This year my only goal was to get through this event without any boy tears.  And we did it!  Success!  Cade’s car did great!  He was basically 4th place overall.  And he was thrilled with that.  Hallelujah!

This is Cade’s third year, so Rock let him do the whole thing almost completely by himself. 

Lots of excited boys.

Ready…Set….

Go!

And here is the coolest thing about the night.  A scout’s big brother put a video camera on his old Pinewood derby car and happened to race Cade’s car, so we got it on video!

You might think this an interesting name for a blog post.  Or maybe just a boring one.  If only I could name it something different, something more exciting.  If only I could name this blog post, “The wonderfully Wonderful Things That Adorable Little Boys Do.”  But I can’t name it that.  Sorry.

About four months ago Levi came inside telling me that the garage door opener was smoking.  I ran out to the garage to see if something was on fire only to find that Levi and his little neighbor friend had been playing with the garage door opener button.  Up, down, Up down, Up, down.  Over and over again.  “Weeeeee!”  they said. “Gee, Mom, we didn’t think it would hurt anything!”  they said.  Sigh.  Luckily, nothing was broken….yet.  Two days later the big spring across the top of the garage door broke.   Amazingly enough, the door still worked and so we went on with our lives and replaced the spring the following month.  Needless to say Levi was chastised to the full extent of the family law.

Last month Levi came inside to tell me (surprise!) the garage door opener was smoking….again.  I ran out to the garage to find the same two little boys with that same ‘I’m guilty as heck’ look on their faces. Deja vu anyone?  Accept that this time, the garage door opener stopped working the next day.  Levi was chastised to the fuller-fullest extent of the family law and will be working off the new $430.00 spring and garage door opener till he’s fifty.  Though, Rumplestiltsken did have the right idea and I may be willing to accept his first born instead.

If that were the end of the story, it would be a happy thing.  But it is not the end of the story.  Half an hour after the new garage door opener was installed I realized the opener had a motion sensor light on it.  Five minutes after I made special trip into Rock’s office to tell him the good news, Cade decided to stick a pencil INTO the motion sensor in an attempt to open the garage door.  “Gee, I wonder which button opens the garage door.  Maybe it’s this funny looking one that is not actually a button at all but a plastic covering for the motion sensor.  Hmm, I can’t get it to do anything so maybe if I stick a pencil into it, it will magically work!” 

I wish I could say that I handled that discovery well, but let’s just say that Cade will be telling his children and grandchildren about the explosion for years to come. 

Thomas Edison was a fascinating man.  We’ve been reading a biography about him and have learned a ton!  He was a bit of a rebel, he was a prankster, and he was incredibly persistent.  He tried 3000 different theories while trying to create the electric light.  My kids can no longer claim they have tried something twice and then give up.  From now on I will say, “Come back to me when you’ve tried it 3000 different ways and THEN we’ll talk.”

We made a telegraph as part of our study of his life.  The boys each wrote a message in Morse code and then typed it out on our telegraph. 

Here is Cade’s message translated:

Here is Reagan’s:

And Levi’s:

As you may have deduced from Levi’s message, we have been learning about the Civil War this month.  What has been really cool is to also be reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin for my book club this month as well.   I was able to tell the boys the amazing story of Uncle Tom and what he went through just as they were learning about slavery and its horrors.  Then right as we finished up the Civil War, Ben Carson announced he was starting an exploratory committee to run for president.  So we watched “Gifted Hands”, the story about his amazing life.  I figured I would only show the boys the first part of the movie when he was young.  I love that his mother required him to read 2 books a week and write a report about it.  But the boys were so enthralled,  we watched it all.  It was the perfect thing to finish up our unit. One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War a black man can do anything in America; from pediatric surgeon to President of the United States!

Reagan has become fascinated with magnets lately and bought these Neodymium magnets to play around with.  This video he made is pretty cool.

This week we learned about the composer, Franz Schubert.  While listening to his 8th Symphony, the boys decided to organize their Pokémon. 

A few weeks ago Levi wanted to make a squirrel feeder for the back yard.  We have a ton of squirrels.  So many in fact that if you have seen the movie UP, you will appreciate the fact that when my children are sitting at the table and I am trying to read to them, rather than sit enraptured as I think they should, their attention is often called away by far more interesting sights.  “Squirrel!!!” someone yells,  and they all dash to the window to watch the one millionth squirrel run the fence.  Sigh.  I should never have allowed the squirrel feeder.  But here it is.

In our homeschool co-op group Cade was in a Greek mythology class.  He made this diorama of the scene in the Odyssey where Odysseus almost gets sucked into the whirlpool, Charybdis.  I thought his use of electronics was pretty ingenious.

(Warning: Brag Alert-read ahead if you are a grandparent, but otherwise, proceed at your own risk.)

In other homeschool news, Liberty is begging me to teach her to read and is still dancing everywhere she goes.  She has her first dance recital next month.  Levi is begging me to let him read Percy Jackson.  I’m not ready to let him read about all those monsters at age 7, but I will have to give in at some point.  He would rather mom just step aside so he can plow ahead at his own pace with his school work, but I’m not quite willing to do that just yet. Cade is speeding along a grade ahead in math and has finally caught fire with reading.  He taught himself to read at the age of three, but he is only now choosing to read books just for fun.  Reagan is a straight A student at the middle school half day.  He loves playing in the orchestra and has had a really good experience there this year.  His ADHD medicine has been a HUGE help in all ways but especially in his school work.  It’s wonderful to see his bright mind outshining  his attention deficit. 
(End Brag Alert)

After three and a half years of homeschooling  I can say that it is still constantly evolving.  We still have really good days and really bad days.  But I still get up every day excited to start another school day.  Next year we will probably be making some big changes, but for now things are going great and I am really pleased with the progress the kids have made this year.

While in Grand Junction we went to the Math and Science Center that we love so much! 

The Python named Monty…….

The Lizard whose name escapes me.

This game is called Ball of Whacks.  No joke.

That evening we celebrated Grandma Dot’s 89th birthday.

She and Liberty chatted all night long.  Though Grandma admitted she only heard about 40% of the conversation. What was funny was to listen to Liberty’s responses when Grandma happened to repeat a question like “How old are you now?  Libby started saying“I’m STILL four, Grandma.” 
This cute picture was taken by Uncle Dave.    Love it!!!

Reading her birthday cards from the kids. 

Cade had to write his card left handed and had to try three  times to get it right.  The completed card promised a Cade Hymas origami card when his arm heals.

And then our time was done in GJ!  It went by so fast!  On our way home we stopped in Salt Lake to have dinner with Rock’s family.   Got these on Temple Square:

Really wish I had a GOOD camera.

Someone to look up to.

And to end on a funny note, here is Liberty in the bathroom at the restaurant.  She walked in and gasped with joy,  “I LOOOVE this bathroom!!!!”
She hadn’t even flushed the toilet and was already planning to paint her bathroom back home.  No way Reagan is going for that.

Thanks for a great trip G and G!!