Pinewood Derby Cars...

this will be a long and drawn out post, simply because the making of the cars is a long and drawn out process. a few pictures....



sunday -

adding weight to their cars

stay tuned....

monday

painting the cars....

stay tuned....

cookies!

 A rare sighting in our household.....the boys baking cookies. They, sadly do not own a mother who "loves" to bake cookies with her children. And because of that fact, they did get to make/bake/decorate cookies, however they were cake mix cookies....which are, by far the WORLD'S EASIEST cookies to make! I make no apologies for the fact that I don't actually enjoy baking......judge me if you will.....i care not!

 CRAAAZZZZYYYYY cookie decorators!!

lovely sprinkle cookies!!!

the boat show....

We took the boys to the boat show yesterday. NOT because we are actually in the market for a boat, rather just for fun. It's crazy cold outside these days, and its a good chance for the boys to walk around, crawl in & out of boats, pretend they are sailing far away...and also....to get a bunch of free junk.

We now are the proud owners of a grundle of key chains that float!!!

 this was the first boat that the boys crawled into....a tiny little tug-boat. so cute!!

i think they need one in their playroom!!!

Here the boys are talking to the Army Corps of Engineers....and winning free stuff....like a camoflauge coolee. My boys know that their mother does not approve of camoflauge...so they took great joy in picking out their prize!! I decided that I couldn't turn them down, since they had to answer really hard questions about "saving people who are drowning" in order to win. The sign said, "spin wheel for a free prize!!" It said nothing about then having to answer difficult questions!

They look good in a boat!!!

 Oh yes! I forgot to mention the boys' fascination with all of the fake food that is on display on the "fancier" boats.

 . . . sitting on the deck of a pontoon boat.

In this picture Colin was pretending that his hand was a jet-ski. He said he preferred to do that, than to hold onto the handles and "play like he was riding a jet-ski", I really like how his brain works.

. . .cuteness

There is SO much going on in this picture.....I don't even know where to start. I think I would be remiss, if I didn't call attention to the elephant fountain in the background, let alone the floaty star around Colin's neck as his life jacket! :)

...bon voyage!!!!

Lucky Mom!

I am a lucky mom. I have great boys. However, I consider myself VERY lucky, because I have boys that will eat vegetables without a fight. I don't have to "sneak" the veggies in, and I consider that a blessing in itself.  Cauliflower....a Colby boy favorite!!!

Sunday afternoon at home....

We had a very nice & mellow weekend at home.

Complete with home-movies of when the boys were about 16 months old. We also had homemade pizza with whole wheat crust. SOOO delicious!!

Today we skipped church, raked pine needles, played with the puppy, ran to the dump, ran out of gas-literally! Our lovely friends came to our rescue! Thanks guys!!

We also outfitted our puppy......which was fun, AND quite spendy -- even for a bunch of thrifty CLAMS such as ourselves!!!

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And...if you are an UNlucky Colby boy who decided NOT to do your homework for a majority of this grading period, then YOU got to waste a whole weekend catching yourself up on your missed assignments!

Word to the wise kids......do your homework when it is assigned!

 He looks quite studious, doesn't he? I hope he has learned a valuable lesson!

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And if you are a funny couple of 7 year olds....

 Then you will have just as much fun hanging out in the puppy crate...as your new puppy does!!!

 Yep,

I'd say that all 3 of them look pretty cozy in there!!!

...or I suppose, if you are a silly 12 year old who is reading a scary book, you might

crawl in the puppy crate and snuggle with your new dog?

and, we successfully tired her out!

our latest addition!

The boys are adjusting to life with a puppy. They have really been asking & asking for a puppy. So, on Friday while the boys were at school, Lance & I went looking. We had no real intention, I should say that I had no real intention to get a dog that day, but Lance is a sucker!!! We stumbled across this little pup at the shop where we found our current cat, Jake. We don't know exactly what she is, although the pet store says she is most likely a Queensland Blue Heeler/border Collie mix. They are certain that the mom was a full Blue Heeler....and the dad? Well, who really knows? I think the puppy is going to train the boys to be REALLY efficient at picking up their toys! So much for mom and dad trying all these years! Thus far we've had only one Lego man casualty!

Pepper is going to whip these boys into shape!!!

And since, I find it difficult to AND quite excessive to devote an ENTIRE post to a dog....I shall include a couple of pics of the boys.
The main stars of this blog!
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 The boys LOVE swinging!

I am so glad we have such a great swing set in our back yard.

Our huge ponderosas are spaced perfectly for a sturdy sturdy swing set!!!

For the record....the boys really wanted to name her CLARK.

 Don't you.....just love this little face??

Daddy's FAVORITE pictures...

 They may be twins, however there is ONE distinct difference....can you see it?!

(Now I don't normally do free advertising for products, but I have to say, these "rabbit hats" as the boys call them, are hands down - THE BEST HATS IN THE WORLD!!!!! The boys are now on their 3rd winter with these hats! The rabbit fur is not only soft it is also exceptionally warm & the construction of the hat is very durable. The boys have red hats, but I just noticed on the website that they have all sorts of cute prints for kids.)

WEDNESDAY - snowshoeing

 Without fail....everytime we would stop. The ENTIRE group of 40+ Explorers would fall over & lay down flat. It was really the strangest thing I have seen from this group.

 Simey's class of Explorers

Bear's class of Explorers

My little group of boys that I was chaperoning.