Rubik's Cube

Bentley got his Rubik's cube for Christmas,

and last week he solved it!

(And then messed it up to try again.

But here is his proof that he did it.)

Earrings

Last week, Ruby decided she wanted earrings.

She clipped her flower hair clips to her ears and

she was good to go.

And then, Mindy came to town and bought "real"
clip on earrings from Claire's. What would Ruby do
without her aunts?

Mjolnir

Five days after Alton hurled Thor's hammer at my face,

I am sporting a nice yellow bruise. 

I'm lucky I still HAVE a face, right?

Sienna - Or One of the Best Days of Ruby's Life

For the last year and a half (at least) we have been trying

to figure out what we'd do when baby #6 was born.

Our Windstar only seats 7, and we wanted to be able

to go places as a family. We made do with the Sable

and the Windstar for the past year (mostly we stayed home),

but with some vacations coming up we needed to do something.

Plan A was to buy a minivan that seats 8.

Then we decided to buy a 12 passenger van.

THEN, we decided to keep making do, and to just

rent vehicles when we wanted to travel to Idaho or California.

And then, in what John calls temporary insanity,

we went back to Plan A and bought a new minivan.

It's a 2014 Toyota Sienna LE in Predawn Grey.

It seats 8 (our entire family!!!) and is pretty awesome.

Even Bentley approves, and he's a sports car kind of guy.

Here's John with our new car.

When the big kids got home we let them explore a little.

Then, after dinner, we installed the infant seats and went to

Wendy's for frosties and french fries.

Ruby said it was one of the best days of her life.

The Sable

Just before John and I got married, he bought a little

Toyota Corolla-Tercel for $800. We shared that for a couple

of years, and then got the Sable from John's parents.

After the Toyota, it felt like a luxury car.

Eventually, we got the Windstar and gave the Toyota

to a kid in our ward. Last week, we bought a new Toyota

Sienna and traded in the Sable. The older kids were at school,

but I got some pictures of John and the two little guys

with the car before we said goodbye to it.

Knowledge Bowl 2014 (again)

Last Tuesday, we got a call from Jonah's school.

They had just received the schedule for the 3rd/4th grade

Knowledge Bowl competition and were surprised to

see that they had three teams signed up!

They had organized one third, and one fourth grade team,

but needed to quickly put together another team

and wanted to know if Jonah could be on it.

Jonah had done a little studying for the competition,

but wasn't really prepared. His brothers decided to

help him cram, and they spent the next four days teaching

him about counties, county seats, states, and capitals.

Saturday morning found us once again at the Jr. High.

When we got to the school for the competition, we didn't

really even know who was on Jonah's team.

Here he is, waiting for the rest of our school's kids to arrive.

And here he is with his team, right before the first competition.

The boys are Jonah, Corbin, and Ethan.

The girls are Paige and Julia (we think - but we don't know which is which)

They didn't have an official team captain, so they took turns.

Jonah got to be captain for match #2.

Because these five had had so little preparation,

we were expecting to lose badly - but they won two matches!

Match 1 - 110 to 50 Win!

Match 2 - 50 to 45 Win!

Match 3 - 25 to 215 Loss

Match 4 - 65 - 150 Loss

Overall, I think they had a good experience. 

It has been a few years since Jonah's school participated

in Knowledge Bowl, and they'll be better prepared 

if they do it again next year.

Jonah was great! He wasn't afraid to answer questions

and knew quite a bit. Way to go Jo!

Images of Greatness - 2014

For the past two months, the 5th and 6th graders in the

gifted program have been researching someone who

made great contributions in either American (5th) or

World (6th) History. The project culminated in an evening

performance of the bio-riddles they wrote, as well as

fair to show off their displays and other work.

Bentley's class went first.
Here's a video of his bio-riddle.
He was Johann Sebastian Bach.

Maxwell chose Theodor Seuss Geisel - Dr. Seuss.
Here's the video of his bio-riddle.

St Patrick's Day

No leprechauns visited our house (much to Ruby's dismay),

but I did spray their hair green and fed them green

foods for dinner. Jonah started with a green spike, but

after school had me spray the rest of his head.

Ruby's hair is still green - I hope it will eventually wash out.

Milo had his hair green, and Max had a streak in his hair.

Bentley abstained from the green spray, but did

wear just enough green to keep from getting pinched.

Odds and Ends

Milo got a bike! 

Jonah and Max set up a training course for warriors.

We grilled hot dogs for Jonah's Bear requirement.

Alton is cute.

Ruby used Bentley's old cast for her arm.

Ruby and Milo snuggling before school.

Milo and Alton enjoying the sun.

The butterfly Milo made in his Tiger Preschool this year.

Jonah's Birthday Recap

We had a quick family celebration on Jonah's birthday

in between all of our normal Wednesday activities.

He asked for brownies instead of a cake,

along with some ancient Egyptian things 

(like a khopesh - we couldn't find one).

We did find the game he wanted - Senet (thank you Amazon).

He also got another ancient game - one that his Dad

played when he was a kid - a scoop and throw game.

He wanted a green star to add to his collection.

And a book on Egyptian mythology.

He also got cards from his grandparents and Mindy.

(Mindy's card is detailed here.)

I told her I'd let her know his reaction, so here it is.

The next day, Jonah and I went on our lunch date to
his favorite restaurant - Wingers!
While we waited for our food he beat me at Senet.

One week after his birthday, Jonah had his friend party.
He and his friends (and Max) went to Nickel City,
where they ate pizza, played laser tag, played
video games, and picked prizes.

One of the best parts of Jonah's birthday -

he's in the Bear group at Cub Scouts with his Mom. :)