Scout Court of Honor

JC volunteered to put together the slide show for the 12 year old scouts camp trip. So with a little help from Mom, here is it.

A Pumpkin, the Professor and a Mailbox

This post has been a long time coming, I'll explain why with the mailbox. As Halloween approached JC was very excited to carve a pumpkin, he said it was the first one he did all by himself without any help. This may be true, but next year we are going to let him clean out the pumpkin too, as we think that is truly the hard part. The roasted pumpkin seeds were good!



So a few months back, our mailbox got smashed along with several of our neighbors. We clearly had to replace the mailbox. So we decided to have some fun with it. JC and I worked on designs and got most of the box done. After several months of it sitting in the basement and with the weather starting to be wetter, we needed to do the final detailing and put the mailbox up. It looked really cute. I was hesitant to put the mailbox up on Halloween night, but I wanted the project done! I was relieved when the mailbox was still intact the next morning. I took pictures and was going to put post them along with JC's Halloween stuff. But the next morning our mailbox was lying on the ground with the post broken. It was not a good morning! Dad fixed the post and the damage to the sunflower mailbox was minimal, so we put it back out. So far it has been 2 1/2 weeks and no one had smashed it. We are hopeful.

Happy Halloween 2011!

We loved the Halloween season this year! We decorated the whole house with fun pumpkins and skeltons! Then we got to chow down on pumpkin shaped bubble gum. We had a great time playing with the guts of carving pumpkins and we enjoyed the last time we will get to carve pumpkins at school.

Here is Ethan playing with the carved pieces of his school pumpkin. 1st grade is the last year that they carve pumpkins. Julia did get to paint a pumpkin in her class for which she thoroughly enjoyed.



Here are our finished creations glowing on Halloween night. Julia chose to carve a castle with a ghost frightening everyone away, it was hard to capture the effect by camera, but it was there.



Ethan chose a vampire pumpkin, in his words, "of course" We liked the simplistic nature. ;)



Finally the long awaited night has come and Julia and Ethan get to dress up completely and go collect as much candy as humanly possible. We had fun dressing up two other times this season, first for our church Trunk or Treat, secondly for a fun birthday party and then tonight for "real."

Ethan is Bumble Bee the Transformer, he loves Transformers and fast cars, this was a good fit for him! Julia is rockin' pink Bat Girl. She has pink hair too, but it didn't show up on camera. She loves the glitter and glitz of this fabulously bright costume and I am sure it will be worn many times before it wears out! Both kids had the local police dept come and talk to them about safety tonight and they listened very well and were very safe, if you get a chance to ask them about it they will share all their facts.



We now have mounds of candy to rot teeth and electrify energy levels! Actually most of the candy will go to the local dentist for money and then be sent to the military serving over seas. Everyone wins! It has been a fabulous Halloween and we look forward to a whole year of deciding what we will be dressed as next year! :)

7th Grade School Picture

Here it is. J.C.'s school picture. He looks pretty good, despite the cheesy grin. I love that his eyes are bright. He is growing so fast! He is 5'5" now and in recent months filled out in his hips and chest. We just bought him pants that are 32 x 32's - real man pants.... Of course they are a little big, but only a little and since he grows so quickly, we be lucky if they still fit in the new year.


Check out this cute post about JC and his cousin Tori.
http://thececilclan.blogspot.com/2011/10/tori-and-jc.html

School Carnival and Crazy Hair!

Last week J.C.'s school had their annual carnival. The art students were asked to do face painting and J.C. volunteered. He also played the carnival games and we had a good time!

This week has been Spirit Week for the Jr. High students. Each day a different theme - crazy tie day, crazy sock day, fashion clash day... J.C. wanted crazy hair, but when your hair is only a centimeter long it is hard to do something crazy. He asked if we could cut lines into it or make shapes. I am not that talented and was also concerned that cutting his hair might impact his school picture which will be taken in a week. So we settled on some hair color. Working with an artist is tough. He wanted a red, white and blue flag, or stars. Not being an artist and explaining the hair color would work like spray paint he decided on all white with polka dots....PINK polka dots.


Yes, J.C. is as at school right now, doing his Dennis Rodman impression.

First Day of Junior High

J.C. starts 7th grade today. He is attending a Lincoln Academy, a charter school in Pleasant Grove. He proudly sported his red shirt. At his school the elementary kids can only wear white and dark blue shirts, the Jr. High kids get to add red to their options. The idea of having a locker, changing classes and no recess made J.C. a little nervous. At back to school night last week, he practiced opening his locker. He has the same teacher for Computer Technology Education (CTE), German and P.E. . He also as Math, Learning Strategies, Language Arts, Science and Sculpture.

Can you tell he didn't want his picture taken?

Power Tools

We've been working on a lot of repairs and improvements this summer. J.C. has been quite helpful. We even let him use his first power tool - the sander. He did a good job prepping the wood to be painted. He also helped paint the garage, has moved a ton of sod and compost. We'll see what power tool will be next, we'll hopefully upgrade to some serious man tools....