Besides, our cubscout program fell apart last summer when our cubscout leader moved away and this activity at least gives our boys a taste of what cubscouts is like.  With our fiasco of an attempt at doing really fast cars last year, Chris and the boys were really determined to do better this year. We let the kids sketch out whatever design they wanted and then Chris cut it out with our scroll saw. Then the kids sanded and painted it and Chris and I glued on weights to try and reach 5 oz. Charlie's is the black car, first in the bottom row, then Gwen's teal with red and glitter stripes is next in line, followed by Freddy's multicolored one, then skip a car and the skinny gray fade to black car is Alec's.

I pulled out some decorations I made for the pinewood derby two years ago and Chris, once again, figured out the brackets and ran the races. We let the kids take turns pulling the lever down to let the cars drop on one of their car's official runs.  A lot of the races were really close and our 1 young man, Holden, used his mom's phone with the slow-motion camera to double check our eyesight.

Turns out the overall winner of this race, despite getting crashed around a bit at home before hand, was.... Frederick!! He was super excited and super fun to watch.  Charlie, Alec and Gwen all finished in the top 6 or so. Not a bad showing for the Archibalds! Go Chris!

Max's Blessing

We blessed Maxwell Henry Today. He is such a sweet little baby. We had just seen family at Christmas time and knew we wouldn't have any family able to come for his blessing. But our branch family was there and I enjoyed sharing this special family event with them. One of our friends, a young, newly married guy Troy Hurran, told me he felt honored to be able to participate in giving the blessing.  I tried to prep Max to be nice and calm by feeding him right up until the moment. But that may have backfired because he was sleepy and wanted to nurse to sleep and was not happy to be interrupted. He fussed almost the whole time, and Chris had to juggle, bouncing him and trying to get him to suck on Chris' thumb during the blessing. The older kids were excited for this special time and behaved well so I could listen. I took some notes on my phone and these are the things that stood out to me. That He would be blessed to feel love of our family and the love that Heavenly Father has for him and be able to share that love, that Max would be a positive influence on others and a strong healthy body to carry out his mission. That he would have an eternal perspective while setting goals like serving a mission and getting marred in the temple, that he would be sensitive to the spirit and learn how the Spirit speaks and comforts him.  That he would learn how to rely on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and be blessed with charity and faith. 

I almost didn't take any pictures as a family since I didn't remember until after church when the kids were running around crazy and my Post-Primary Brain was a little fuzzy but our friend Shellie Altman offered to snap a few real quick. I'm glad we took her up on her offer. 

As I'm writing this post months and months later, I can't recall much else to blog about. Except that, unhappy with the way my clothes were fitting with my post-partum body, I quickly folded some fabric and sewed two seams to make the black pencil skirt that morning before church. Also that we had the Gines and Hurrans over for cake later that night. I think Chris might have voiced his comfort with not having any kind of party or celebration and I think I decided to just make a cake and invite those two families/friends over because I wanted to celebrate.  Its special events like this that make living away from family difficult.  I think we may have made carrot cake, like we did for Freddy after his blessing.  I wish I remembered more about this day!! Why did I wait so long to record it. :(  oh! I also remember that Lexi Hurran knitted a cute white lap blanket for him.

Random School and Spring-ish Fun

Alec's team at school put on a Wax Museum where they researched famous black person for Black History month. They wrote a short life sketch, memorized it and dressed up like the person. Then they stood around their auditorium and would recite the life sketch when someone pressed the red button in front of them. Alec did a famous chemist, whose name I can't remember right now. He was really good and looked super handsome in a borrowed lab coat and tie. 

Charlie was asked to be in the 3rd grade choir for the Leadership Day Assembly.  He often seems to get singled out to do the fun thing. I know his teachers in the past have told me how easy it is to rely on Charlie to get along with everyone, follow directions and be a good helper and leader. He worked on his songs at home and was so happy to get this chance. Freddy and Max always love to go to the kids school and see them. 

Gwen's teacher, Ms. Stroud, told the class that anyone that earned 300% of their A.R. (Accelerated Reader) goal, she'd take them and one friend to an MSU basketball game. Gwen got close, but her classmate, Isaiah, earned it and picked Gwen to be his + 1.

With spring fast approaching, Chris and I decided use Family Home Evening one Monday night to get our storm shelter outfitted with a few buckets with things we might need if a tornado flattened our house.  The kids love talking about natural disasters. 

The boys have loved playing outside in this mild springish weather. The daffodils are popping up in the yard and after Charlie and Freddy brought me a 'bouquet' of daffodils, I had to explain that some flowers we just leave in the yard so we can enjoy them longer.  Alec helped come up with this beautiful way to display the ones they picked. He wanted to 'bake' this mud pie in the sun with his handy outdoor pizza box oven he made. He's always finding cool things to make out of magazines or books.

Chris was out of town for an all day excursion to the temple with the youth in our branch one Saturday. I thought it would be fun to take the kids to play tennis by myself.  I took turns hitting the ball back and forth with each of the big kids while the other ones played together or pushed Max around the tennis courts. We were going to go get a redbox on the way home for a fun movie night,but the kids were fighting so much in the car (Chris needed the van, so we all squished in the little accord) that we had to go straight home.