Six!

For weeks, we heard the countdown to a very important date. The day Avery turned 6! The first thing he would do in the morning would be to tell us how many days were left. When he went to school, he gave his teacher a countdown every day as well. In fact, his whole class knew that Avery's birthday was in however many days. They all remembered too! I had several parents tell me when Avery's birthday was and that they heard about it every day. Funny!

We usually throw a big party for the kids on their birthday, instead of buying them presents. Well, this year, Avery decided he didn't want to have a party. He wanted to go camping instead! Sooo, luckily his birthday fell during Spring break. AJ took them camping for 2 nights. I don't camp, so I stayed home all by myself. It was strange.

He loved the camping of course. It did rain one night and their tent ended up flooding, but they had fun anyway.

Avery's birthday fell on Easter this year, so he had a double good day. He made up a new name for that day, "Eastday" since it was a combination of Easter and Birthday.

They hunted for eggs, checked out their Easter Baskets, and opened Birthday presents, all at the same time. Fun stuff.




Lindsay and her crew came over for a little while later in the day and we had ice cream cake from Maggie Moos. Yum, yum!




He had a great day and is so excited to be 6! I love when they turn a new age because I can say things like "Six year olds don't do ...." or "When you are six you now do..." As of right now he believes me that things suddenly change when you turn a new age. Hope that keeps up. It's a great way to get them to stop behavior that I don't like! LOL!

Happy Birthday, Avery!!! I can't wait to see how much you grow this year!

Derby

The Pinewood Derby for Cub Scouts is a huge event that the boys love! Ours was this past week. Sam and AJ worked hard to build a cool car. Sam picked the design and the color scheme. He picked a red car, blue wheels, and white stars. It looked great. Much more snazzy than last year's plain jane car. :)AJ was still finishing it up the night before the race and accidentally broke off a piece of wood while he was trying to put the wheels in. I was sure it would do horrible in the race. So on our way to the race, I talked to Sam about how each year is different, each car is different, and you never know what was going to happen. He won the derby last year, so I didn't want him to automatically think he would win this year. He didn't think that at all. In fact, Avery said, "Yeah, it's not about winning, it's about having fun!" Um, yeah, where did I get such smart kids. :) I am glad they listen. :)

So we get to the race, weigh-in, etc.




The boys were all so hyper and so excited. They couldn't wait!

We brought Sam's car from last year and even Avery got to race a little bit. Last year's car was not a winner this year though! ;)

So Sam had his first turn. He was so nervous. It was funny!




He won! He could NOT believe it!!!

Next race, winner, next race, winner, next race, winner....

He kept winning every race. Each time he was getting more and more nervous. In fact, every single race, he looked like this. Notice his fingers.


Anyway, he was such a good sport. I kept hearing him be so nice to the other boys. One little boy, heard he was racing Sam, and the boy said, "Aw, man. Guess I am going to lose." Sam was like, "Hey, don't think that! You never know, we haven't raced yet. You could totally win." He kept saying super nice things like that all night. I was proud of him. He didn't want anyone else to feel bad. Sweet boy.

Avery was sad because he wasn't winning at all. i think at the end he finally won one or two, so that helped, but he was not very happy. Then at the end, he got an award, and that made all the difference. He was great after that!

So back to Sam. It was getting down to the end, Sam was up again. He was racing another boy that he had already won against. They ran and the other car won! At that point we didn't know what was going to happen. That was the only race he had lost. So the derby ended and the judge went back to figure out the final stats. We waited and waited and waited. He finally came back and said there was a 4 way tie for 2nd place!! So they had to do double elimination rounds to determine who was in each spot.

They called the first two, then the next two, then a few more, but never did call Sam.

Finally, they were ready to call the race. Here was the outcome.




Sam was 1st place again! He couldn't believe it and was so ecstatic. None of us could believe it, actually! Since he won, that means he gets to go to the District Pinewood Derby and race against the other champions from other packs. What's funny is that AJ did not want to go to District this year. HAHA! He said it is terrible. There are these dads there that bring their huge, rolling tool chests, and are so serious and wacko over these cars. Oh well, Sam deserves to go. After everyone had pretty much left and we were cleaning up, Sam said, "Woah, this is crazy! I don't even know how I feel! I just feel weird!" Ha ha. His cheeks were all red and he had this huge smile on his face the whole rest of the night. He was beyond excited, is what he was!

That night, the boys had two friends come over and stay the night. Boy, that was interesting! Coming from such an exciting activity, a late night, and lots of treats, made for some very excited, wound up boys. AJ had to work the next day, so trying to get those boys to go to sleep was quite an ordeal. Whew!

The next day I took all 4 of them to see "How to Train a Dragon" to celebrate. Cute, good movie!

Anyway, congratulations to our 1st place Pinewood Derby Champion! Go, Sam! :)