Shoulder Angel

Kathryn is a little obsessed with something called "Studio C" 

 

 

If you don't know what this is, go to youtube or BYUTV and search Studio C, shoulder angel.

Then send Kat a message about your thoughts - she'll love it!

At a friend's birthday

So hard for me to post this - I'm trying not to look. 

 

 

Look how happy she looks - UGH!

 

 

So this should be a post about how much she enjoyed her friend's birthday party  -

Instead I'm making it about me!  I am such a good mom.  When I came to pick her up, this is what was happening.  I climbed up on the deck, whimpered a little and ran back down.  (almost knocked someone over)

Then Becca's sweet voice, "Mama, come take a picture of me!"

I didn't know anyone there, so had to climb back up and look through the view finder enough to take the picures for her.  My heart starts pounding again just thinking about it (still trying not to look at pictures as I write).

 

At least I haven't passed on my fears :) - and look she likes pretty birds too....

Rebecca's Birthday Party with Friends

Alaina helped Becca plan a birthday party for friends.

They had so much fun - pinning the hat and pot of gold on the Leprachaun,

 

A scavenger hunt for coins and store for prizes

Cake and ice cream of course

Alaina is a great party planner!

and games with Kathryn :)  It was so fun and no drama at all - loved it.  Thanks girls!

Happy Birthday!  No more "Becca-baby" right?  We'll see...

Becca's Armor

Rebecca and Alaina love to play with Garrett. 

He makes up amazing worlds and battles for them to enjoy.

 

 

 

 

He also made armor for Becca - she has a hard time getting it off, but loves to play in it.

 

 

Rebecca's Birthday

Happy Birthday Sweetie!  After learning how to ride her bike in CT, Rebecca promptly decided it was no fun and she would never ride again - so she wasn't too thrilled with this present.

 

 

 

Just a little happier when she also got this scooter to go with it :)

 

 

My parents were here to help celebrate.  She chose homemade Chocolate Cake with green and gold sprinkles so it would look like a pot of gold...  I need to work on my decorating skills.

But she was happy! 

Love you Becca

Becca's One Hundreth Day of School

Notice her hat - she has decided she's an University of Alabama fan apparently.  If you can click on it and see it more clearly, it says "Go Alubama, boo Auburn"

 

 

 

 

From what I hear, you have to choose in the schools,

but she seems to have taken it most seriously of all our kids.

Robotics

This has been Garrett's project for the last little while.  He joined the school robotics team and built this robot. 

 

He calls is "blunderbuss" and it helped their team win the state competition this year.  

The team entered two robots and they won 1st and 2nd places.

 

This robot is the other robot, it pushed piles of bean bags to the colored square to earn points and also has a claw to pick up and drop bags into the lower trough.

The most points are earned by placing bags in the higher trough, next in the lower trough and least amount of points for bags placed on the starting square.  The robots also get bonus points for ending in the starting square.  Yellow bags score bonus points.

 

So the competitions are all about earning points by placing these bean bags in the right places.  This competition made it even more 'interesting' by weighing the final points.  If a robot drastically out scored their opponent then they were penalized because the teams must not have been evenly matched.  This was frustrating.  Garrett's bot routinely out scored their opponents, but had to hold back to avoid the penalty.   There is a 2 second time frame to show autonomous moves and then 2 minutes to gather beanbags and score with a driver controlling it by remote.  Garrett's robot was unique in this competition because it had an extendable claw that could reach the high trough (had to fit in a 19" cube to start), the robot also had an autonomous (automatic) mode that placed a bag in the trough.  Most bots at this competition didn't have any automatic moves or only moved forward and dropped a bag in the colored square on moving.

Now he's looking forward to competing in the national competition  - if they can raise the money to go.  Our weekends for the foreseeable future involve fundraising :)

Sock Hop

 Our ward had a super fun sock hop - the kids had a blast with hula hoop contests, bubble blowing contests,

Dancing,

More dancing, Garrett is working on his moves.  He's got a couple years to work on it :)

His good friend Jacob doesn't always know what to think of our goofy boy...

Rebecca has her own moves

So fun

 



Then the competitions started back up - balloon popping - Alaina wouldn't let Garrett get away

 

He stayed alive for quite a while- but wasn't the last one standing.

 

Photo ops - 

Field Trip for Alaina

Alaina went on a field trip this winter to learn more about civil rights in AL

 

 

It was chilly believe it or not - and sad stories.

 

 

But still, it was fun to spend a day with my Laina-girl.

Basketball for Kat

Kathryn tried out for and made her JV team this past season. 

It was an exciting and challenging season for her. 

 

 

 

It was a fun way to meet some more people and feel more like a part of the community.  With games twice a week and practices everyday, she was busy.  We are so proud of how hard she worked, how well she played, kept her school work up, and still made it to seminary every morning, and was still happy and such a good example - it's amazing what she can do, and all on so little sleep.

Beautiful Kathryn

Kathryn's first dance was last summer at EFY.    

 

 They don't frequently have dances in our stake or ward, so this was her second dance. 

 The girls in the ward got together before and helped each other with hair and make-up.



A true blessing as this is not my strong suit, so I wouldn't have been much help to her. 



She had a blast and we loved her hair!

She had a blast!  To coin a southern phrase - it was a blessed day for her :)!

Snow in Alabama

I don't remember what day this was - but it was in January - so weird, especially since our CT friends got buried in feet of snow again this winter - but nice to have a little anyway :)