Park Day

 It's official.  Jilly LOVES the park!  My friend Michelle and I took our boys the other day and Michelle decided Jilly needed to try everything out.  Jillian isn't talking yet, but by her reaction to it all, I would say she had a blast!

 She love, love, LOVED the swing.  She was laughing hysterically.

I think the only thing she liked more than the park was the snacks.  This girl LOVES food.  Oh boy does she love it.  And she'll eat pretty much anything you put in her mouth.  One of her nicknames is actually garbage gut.  I know... so bad.  But she literally will eat anything she can find.  Even the three day old cheerios under the table that we haven't managed to sweep up yet, or the dried up pieces of cheese.  Again, I know.  I just try not to think about it too much, and sweep as often as possible.

Art Show

Back in March, we went to the district art show.  This year, some of Vivi's art work was selected to be in the show.  Her and a group of other students all worked on this together.  It turned out fabulous!

Jumpsters

Colson was part of the Jumpsters team again this year at his school.  We went to see the Jumpsters show on Mar. 21.  (Again, late with the blogging.)  These kids have been practicing since January for the show.

 These pictures are a little blurry, but it's all I got!

Colson with his gym teacher, Mr. Gaede, who is an outstanding teacher!

I was so excited to be able to go and watch this year, since last year I was home with sick kids, and hugely pregnant.  Colson did a fantastic job! 

Destination Imagination

Colson has been so lucky to be a part of the Destination Imagination team at his school this year.  These kids worked so hard for months to prepare for the tournament.  The tournament was on March 17.  (As per my usual these days, I am very late in blogging about it.)  For their challenge, Colson's team decided to build a structure and golf ball delivery device. 

 Colson's team were called the "Destination Dominators".  (Colson with the golf ball delivery device (GBDD).)

 For the requirements, the kids had to come up with a skit, and in the skit they had to incorporate their structure and GBDD.

 In the skit, Colson was the moon, and he was tired of having to share the night time sky with the stars, so he came up with a device (the GBDD) to get rid of the stars.  Part of the challenge is to see how strong their structure is.  In between putting golf balls into the structure using the GBDD, (there was a taped line that if Colson had crossed while using the GBDD, they would have been disqualified.  No pressure!) two of the kids would add weights to the structure.  Their structure ended up being one of the strongest.  It ended up holding over 175 lbs.!  The kids decided on the design of the structure and built it on their own.  And came up with the skit on their own.  Actually, as parents, we had to sign a contract that we would not interfere in any way or tell the kids what should be done.  If they asked a question, we could guide them, but the idea was for the kids to come up with everything on their own.

 In my opinion, their skit was the best.  They met all of the requirements in incorporating all they were supposed to, and there was tons of humor in it!  Colson is such a ham.  They all did amazing!  After their skit, they went up to the instant challenge room.  The parents weren't allowed to watch the instant challenge.  They did great though!  Colson's team got first place in the instant challenge in their category.  Basically, for the instant challenge, the kids are presented with a problem, and as a team, they have to figure out how to solve it using the materials that are given them.  And all in just a few minutes!

 Later that night, we went to the awards ceremony.  Colson's team got 3rd place in their category out of 14 teams!  Amazing!  Which means they are going to the state tournament, and if they make it in the top 3 or 4 (I can't remember which) they will go to the Global tournament in Tennessee.  They had one little hiccup during the skit, and if they get that fixed, their chances of going to Global are really high since they placed so high in all of their other categories.

Here is Colson with the rest of his team (minus 1) after the awards ceremony.  So excited!  The next tournament is this Saturday.  Can't wait!

Prestonisms

Preston has had some funny sayings these days, so before I forget them, I thought I better jot them down.

This one was actually from when we went to Disneyland a year and a half ago.  While at Disneyland, Trent's dad said, "Disneyland... the great money sucker."  (I'm sure the comment had to do with the fact that every time my kids saw a snack/food/drink vendor, they all of a sudden became STARVING and had to have something to eat or drink despite the fact that they had just eaten something not 10 minutes before.)  Anyway, Preston piped right in with, "Where's a money sucker? I want a sucker."  And for months after the fact, he would randomly say, "Can we go to grandpa's and see if he has any of those money suckers?"  We never could convince him that grandpa wasn't talking about a lollipop.

This one was also from a while back.  We were all sitting down eating dinner and Vivi kept talking about wanting a pet bird when she got older.  She also told us several names she would like to name her pet bird.  Then Preston piped in with, "Well, when I get a pet bird, I'm going to name him Steve!"  There was a moment of silence, and then we all busted up laughing!  Well, naturally we had to call Trent's dad right away (who's name is Steve) and tell him that Preston wanted to name his pet bird after him.  He got a kick out of that.  :)

Another one happened just the other night.  Preston was saying something about how when the sun is coming up, the moon is coming up, and when the sun is going down, the moon is going down.  I told him that actually it is the other way around.  When the sun goes down, the moon comes up, and when the moon goes down, the sun comes up.  His reply was, "No mom. That is not how it works.  You know, there is an order to all things.  Duh!"

He is really into questioning lately if things are "worth it" or not.  The funny thing though is that he doesn't always use it in the proper context.

A few weeks ago we were at a family BBQ at Janet and Steve's.  Preston was busy playing outside and wasn't interested in eating.  Finally grandpa called out to him, "Preston!  Come in and eat bud.  There's a plate in here with your name on it!"  What do you know?  He came right in.  We gave him his plate of food, and he spent a few seconds examining it, only to say, "Hey! I don't see my name on my plate!  You told me there was a plate with my name on it!"  Since it was a paper plate, we went ahead and wrote his name on it.

Preston has really been into Jinxing people these days.  He'll ask you to repeat something and say it at the same time just so he can say, "Jinx! You  owe me a soda!"  I think he's already jinxed me 12 times today. :)

The other night, Trenton had requested pigs in a blanket for dinner.  As I was preparing them, Preston asked me, "What blanket are we going to use to eats the pigs on?"  I tried to explain to him that the hot dog was the pig and the roll wrapped around it was the blanket.  He wasn't going for it.  Needless to say, we ate our pigs in a blanket on a blanket in the front yard.  :)

Then there's one of my absolute favorites.  Every night as we help the kids get ready for bed, he always asks, "Will you tock me in?", instead if "tuck".  I don't know why, but every time he says it, it just makes me giggle.

Preston sure adds some laughs to our lives!  I love that kid!