Pine wood derby and Mark’s birthday

For Christmas Ken got some polish for the stove.  This is our three-quarters way picture since we forgot to take a before one.  Wow!  What a difference.  Although we’ve had to be careful because I think we got a little too much on and even though the stove has been used many times since then a little polish still comes off if you touch it.  But who touches a hot stove anyway :-)!

For the pine wood derby Spencer wanted to make his car into a whale.  Mark helped him cut out the shape on the scroll saw and Neil sat and watched Spencer paint the whole thing.  Spencer’s turtle car from last year is also in the picture.

Jessie working on a skirt with Rachel and Becca.

Scott brought his girls over to see little Emma.  Cousins.Grandma flew in for a two week visit.  So fun to have her here!  I didn’t get to many pictures of her doing things with the kids, but she got pictures and I’ll have to get them from her.  But she read a ton of books and played a ton of games and did a lot of sewing while she was here.  And FYI: two months later and Isaac still remembers you and picks you out on the pictures for our screen saver.  Yea! Neil and Isaac LOVE to wear boots.  It looks like they found some hats this morning too.  Isaac loves that he can put a hat on all by himself now.

Holding the baby is fun to do, fun to do, to do, to do, to do!

Ken wasn’t able to come to the pinewood derby because he was helping teach a pow wow merit badge class, so he made sure Spencer had a lot of support.  Ken’s parents and Randy came, Rachel and Becca, and David and Lisa and of course Grandma Woodward came too.  Becca and Rachel showed up and surprised Spencer with this fun sign when his car raced – SO AWESOME!

Spencer got the “most creative” car.  I think he won that award fair and square.

Afterwards we came home and played Pit.  Love that game! I wanted to do something fun to celebrate Mark’s birthday since we were having his party a day later.  After the kids all finally went to bed I was up until almost two o’clock (shhhhh….don’t tell) blowing up balloons and taping them to a piece of cardboard to hang in Mark’s door way.  Emma woke up to eat part way through….so that made it take a little longer than I thought. At late o’clock Ken woke up to help someone use the bathroom and saw the light on downstairs and came down and helped me finish.  What a great guy!  Mark was surprised so it was great!  We brought the balloons downstairs to enjoy partway through the day.

More cute baby pictures….

Jessie tried to get a picture of one of the deer that visits our backyard.

Happy Birthday Mark!  Of course Mark wanted coconut cream pie for his birthday and we also made a couple of pumpkins too.  He had a few candle helpers. They also helped with the presents…

A new scroll saw book, the Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites series, a salmon dinner with the Alberton’s, and a date night with Grandpa Payne, a Jon Bytheway talk and a new journal were some of his gifts. 

Harry Potter visited us…and we played a couple of rounds of 20 Express that Abbie had gotten for Christmas before everyone had to leave.

We got a surprise call on the morning of the 27th that  Becca’s water had broken and Rachel was taking her to the hospital….four weeks early.  Little Olivia was born later that morning.  Emma and I went up to see them in the hospital. And here’s your last set of cute baby pictures for this post.  Neil loves being silly for the camera and then asking to see his funny faces.