Chess Club

Xander has been a member of the chess club at school for the last couple of years.  Steven volunteered every week last year and so Paizley tagged along with him.  She was super excited this year because she actually was able to be a member.  The last few weeks of the club they had a tournament with all the kids and then at the end they gave everyone trophies.

Paizley took 4th place in the Kindergarten division.  She was so excited.  She called me at work to tell me about it.  I told her I would look at her trophy when I got home she said "well make sure you keep in mind mine is bigger than Xander's"  She is quite the character.

Xander received a participation trophy.  I think it's great they are already looking forward to next year's club.

Siblings

I got a little behind last week because of month end and honestly I was super ornery about my car.  I did manage to get this photo.

I love how my kids enjoy doing things together.  I hope they always stay close.

Blue And Gold Banquet

When Xander turned 10 he moved into the Weeblos den in cub scouting.  This past Tuesday they had the Blue and Gold Banquet.  The theme was the wild west and they had different props that you could have your picture taken with on the saddle.

I practically couldn't drag Paizley off, she had her picture taken like 20 times.  She is such a ham.

I bribed Steven to get him on.

They had all the boys make wanted posters of themselves.  It was fun to walk around and find Xander's.

The Great Car Debackle

I had an appointment on Saturday to get the kid's pictures taken at a place in Spanish Fork, so I got everyone up and ready.  Steven decided to stay home because he had worked the night before and he jumps at the chance to sleep when no one is home to bother him.

I was almost to the exit that I needed to take and I noticed steam pouring out of my hood and my tempeture gage was rapidly moving toward the red.  I pulled over and waited about 5 minutes hoping the car would cool down.  I started it back up and drove slowly off the exit, but there was still a lot of steam coming from the hood so I pulled into the Cal-Ranch parking lot.  I got out and checked under the car and I could tell I had a major coolant leak. 

About a year and a half ago I noticed that some coolant had leaked on our driveway so I took it in to have the Volkswagen store look at it.  They told me that I had a small leak in a hose and it wasn't anything I needed to worry about because of the location it would be super expensive in labor to fix. 

I had a little trouble in the summer when we went to Tucson to visit Heidi.  When we were stopped at a light the engine temperature gage would creep up a little but when you started moving again it would go right back down.  I chalked it up to being low on coolant.

In December I took my car in to have the safety and emission test done so that I could renew my registration.  The tech that looked at my car told me that I didn't have a small hose leak after all, but that my water pump was going out.  Being told you have to spend $700 just before Christmas is always awesome news so I asked him if it could wait a little while.  He said I could wait until after the holidays but that I shouldn't wait too long. 

Of course I did wait too long which brings us back to the present.  I called the Ken Garff back up line and they sent out a tow truck and they took us back to the Volkswagen store.  The sales department gave me a car to drive for the rest of the weekend.  Once service got in and started looking at my car they realized I had also managed to crack the radiator so four days and $1100 later I again have a working Hyundai. 

Dose Of Cuteness

I'm just going to leave this tiny pile of cuteness here....

I came downstairs and Paizley was hand feeding Henley bunny pellets...so cute!

Xander Turns 10

I can't believe my boy is 10 already!  It makes me feel super old to have a child in the double digits.  Xander's birthday was technically Sunday but Grammy and Boppy came down from Idaho so we celebrated on Saturday. 

Xander has been so excited about his presents for weeks

The big thing at Saratoga Shores is this thing called a Kandama (I have no idea how to spell it). It's a wooden ball on a string that you catch on a stick with several cups.  He's actually getting pretty good already.

My parents got him a hat, scarf and the book for the Weeblos den in scouting.

 

He received three minecraft lego sets

 

I've stopped buying a fancy cake for birthdays because honestly no one in the house really likes cake.  Everyone eats a piece out of obligation and then 3/4 of the cake sits around going stale for the next two weeks until I finally throw it away.  The last couple of years I've been buying fancy cupcakes and they seem to go much better.  This year I tried out a new bakery in Orem called The Chocolate. 

 
I don't know if you can tell but Steven bought candles that have colored flame.  This one is blue.

For dinner we went to Xander's favorite restaurant Chilis.  The waitress we had was super irritating so we didn't tell her that it was Xander's birthday so he didn't get sung to.

Backwards Day

Today the kids had backwards day to show their spirit at school. 

Xander has his shirt on backwards

Paizley has her pants, shirt, vest and earrings on backwards.  She informed me she didn't want her underwear on backwards because in her words "cheeky hangy outy" I'm sure you can figure out what that means