We Have a Winner!

Some photos from Jo's:

 

Making sticker pictures!

Helping Jo bake some DELICIOUS bars (that she made me eat...how mean)

Dinosaurs!  And why the long face dude?

Eating snack in the fire truck!

And one that Mason's after school teacher sent me!

Mason said "it fell over and we were stuck!  We couldn't get out!"

For Christmas my parents gave us their framed picture.  Ever since then Bryce is obsessed with it.  He goes up to it, says "hi" to Papa (he loves grandmas too but Papa is what he always says).  He carries it around the house with him.  In fact, right after Christmas I couldn't find it and I KNEW my mom had hidden it before she left the house (my Grandma Kathol did that with her picture EVERY SINGLE TIME she came over to our house).  I asked her and she said no she didn't.  I can't remember now where I found it, but it was because Bryce had moved it!  So the other day Bryce had a bowl of some snack, a bowl with part of a cupcake, a half eaten popsicle, and the framed picture all right in front of him at the table.  No, I did not allow him to have all of those snacks at once.  I really don't know why he had all of that, but that's not my point...I think it's funny that he had Papa there while he was eating!  Ha!  Usually this picture is in our living room, on our way down the steps, and each morning Bryce waves and says "Bye Papa!"  Too cute!

 

Papa and Grandma are snacktime guests!

Last week was spent getting Zane's 2nd Pinewood Derby car ready for Saturday's race.  I think they were more nervous this year than last...knowing what to expect!  Saturday turned out to be a great day of racing for Zane!  He won every race that he was in!  We were so proud of Zane as he was very humble about winning every race.  Because he won his Den's races, we had to report back at noon to race all of the winners from each Den.  He ended up winning every race there too so he won overall for the whole Pack!  Wowza!  We didn't expect that!  So now Zane will be racing his car in districts in 2 weeks.  I have a feeling this is going to be a long 2 weeks for me...ha! 

Zane and his Den waiting for their races.

Zane's is the winner!

Every time he won, he looked over

Results!  Zane's name at the top!

Receiving trophy #1

While we were waiting, Mason made a friend...not sure if they even talked, but they pushed his car back and forth!

Results from Pack Race!  Zane on top again!

Receiving the overall championship trophy!

Winner!

Father and Son!!!  So proud of them!

Here are some videos of a few of the races.  I would hate to tell you how many times these have been watched and studied already...ha!  

 

 

Matt even snipped these images from the videos...so you could easily see the winning moments!

 

After the finals, we headed north so we could celebrate Bryce's 2nd birthday with family.  We had Bryce's party, along with cousin Keaton's party, on Sunday afternoon at Grandma Beggs' house.

 



Aunt Reeta and I with our (not planned) matching shirts!

Bryce and Grandma Judy

Keaton - can't believe he's turning 9!

Keeta, Dad, Grandpa Baker, Keaton, Grandma Beggs

Reeta, Kolby, Jennie, Chris, Corbyn, Kaitlin, Mason

Chris, Corbyn, Mason, Kaitlin, Mom, Jake, Matt, Craig

A Thomas pillow pet!

Bryce with his cake.  He was obsessed with it and wouldn't leave it alone!  It was a hit!

Happy birthday buddy!

Keaton with his Hawkeye cake!

Once again, Bryce acted completely terrified of his cake when the candles were lit...so Mason helped out and blew them out for him!

Thanks big brother!

Getting Ready to Race!

Two weeks ago I had no photos...it was the first week back to work after Christmas break...it started with a snow day...and ended with one of my co-worker's 5 month old in the hospital.  So it's easy to say I was otherwise occupied!  Bryce was able to celebrate his birthday with his daycare buddies, which he really enjoyed!

 

The birthday boy at Jo's!

Trucks and cars!

Monster trucks!

Puzzles!

Hanging out with his buddies!  Darn fingers in the mouth!

Bryce LOVES to try to scare people.  He has a monster hat that he says "RAR" every time he puts it on.  Jo says he tries to scare her with this every day too!  The best thing is he does it then smiles and giggles.  It's too cute!

Painting penguins.

Working in the "kitchen"

Friday night we had the Ottis girls over.  They even spent the night!  We barely get to see them anymore so the boys were very very excited to have them over!  We started the night by going to Pizza Shoppe, where everyone looked at us strangely with our five kids!  It made me laugh!  After that we headed home for some leftover cake Mary brought us from a celebration at her school.

 

Bryce, Nora, Mason, Madelyn, Zane

The only one without an Ottis buddy...sadness...

Nora & Mason

Madelyn & Zane

After jammies were on, we had a dance party, played hide and seek, and then settled down on the couch to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks.  Mason was the first one asleep, Zane second, and the girls were STILL AWAKE when I checked on them at midnight and finally turned the tv off so they would go to sleep!  The next morning everyone was up early.  We got some donuts and took the boys to get their haircuts.

 

Finally all asleep!

Next weekend is Zane's second Pinewood Derby!  He (okay, really Matt) has been working hard on the configurations for making a winning car!  I'm excited to see how it goes next week...especially since this year they have a little bit of a clue about what to expect!

Sanding

Mason sanding a block of wood

Zane sanding his car

Matt imparting his wisdom upon Zane...

And Bryce loading paint cans into his four-wheeler!

Loving his play time in the garage!

In recent news...Mason is quite the popular boy at school.  Nora and another girl at school have been known to argue about which of the two of them would marry him.  Each morning when Matt takes him to school, there are girls at the doorway saying "Hi Mason!" and announcing to everyone that Mason has arrived.  He looks straight ahead and "ignores" all of the attention...it's just too cute!  The other day one of the "said girls" said "Hi Mason!  Ooh la la!  Ruff ruff!"  Oh my.  I'm not sure I'm going to be able to take this when he gets older! 

And...two amazing things to be thankful for!  We now have another family member!  Wes and Abby (Abby is Matt's cousin) welcomed Kendal Kate to the family this week!  She lives far away, so we won't see her for awhile, but can't WAIT to meet her!  And another family I've been praying DAILY for is the Zellmers.  They have been in the hospital for 4 months as Jase was born at 23 weeks.  They came home today!  Woohoo!  God is good!

Have a great week!!

Bryce is Two!!!

Bryce is two!?!  How did this happen?  This year it was nice to be home with him on his birthday!  Birthdays at our house always start the night before when I sneak into their room to cover their floor with balloons!  When Bryce woke up and I went into his room to get him, he was pointing to the floor saying "boon!"

 

Look Mom - Boons!

He was so excited!

He and Mason then put all the balloons in his crib, then climbed in with them!

Silly boys!

Ah, the fingers.  We need to break him of the fingers!

Most of the day we just hung out at home and played.  Just another day of our winter break!  Since Bryce really isn't a great eater, and what he will scarf down one day he won't touch the next...we just had a normal meal at home.  On New Year's Day, Matt took Bryce and Zane to Wendy's and found out Bryce LOVES onion rings!  So he brought Bryce home some birthday onion rings and that was the first thing he finished!  Who knew?

Onion rings, and supper on the red plate!

After supper we had cupcakes.  He acted scared of the candles!  Must have had flashbacks to last year's birthday - where he tried grabbing the candle, everyone yelled "NO" and he cried and cried!  We scarred him for life!

What is going on?

Dad - help me!  Matt and Mason had to blow the candles out!

We've been working on Bryce saying "two" when you ask how old he is and showing 2 fingers.  When I was showing him, I put his other fingers down so only two were up.  So every time you ask him, he tries to put his fingers down.  It's so stinkin cute!  Here he is trying to show me how old he is:

 



Let's see here...how do I get two fingers?

This many?

Maybe this many (I tried having him do one finger on each hand)

Yes, definitely, this is how many I am!

Even though it was only a week after Christmas, everyone deserves birthday presents!  So he had a few and had fun opening them.  He's good at it now after Christmas!

 



Big brothers having a hard time staying back and not helping!

A Thomas book!

So hard to believe our baby is two!  He's such an amazing kid!  Can't wait to see where life takes him!