Race Day

There's not a lot to say about race day.  The boys within Jacob's den raced 6 heats against each other.  Jacob's cheese car placed 2nd in several heats.

The cars were all unique as you can see.  A bit of each of them reflected in their choice of design or paint job. 

Jacob and Joey worked on several activities to earn more belt loops; rock identification, knot tying, art, nature conservation.  They have been good buddies since preschool.

 
Jacob, Kadin, and Joey, won awards, which thrilled them all.  Kadin's car was the fastest car with our den, so it advanced on to race against all the other 1st place cars within our pack.  

Oh, so cute!

Check out this adorable Valentine's Day card from Kristina Werner's blog. Just my speed. Glue dots, here I come!

Kristina's blog has great how two videos and tons of ideas for simple cards. I like her color choices & clean, simple lines.  

She offers a Color Inspiration challenge for others to share their creativity. A great place for getting ideas when you're feeling crafty.  :-)

Skateboards and Sidewalk Chalk Don't Mix

It's round two for the Itos at the emergency room this week.  Isaiah split his head open on a corner of the wall in his house Monday morning.  He needed several stitches, but it sounds like he is doing well now.  I felt so sorry for Mark & Rissa when they needed to hold him down for the ER staff to clean and stitch up the laceration, even more sorry for Isaiah, since it's always traumatic for the little guys to see their own blood.

Yesterday, as we pulled into the driveway after school the boys asked it they could play in the garage.  The like to do this when it's too rainy to play outside during the winter.

I mentioned to them that I needed to sweep up the pile of sidewalk chalk that I had driven over earlier in the week. In the amount of time it took me to walk into our kitchen, put down my purse, and hang up our raincoats, Jaden had attempted to ride his skateboard through the chalk.  I say attempted, because I'm sure as soon as the wheels touched the chalk Jaden must have gone flying off.

Jaden came running into the house holding his mouth, so I figured that he had hit his teeth on something.  Well it was not his teeth; he had a split about an inch long on his chin. It looked pretty deep.  As we washed off the dirt, chalk, and blood it became apparent that a Band aid was not going to do the trick; the skin would not close back together.

We headed off to Kaiser for what I thought would be stitches.  The doctor was able to layer Steri tape and Dermabond and close up the opening thankfully. Jaden was such a trooper; no tears or fussing in the least.

He was right back to his usual tricks this morning.  Falling off of risers at the Pinewood Derby race, running right out of his shoes while he was chasing Jenna and a little boy.  Not much slows my boys down.

Jacob is finishing up his Pinewood derby car for this weekend's big event.  His Boy Scout pack will race their cars and compete for various awards based upon their performance and design. We got sort of a late start, typical of any project we seem to tackle and started the project Friday night

Jacob and I sat down looking for ideas of what he wanted his car to look like. Right away he was leaning toward the more unique designs: surfboard cars with plastic dogs riding on top, a skateboard car, even a banana car with clay monkeys holding on for dear life. Once he spotted a car shaped like a slice of Swiss cheese, he knew that was what he wanted to make.

Tom helped with the power tools, but Jacob has done almost all the rest right down to the excellent sanding and painting job.  My personal favorite part is the clay mouse which rides in one of the Swiss cheese holes.  Check out the cute tail, and as Jacob requested, the pink clay nose.

I'll upload a final photo Saturday evening, and we'll let you all know how race day goes.  We're keeping the wheels off of the car for now since they are covered in messy graphite to help with the speed.

Love You Lucky

I've been eagerly checking my mailbox day after day for my newest purchase. One of my favorite jewelry sites is Heart on Your Wrist.  They make the cutest little silver charms which can be personalized with names, symbols, stones, etc.  

Last fall Tom ordered two of their tiny Thai charms with the boys' names on them.  After the holidays I gave some thought to how to spend a bit of money that my mother-in-law said not to let slide into the grocery fund.  You know how that goes, any stash of cash ends up in your wallet and then is spent on things other than what is was intended for.  So anyway, I decided to order myself these new charms; a tiny silver puffy heart, two fresh water pearls, and then.....a "love you lucky" charm.

So why "love you lucky"?  If you don't know the story, here it is.  

Ever since I can remember Tom has had a special of tucking the boys into bed at night, he's extra sweet that way. :-)  Part of his routine used to include, "I love you, and I'm lucky to have you."  Over the years that has been shortened to, "Love you, lucky". We say it to the boys each and every day as do they as well.  Its nice to have something like that that you share with your family. 

I love you Tom, and I am the lucky one to have you and the boys in my life!

My gift to you, Jaden, one more year

I cried tears today as you sang the Brown Bear, Brown Bear song completing the puzzle set that Mrs. Brown lent us for the weekend.  You’re such a happy kid, so imaginative, kind to your friends, and so excited about going to school.

You never complain about kindergarten being difficult, and you rarely ever grumble about homework, though I know it is not easy for you.  Those little fingers tire so easily as you color and write.  Those letters, though you know all the sounds, just don’t blend into words.  You’ve always lived your life moving at your own pace, showing us that it is okay to slow down.  What’s the big hurry anyway when there is so much to experience and enjoy?

So here is my gift to you, Jaden, one more year.  One more year for those small hands to grow and become strong.  One more year for you to sing and dance every morning before you have to sit down to work.  One more year of afternoons at the park, playing Star Wars with me at home,  snoozing in the car as we drive to pick up Jacob. 

You don’t know it yet, Jaden, but you’re giving us a gift too...one more year for your daddy and me to have you at home before it’s time to send you off to college.

I love you dear one.

Mini Lemon Meringue Pies

I'm still searching for ways to use up my lemons since I never got around to making lemon bars this past weekend.  Check out what I came across (sorry the photo is so large).  I'll let you know how they turn out if I give them a try.

Does anyone have an excuse for me to make them? I love using my mini muffin pan for making everything: mini corn bread muffins, mini cupcakes, mini brownies.  Oooo, how about mini chocolate cheese cakes?

When life deals you lemons, make lemonade

We had a huge crop of Meyer lemons this year.  I should have taken a photo of our tree with its branches weighted down almost to the ground.  

Meyer lemons are the best; so sweet you can almost eat them right off the tree. Well at least the kids think you can.

While Jacob had a buddy over this afternoon, I sent all the boys out with baskets to do some lemon picking. They came back with close to 30 lemons! They got quite a kick out of the juicing machine, and then sat down with their own cups to squeeze lemon juice, as they called it, the old fashioned way.

What do you do with 30 lemons? Make lemonade! This weekend the boys and I will make Auntie Sara's yummy lemon bars.

I've had the itch to move recently, so I'm searching for inspiring homes and property once again.  I had to look quite far to find anything that caught my eye, all the way up in Meadow Vista.  The house needs quite a bit of work inside, so we'll keep an eye on it to see what happens with the price.  I'm not sure I could live through a kitchen remodel or bathroom remodels right now.

 The boys would have quite a blast in this yard.

We have the BEST dog in the whole world.  She is so patient, gentle, and most of all tolerant with the boys. Hence the following story:

New Year's Eve I found Silly Putty smeared on the seat cushion of our couch.  I didn't stress too much about it; it's an old couch, and I was able to scraped most of the Silly Putty off with little effort.

We headed off to Grandma & Papa Ito's house to celebrate Christmas with Tom's family. Upon our return we noticed that Lainie seemed sad and sluggish. I just figured she was missing her best doggie friend, Jennie, or was tired from playing fetch with Jacob earlier in the day.

The next morning as we were getting ready for the day, Tom mentioned that there was Silly Putty on the sheets of our bed.  Kind of strange, until I noticed Lainie's butt.  She had it stuck to her fur and smeared, probably from trying to lick it off, in a patch that was about the size of a doughnut.  It was rubbed in so close to her skin that there would have been no way to cut it out.

I was able to remove it after several attempts to rub vegetable oil in it.  Poor girl, she was not too fond of all the attention her hind end was getting, but she tolerated all the picking and pulling of her hair.

She must have forgiven me; I woke up to her warming my feet in bed this morning.

It is about this time each year when I start longing for the warmth of summer. Not that California is anything like the cold winters of Alaska. When the fog sets in, I long for the sun and the sand.

Time to pull out our calendar and the camping book to choose some new coastal place to explore, even if it is spring by the time we make it there. 

Happy New Year

It is that time of year again to think of changes I need to make in my life, so here it goes.

Life slows down for very little, especially when you live with two young kids. Jaden has always been the one we're trying to hurry up; hurry him to get dressed each morning, to finish his dinner, to learn to write his name. The best gift he has given me over the past year is the realization that I need to slow down and enjoy life with him. Before I know it he'll be off to high school, then college.....

When I look around at my forever messy house I realize that we have too much stuff.  It's time to seriously SIMPLIFY and start dumping all of those things we don't use or need.  (Oh boy, that's going to be a tough one for Jacob!)  I love to shop, so this is going to be a tricky one for me.

We're off to celebrate the new year the Ito way....tons of great food!  No breakfast for me today. I'm saving myself for all the sushi and George's chow mein.  Yummy!