VEX IQ Robotics Competition

In December Nash was given the chance to join the Robotics Club at the school.  He was THRILLED beyond explanation!  He has loved getting to learn about how to build and program a robot.  My cousin Austin does the Robotics Club at the high school and Nash even had a chance to go and watch a high school competition one day instead of going to school!

Today was the first competition that he was able to participate in.  We had to be in Kaysville at 9 am so the other kids spent the night with Trav's parents.  

This is most of Nash's team 

Each team does 5 matches.  His school has 3 teams and each of those teams does 5 matches.  Each time also had to do 4 skill sets and go in front of the judges for judging.  Nash's group hasn't done a STEM project so that puts them out of the running for the overall top position.  Granted, his group is all inexperienced fourth grade boys & they've been focused on getting their robot built and programmed.  Nash did tell me that they plan to put together a STEM project now for when they go to the State competition at the end of February up at USU.

A match is interesting to watch.  

Each match is only 1 minute long.  

At the 35 second mark you must change drivers or you will be penalized if you refuse to give the controller to your teammate.  

There can only be 2 team members at the floor during the match.  One team member bulldozes and the other stacks.  

There is another 2 person team at the same floor.  The other team also has one person bulldozing and one person stacking. 

 In elementary VEX competition (not sure if it's the same at the high school level), the teams can work together.  They have the two teams on the floor and two teams up at a que.  There are two matches taking place at the same time.  This makes for SUPER fast movement through everything that needs to be accomplished.

The way they score it is interesting as well.  At the end of the minute any blocks that are past the flags count as 1 point each.  There are three different colors of blocks.  You must stack same color blocks together.  If you have 2 green blocks stacked then green counts as 2 points each.  If you have 3 blocks stacked they count as three points each.  One team scored 79 points in a skill set today! 

The points the kids earn in their matches are really of no value.  At the end of the five matches they take the number of points the teams earned and pair them with another team of similiar point value.  Then those two teams go against each other until you end up with a high score for those two teams.  Once that has been done you have to take all their points from judging and add that in as well.  Apparently at the first competition of the year our school team was in first place with points from matches.  However, once they were paired with people of like number points and did their second round of matches a fourth ranked team won.  Boggles my mind still!

Waiting to do their first of four skill sets:

Skill set was a bust!  Robot got stuck!  With your skill sets they just take your highest score of the four and count it.  All others are tossed out.  You can choose to do a driver skill set or a programming skill set.  You can do all programming skill sets or all driver skill sets or any combination thereof.

We ended up leaving early (that's a post entirely of it's own to come later) so I don't know how his team did at the very end of the day.  Nash has loved being in robotics club and has learned so much.  He has wanted to be an engineer when he grows up so this is giving him a glimpse into it.  I think he's really looking forward to the state competition next month!

Christmas 2014

I didn't anticipate this is be an obscenely long post - and then I realized how long it's been since I posted last.  Oops!  This one post should have been multiple posts through the month of December!  Guess that leaves room for another resolution for 2015!  Get back to posting more often!

December was crazy busy but lots of fun.  We actually got to have Travis home from Dec. 5-Dec. 26.  That's the most time he's spent at home since he started working at Halliburton nearly SIX years ago!  The kids & Travis & I loved every second of it.  We sure made the most of our time together.

We set up our tree after Travis got home.  I have resigned myself to the fact that I will not have the cutsie snowman themed tree I've wanted since we got married.  Nope.  I have given that up.  At least until the last one of the kids moves out!  I handed out the decorations to the kids & the kids put them on the tree.  We used all the decorations the kids have made first and the ornaments that have meaning to our family (the ornaments with the kids names on them, the year ornaments, etc.)

Samantha's dance group danced at the Festival of Trees again.  I just took the girls and went.  Travis stayed home so the boys wouldn't have to miss school to go.  We had fun and saw some fun things.  The girls did a great job and their teacher said this year was the best it's ever gone for them at the Festival of Trees!

Samantha's ballet class did an excerpt from The Nutcracker.  Each of the ballet classes at the Whittier center did a different excerpt from The Nutcracker as their holiday recital.  This made it so it was a shortened version of The Nutcracker for families to watch.  The girl that played the Nutcracker is actually a girl that's my age that danced with Laura (my best friend & day care person) in high school.

We made our annual trip to see Santa Claus.  I have to say, this Santa was the best Santa I've ever met!  He was awesome & was so funny!

We made it to the Bown & Whitlock parties this year.  We didn't go last year because Travis wasn't home when they had them.  The kids have sure missed going to Manti as often as we use to.  We really need to do a better job of making more trips down there to visit each year.  The kids love it down there and they love to see everyone.  Santa came and paid all the kids at the Bown party a visit.

We actually had three parties in one weekend!  We had the Bown party on the Saturday before Christmas, the Whitlock party the Sunday before Christmas & the Reeder party the Sunday before Christmas.  Travis was a good sport & we left Mayfield early enough that we were able to make it to the Reeder party.  It helps that they eat dinner first at the Reeder party so by the time we arrived they had just finished eating!

Whenever the whole family gets together we have to get a photo of these five kids together.  We call them "The Quints" because they were all born the same year.  They are in birth order - almost:
Sunny (March 2011), Brookelyn (May 2011), Rhett (November 2011), Bryson (September 2011) & Parker (June 2011).  They sure are fun to watch play together!

On Christmas Day we went out to Scott & Kris's house.  Poor Kris was so sick I'm not sure how she managed to get out of bed & stay out of bed all day!  The kids loved all their gifts.  Nash is dying to try out the new sled.  I think Travis will have to take him when he gets home this weekend!  Brookelyn got a new Cabbage Patch doll that she absolutely adores.  Samantha is in love with her big fuzzy green chair that's for her new room & Caleb has enjoyed his boxing robots!

On Christmas Eve we went to my parents' house.  This year we changed it up a bit to see if it would help calm some of the madness!  We've always eaten dinner first and then done gifts.  Mom decided this year we would do gifts first and then eat.  That way maybe the kids would actually eat something!  This idea worked out fairly well.  We let Brooke & Sunny open their gifts & then the boys & then Sam & Jade.  Once that craziness was done we had dinner.  After dinner we gave our gifts to mom & dad & then Cass & Zack & I got our gifts.  

Brooke is super excited about her new purple princess dress.  Mom had her try it on and it's a little long so it's still at Grandma's house so the hem can be raised another three inches.

This girl!  Not sure what I'm going to do with her!  All she wants to do lately is pull scary faces.  When her dad is able to facetime home she hogs the phone & sits and pulls one goofy face after another at him!  I blame all the Reeder genes and my mother's influences!

Samantha had a Batman Christmas and is perfectly content with that.  She's already put together this two sided Batman puzzle.  Now she's waiting for me to get some puzzle glue so we can get it glued together so it can be hung on her new bedroom wall!  Crazy girl1

The little girls in their princess dresses.  

My mom made the boys real western style shirts.  Unfortunately, Nash & Jack's are a bit short.  Caleb's fits great.  The only other dilema is that the pearl buttons were being stinkers and not working.  Mom is going to make Nash & Jack a bigger size so Caleb will get all three!  Not sure if she'll be able to fix the pearl buttons or not.  I sure hope so because they really just finish out the shirts.

Mom made all the kids about three pairs of pjs.  They love their grandma Terri pjs and wear them until I have to take them and hide them because they have grown out of them!

.This is what our kids woke up to on Christmas morning at our place.

It's difficult to see, but there's an actual bow and arrow in that pile for Caleb - scary, I know!

It isn't in the photo but I made Sam a Batman quilt too.

Sam was pretty excited to get her own BB gun.  She actually had bet Robbie while we were at the Whitlock party that she could hit the post on the porch with the new nerf//blow gun she got & she won a dollar from him!  Travis said he's proud because now everyone in the family is armed and dangerous except Brooke.  I expect that she too will be armed in the very near future.

Brooke got about 5 new dress up items from Santa.  She's been wearing them regularly since Christmas day.  I anticipate she'll likely be wearing them all year round.  And, I have a sneaking suspicion that more than one of her princess dresses will make the trek to Disneyland in April!

We really had a great Christmas and loved that we got to see everyone.  We also loved having our dad home for three weeks straight.  It was a sad day when I had to take him to the airport.  On the bright side, he comes home on Wednesday night and the kids are excited (well, Brooke is ecstatic) that they get to go pick him up with me (usually Aunt Jamie picks him up).

We have lots of goals for 2015 and I know we'll make them all a reality so long as we just keep working towards them.  Baby steps, right?!  Happy New Year!

Catching up!

So I'm starting to realize I might actually have too much to keep up with!  I haven't updated this blog in quite some time (and let's be honest, I'm not super great at updating the preschool blog regularly either!).
we've had a few exciting things happen around here lately so it's past time for me to write them down!

Our first bit of excitement came when Travis was transferred from Prudhoe Bay Alaska down to Kenai Alaska.  They transferred him because they were needing more men on their crew in Kenai and Prudhoe Bay wasn't super busy.  This transfer resulted in him having to stay at work for an extra week.  He was suppose to come home on Thanksgiving Day but due to the transfer, he was delayed a week.  It was a bummer for us (and for him) but he got to have some really neat experiences while he was there.  For starters, he was working off shore.  That's the first off shore job he's ever done.  And apparently the first off shore job in Kenai that Halliburton has had in quite some time.  In order to get to the off shore rig he got to fly in a helicopter.  That was another first for him!  He took all sorts of photos to show the kids his air tight flight suit (Nash will tell you dad told him not to fart in the flight suit b/c it's air tight and you'll let it all out when you take off your suit!).  He didn't have the greatest cell service while he was off shore so we didn't get to talk to him much while he was out in the ocean.  He was able to text though so we knew he was ok.  He's close to a volcano out in Kenai.  I do believe that's another first for him.  We finally got him home a week ago and he's been keeping busy since he landed!

Speaking of keeping busy since he landed, Travis has gotten back to work on Samantha's new bedroom (in the basement).  She is DYING to move into her new room.  I caved and let her pick two things out when we stopped at Gordman's on our way home from the festival of trees.  Her new room will be purple (a dark purple, not lavender) and lime green.  Yes, I did say those two colors on purpose.  She's also going to have a ballet bar in her new room.  Dad isn't so thrilled about putting said ballet bar up, but he's willing to do it.  Her room is also going to be all things Batman (her FAVORITE).

I recently began another new business!  This business is called ItWorks!  They are best known for "that crazy wrap thing" (aka the body applicator).  I'll be honest, I originally only signed up to sell it because I wanted to get the products for a discount.  Since trying the products though, I'm in LOVE!  And, the more I learn about the company the more I know I made the right choice.  The CEO of this company wants families to have freedom of time and financial freedom.  The company is completely debt free and is opening to distributors in more countries all the time.  I love what the wraps have done to the stretch marks on my belly (went from purple to nearly gone).  I'm using the defining gel between wraps to keep tightening, toning and firming the loose skin on my belly (thanks four babies) and I'm using it on my tattoo as well (helps bring back the color and life to tattoos).  I've started taking greens (both chewable ones and ones I can dump into juice/water).  These greens are a full EIGHT servings of fruits and veggies.  I already feel better each evening because I know my body is getting more of what it needs.  I'll be the first one to admit I'm a horrible eater!  For example; today I ate: 1 bowl of cereal at about 8 am, a few gingerbread cookies at snack time during preschool, 1 1/2 apples after school and then at 7:15 pm I finally got a mcdouble from McD's because I was starving!  That allowed me time to get a snicker's bar from the grocery store when I picked up a few random odds and ends for dinner & lasted me until I was able to eat the hamburger Travis made!  See - worst eater ever!  And that's a typical day for me (well, minus the mcdouble - that's not a very frequent event).  Anyway, as you can tell, I'm super excited about this company and all the products they have to offer, as well as the opportunities they offer their distributors!

(Trav's wrap results - he relented and LET me wrap him the first time.  After he saw the final results of the first wrap, HE asked ME if I would wrap him!  Can't believe I made a believer out of him that easy!  He's such a skeptic!)

Samantha danced at the annual Festival of Trees in Sandy on Dec. 5th.  This was about the 6th year in a row she's danced at Festival of Trees.  It's become a bit of a tradition I'd say.  This year I just took her and Brooke and Travis stayed home to take care of the boys after school.  We had lots of fun.
Sam also just did her end of semester performance for her ballet company.  Her class did an excerpt from the Sugar Plum Fairy dance in the Nutcracker  I took Brookelyn and cousin Jade with me and Sam's second grade teacher and her 2 yo came along as well.  She did amazing and I'm so proud of how she's pushed herself.  She has loved the ballet class and has signed up again for next semester.  To be honest I seriously thought she'd have had enough by now and not want to do it again next semester.  Guess that shows how much I know!

We've been cruising along in preschool.  Can't hardly believe it's nearly Christmas already!  Didn't school just start?  At the beginning of the school year my plan was to let Brooke come to the 3 yo class on Tuesday/Friday and send her to daycare during the 4 yo classes on Monday/Wed/Thursday.  Turns out Brooke rather likes preschool and attends EVERY SINGLE session of preschool.  In fact, it's to the point now that when she actually asks to go to daycare I have to ask several times if that's really what she said!  She's making great progress and gives most of my 4 yo students a run for their money in fine motor skills.  She can trace her name beautifully now and can put her name die cuts in order.  The only letter she doesn't remember the name of is y (yes, I make her spell Brookelyn not Brooke).

Brooke started speech at the beginning of the school year too.  I was a bit worried about how I was going to get her there on Wednesdays.  So far she's only missed a few times because I couldn't find anyone to take her up and bring her back.  She's making great progress with her sounds and her teacher, Teacher Angie, is really happy with her progress.  So far she's worked on the sounds c, f, and g.  She loves having her speech homework and is quite good about reminding me about it!  She's even started "doing my homework" on the piano!

Caleb was diagnosed with ADD in Sept. or Oct.  We got him on some meds (same ones as Nash takes for his ADHD) and he improved greatly at school.  I cannot believe the difference it has made for him.  Ok, actually I can, but only because I've seen the difference they have made for Nash!  Caleb is currently reading on about a third grade level.  He has almost 40 AR points.  Anyone familiar with AR knows that's a big deal for a first grader.  98% of the books he's testing on are books he's reading by himself at bedtime.  I read the test questions to him and the choices, but he does the rest.  Most of the time he's getting 100%.  I LOVE that he loves to read!  The medicine that we got Caleb on for his ADD has acted as an appetite suppressant for him.  The kid is so tiny to begin with that I was worried about him losing weight.  He only weighed 39 lbs when he started his meds.  He's gotten to the point that he literally will only eat about one single slice of toast in an entire day.  Has me worried sick.  I had Travis take him in for a well check this week.  Turns out the kid has only lost 4 ounces.  GOOD.  Of course, I have not been giving him his meds on weekends or when there is no school because I want him to eat.  Maybe that has helped.  He's such a picky eater to begin with!  The dr. listened to our concerns and gave us a prescription for a medicine that should counteract the appetite suppressant.  Tonight he ate three whole hot dogs, some chips and then wanted more.  That's a HUGE deal at our house!

Nash is doing great in school.  He was just accepted to the new Robotics club at school.  He is beyond THRILLED.  He has said for the last 24 hours, "I just CAN'T wait for Monday!'  I'm happy to see him so excited about something!  He's also been playing basketball since the beginning of November.  He practices on Wednesday nights and plays his games on Saturdays.  So far they've won all but one game.  He's had so much fun and I love that he's having such a great time interacting with other boys his age (he doesn't have ANY of those in our neighborhood!).  Nash is currently reading at about a sixth grade level.  His first grade teacher (Caleb's teacher) is amazed at his progress!  Nash came in one day after school (I go in and help in his class Tuesday afternoon's while Brooke is at speech) and put his things down and walked over to his piano.  He was learning to play the theme song from Beauty and the Beast and had nearly half of it memorized.  He started playing on the piano and his first grade teacher just dropped her jaw.  She told me that she NEVER thought he would be able to do something like that - not because of lack of ability, but because of how bad his ADHD is.  sure am proud of this kid.

Both the boys are in tumbling again this year and are loving it.  They got to participate in the USU homecoming parade.  Nash loved that he got to walk behind the trailer and throw candy.  Caleb thought that wasn't so fair.  I think both of them are doing well in their different classes.  I know Caleb sure looks forward to tumbling each Friday.

Samantha made the honor roll first semester at school.  That was not without some challenges.  At parent teacher conferences she had a D in her reading class.  Turns out that the reading log slips they fill out each week are worth more than half their grade and she hadn't turned in two of them.  This continues to be a challenge for her, but she's working on it.  I've threatened to pull her from ballet class and that tends to get her attention.  Her fifth grade teacher recommended she get extra math help so she has math class for the first two hours of school every day.  This has made a huge difference for her and I'm so glad her teachers recommended her for it1  She also has study hall so that has helped as well, seeing that she dances four days a week! 

We've been busily getting ready for Christmas in between all our daily events.  Not sure I'm going to get the sewing done I need to for Christmas, but I'm trying.  Here's to hoping anyway!

(Sam's xmas quilt - waiting for it to come back from being machine quilted so I can get the binding done)

And one last bit of exciting news - well, at least for the kids.  We've currently got a "rent a pet" living with us.  Mocha's owner works in the oil field.  He needs someone to keep her while he's at work.  When he's back for his days off he will keep her.  He said he'd buy her food too.  So, here we are with 3 dogs now.  I think she might be my favorite.  She's 4 yrs old so she's not in the puppy phase or on ornery old thing either.  She is already house trained - MASSIVE bonus.  And she is the sweetest thing in the world.  The girls absolutely ADORE her.

Halloween 2014

We kicked off Halloween by going to Caleb's Halloween play on Thursday.  He got to dress up in his costume (Oompa Loompa) and they sang all kinds of cute Halloween songs & told a cute Halloween story.  All the decorations on the curtain they made in class all month long and they got to take them home at the end of the play.

 

Caleb with his teacher (Mrs. Olsen) whom we love dearly!  She was Nash's first grade teacher too.

Thursday night we finally carved our pumpkins!  I made the kids wait until their dad was home because it's a bit difficult for me to carve five at a time!

On Friday after teaching preschool I went up to the elementary school to help with Caleb's class party.  They always do a Halloween costume parade so all the kids can see each other.  The parents line the walls of the school as the kids go by.  After they parade through the school they go outside to perform a Halloween dance they learned in PE.

Doing their Halloween dance for all the parents:

The kids were super excited that dad was home for halloween this year.   This is the first time in the last five years that he's been home on Halloween to go with us!

My Oompa Loompas:

Zombie Mad Hatter & Zombie Alice

Silvermist the water fairy:

Red Riding Hood & the big bad wolf:

Zombie Alice's Cheshire Cat (and cheshire cat pumpkin)

We ventured out to Grandma Kris & Grandpa Scott's house to celebrate Grandma Kris's birthday.  The kids took off running right after Grandma got pictures of them in their costumes!  Nash ended up with close to 4 lbs of candy!  Brooke did two sides of two streets and was done but that's just because she wanted to play with her cousin Olivia!  It was super nice weather (a smidge of wind but it wasn't cold and it wasn't long) too.  Happy Halloween!