Wordless Wednesday

Isaac's First Pinewood Derby

The Pinewood Derby...

The Isom boys have never had much luck winning, and I'm not talking about winning the whole thing, I'm talking about winning even 1 of their heats.

We have just not had great success...but we have had a great time making the cars! 

Here's a look at the cars we've made over the years

Noah's first car back in 2007

Noah and Dallin in 2008

Noah and Dallin in 2009

Dallin's last car in 2010

This year Isaac and I started tossing around ideas for his car and I thought of Han Solo in Carbonite...had no idea how we would execute it, but thought it would be cool. Isaac absolutely loved the idea. We searched the internet for pictures and started trying to figure out a way to do it. 

Well we figured out a pretty good way to do it and we think it turned out great.

Isaac had a lot of fun making it and gluing it and painting it.

 I have to say it's one of my favorites that we have done.

He was so excited to show it to his friends and see how it would race. 

He actually did pretty well in the races.

He finished 2nd or 3rd in most of his heats, but he actually came in 1st once and that made him so happy...but what made his night was getting the Coolest Car award.

It was a fun night and everything went well, but I have to say that I'm glad it's over for now and that we only have 2 more to go.

Great Grandma, Star Wars and Princesses

We got a chance to visit with my Grandma. She is 93 years old and still going strong. Noah and Dallin were hoping to reach the milestone of being as tall as her...looks like they still have some growing to do.She agreed to do a funny face picture with the kids...after the picture she just laughed and asked me why I would want a picture like that.My mom and my grandma and all my sisters...I sure do love them! On Thursday night the girl cousins had a princess party, check out their beautiful jewelry.

The boy cousins had a Star Wars party. Check out their Jedi and Sith poses.

Disney World - Day 4 - Hollywood Studios

After our long day at Epcot we were all happy that Hollywood Studios didn't open until 9 o'clock. That gave us time to pack up and check out and have some breakfast. I also took the extra time to get some pictures of us at our Resort. (Thanks to my brother Bob who made us some Mickey and Minnies on his very cool Disney sewing machine...all I had to do was iron them on to our shirts.) Anyway, we stayed at Port Orleans French Quarter. It was a very nice place, much better than Motel 6.

Well, on to Hollywood Studios we went, experts by now at how to get the most out of our time. I really don't understand why more people don't use Fast Pass...it's free and spoiled us because we rarely had to wait in line.

The kids really enjoyed this park. Star Tours was a favorite, as well as the Indiana Jones stunt show and the Jedi Training show. My nephews Jonas and Troy along with Isaac and Grace were chosen from the audience to participate in the Jedi Training. Noah and Dallin were a little disappointed they didn't get to do it, but Noah informed me later on that it was ok because he already knew how to do all of that stuff. I was proud of him for trying to be positive. Isaac took his training very seriously while Grace just had a good time. Isaac got to fight Darth Vader and Grace went up against Darth Maul. I have to say that Darth Maul was awesome. He looked great (he even had yellow and red fire looking contacts in) and he was in character the whole time. I said something about his eyes and he heard me and came right up to me and stared me down, it was a little creepy...but I bet he loved freaking me out a little. In fact when it was Grace's turn to fight him, I yelled, "Go Gracie, get him!" He stopped and gave me a fabulous glare before fighting her. It was pretty funny. Anyway, we left that show with four certified Padawans.

Then we headed over to have lunch at Pizza Planet. The kids thought that was pretty cool, and once again I was thankful to have the dining plan.

After lunch we waited in line (I think this was the longest we ever waited for something...except for maybe the Lion King show at Animal Kingdom) to see Prince Caspian and then watch a short movie. It was worth it though, to watch the kids with him. He was great. Noah and Dallin really liked it. Noah even asked for his autograph. I think this made up (a little) for the Princess lunch. The movie was mostly a glorified trailer of the actual movie, but then they had a bunch of costumes and props from the movie that the kids liked looking at and saying, "That's the actual one from the movie...cool!"Well our day was drawing to a close, but we had fast passes for the Tower of Terror and the Rockin Rollercoaster, so we used those up and then sat down for a little dinner. On our way out we went into a few shops and got some souvenirs. The kids got some great t-shirts and other little things and Mike and I got some cool mugs. We had a wonderful time, but everyone was ready to go so we got in the car and started the long drive to Grandma and Grandpa's house. We arrived very late and just collapsed...looking forward to some R&R the next day.

Tree Wars Episode I: Attack of the Pineclones

We have been wanting to cut down one of our trees for a while, the tree in question, unfortunately was a bad sap dropper and we decided that enough was enough. Mike didn't need much prodding to head out and purchase a new toy (aka chainsaw) to take care of this task. Mike and Chris Huels got the tree safely down, making sure it did not fall on the house...or any children. Sylvia and I tried to harvest the pinecones (for creative crafty mother child fun) but they were so sappy that we had to give up. The time came for the job of cutting up the tree. Mike set to work with his new toy!

"Impressive, Most Impressive!"
Halfway through the job, more help arrived.

"I am the Master now!"

The kids got a kick out of watching Darth Vader in action! (And Mike was a good sport!) As a result of their excitement they couldn't help running around near the tree, we had to lather their feet in Goo Gone to get all the sap off...and I still don't think we got it all.