Keeping Up With the Joneses

Myles decided he wanted a science party for his birthday and I had a really fun time planning it. I'm no professional party planner or lifestyle blogger, but here are some highlights for the grandparents: I found this edit-able invitation on pinterest so it was super-easy. I just printed it on our home printer.  I bought 40 test-tubes on Amazon for $10 and used them for the invitations. I just rolled the invitation up, put a HAZARD sticker on it (printed at home on label paper) and stuck it in the test tube. Myles delivered them to his "scientist" friends. Because I knew the party would be messy we agreed he could invite 8 people. He invited 4 people from his class, 3 people from his carpool, and Ari (our nanny's son). Mason and Max also participated so we had 11 little boys in all.  I set up the table with a plastic tablecloth (turned out to be a great idea), some of the ingredients for the experiments (sprite, hydrogen peroxide, vinegar) in bottles wit...

The Cub Scout Pinewood Derby was a big deal this year. For Marshall. Since Myles was only one week away from being 8 and being eligable to race, they made an exception and let him participate. Both Mason and Myles were thrilled about participating, but no one was more into it than Marshall. He spent hours watching youtube videos about how to make a winning derby car, spent a full day at his dad's shop welding weights into the car in very precise places, and spent another half a day bending the axles exactly right. The kids got to be in charge of the design and the paint jobs and both wanted their cars to look like characters from Minecraft (in fact, most of the derby cars at the race were either Minecraft or Lego cars).  They were both very excited about the whole event. Myles' car looked like Stampy, a character from Minecraft. Myles timidly introducing his car.  Mason confidently introducing his car. Mason's car was an Ender Dragon from  Minecraft. ...

For Easter/Conference weekend we went to Delta. The Easter Bunny made an early appearance to our house Saturday morning, and then we jumped in the van and were in Delta by about 10:30 to begin the fun. It was a busy weekend with Eric and his 5 kids, Nicole and William, and Deb and Russ. William and his friend set up an Easter Egg hunt in the yard for the little kids. Max was spying on them as they hid the eggs so he did really well :) McKay was confused about why everyone wanted these eggs until he realized they had chocolate in them! Grandma and Grandpa Delta raise chickens for eggs, and on Saturday afternoon they took all the kids (9 of them) to the store to let everyone pick out a baby chick to raise in Delta. Eric's kids had raised chickens before, but my kids were thrilled and amazed. They kept going out to the sun room to hold and pet their baby chicks. They wanted to bring them home but I convinced them to let them live in Delta (phew)! Max was especially i...

According to my mom, Grandpa Milne has been asking why I haven't been updating my blog. The reason is. . .I'm busy! And I tend to post things on Facebook and then forget about them. But, I would like to keep up this blog as a family history, so I appreciated the reminder to post. We have been about as busy as you would expect for a family of 6. Here are some recent highlights: Mason, Myles, and Ari (Hannah's son) have been working hard in Hapkido (a type of karate) and earned their orange belts last month. I was really impressed when I watched their tests. Myles has learned to be so focused and obedient, and they are both great at kicking and punching.  A few weekends ago we took the kids to the Aquarium in Sandy. The kids loved it.  Sorry this picture is so blurry--the kids especially loved the penguins.  After the aquarium we stopped by the mall where they had a traveling exhibit of all of the national monuments built out of lego. The kids thought i...