Funny London

I just got home from London's Parent-Teacher Conference (Darwin was at work and couldn't make it) . London is an excellent student and a good worker. The only thing her teacher told us to have her work on was her penmanship/neatness and turning stuff in on time...otherwise she was perfection to have in class. =)

As we were going through the papers the teacher had to show me, this one stood out. Most of it is just cute, but two or three of the answers she gave made both her teacher and I laugh out loud...literally!

• The thing I do best is piano and reading.
• The thing I do not do very well is painting.
• The part of me that looks the best is my hair.
  
• The part of me that I would like to change is no glasses.
  
• My worst habit is stealing candy. (what! is that where all the Halloween candy is going?!) =)
  
• I am glad I am my age because I can ride.
• I will be glad when I am 12 years old so I can shave my legs. (!!!hahaha!!!)
• I am proud of me when I go down the ploe (pole) with one hand.
  
• I work hardest when I am in school.
  
• I am a little bit brave.
• Most people think I am weured (weird) in a nice way.

Lego Robotics

London has been participating in Lego Robotics/First Lego League for the past 3 months. This weekend was their tournament. The kids build a car with legos, and then learn to program a computer type unit that is integrated into the car. Before watching this competition, I thought they were just using remote controls to make the robots move, but they actually have to do a lot of measuring and calculating to make these things go. They are given "simple" missions to complete and then have a competition with the other schools around here. The winners get to go to Anchorage, and those winners will go onward and upward to a national level.

London's mission was to have her car (carrying a family of 4 Lego people) through a kind of obstacle course and then have the car grab a ring...all without harming the family (meaning they didn't fall off). From the first picture, her car started on the right on the 3M label. It had to follow the black line up and then curve to the left, make a sharp right turn, go under the bridge, rotate 90 degrees to the right, then go forward set the family down, and then back up away from the family. It is hard to explain, so I put up some video of her on one of the test run tables. Her team didn't win...but they also didn't loose.

Her team had three different missions, and each mission was worth a certain number of points. They got points for how many of the objectives they completed. I didn't get her mission in the actual competition, because we also had two soccer games to be at on Saturday, and her tournament went from 9:45 am - 4 pm!

First tries.



This time was so close. It got all the way to where is was supposed to go, but the family fell off at the bridge, before the ending...lol!

He said he was a "Sword Porcupine"....

Happy 35th

I turned 35 last week. I had a fabulous day...I really did. I got presents, went out to lunch with Darwin (at La Salsa), went out to dinner with the whole family (to Bullwinkle's Pizza), and had birthday pie with whipped creme. Life is good.

Melissa-age 35!



Jon Schmidt CD's and music from Brooklin and Toy Story toys from Caleb

More Toy Story toys from London and a book and new scriptures from Isaiah.

What the heck! Why?!
Darwin's present was wrapped really well. He covered the entire box with black duct tape and then wrapped it in wrapping paper. He got me two books and a black sweater.

Birthday Pecan Pie

First Snowman of the year!

He may be tiny...but we are very excited to have us some snow!! Can't wait to go sledding again!

November is National Adoption Awareness Month!

This week marks three years. Three years since we started our adoption paperwork with LDS Family Services. We have grown by leaps and bounds in these three years in our understanding of adoption. It is definitely a lot more emotional then I ever imagined. There have been days when I wasn't sure how I was going to take care of three infants at once, only to find out the next hour that none of those children were meant to be ours. It is hard for me to not be skeptical of each new situation we are presented with...because for three years, nothing has ever worked out. The thing is, I don't want to be just any baby's mother...I want to be my baby's mother, and if my baby isn't here yet, that's ok. I can wait for my child. I can wait for as long as my child needs me too. Some days I won't be as patiently waiting as others, but I will wait...because I know that that little person is meant to be here. That I am meant to be their mother. Darwin is meant to be their father...and they are meant to have four awesome siblings...and they are meant to come to us through amazing birth parents. I can wait for that.

It all started with a yellow keychain float...

About two months ago Darwin and the kids went out to play in the hot tub. I don't remember where I was at the time, but I wasn't home. Isaiah had found a yellow key chain float in the garage, and took it out to play with in the hot tub. Darwin asked him what he was playing with and he said, "Well, it's a yellow submarine." Darwin told him that there was a song about a yellow submarine and he was really surprised. He told me about it when I got home, and asked me to look for the song for Isaiah.

I looked first on iTunes, and while there were several renditions on Yellow Submarine, none of the versions were original...and I grew up listening to my mom's many vinyl singles and albums...so I wasn't going to purchase the KidsBop version! None of the iTunes versions had the funny banter and noises that the original Beatles Yellow Submarine had. I knew that there were CD's of their music, so I went to the store to see if I could find any of them in the oldies section...hehe. No luck. My next stop was Amazone.com. I was able to locate an album titled "1" that had Yellow Submarine on it, so I used 1-click shopping and began the wait. It took over a week for the album to get here. When it finally did, we ripped off the wrapping, skipped straight to track 15, and had a listen. Isaiah's face lit up. He couldn't believe that there was a song about a Yellow Submarine!

We listened to the rest of the tracks over the week. In fact, it has been almost the only music we have been listening to in the house for the past few months. Brooklin told me this week that there was a song by the Beatles that she liked, but it wasn't on the CD we have...Here Comes the Sun. She even added it to our shopping list for the week..." a CD with Here Comes the Sun" was written in between cereal and notebook paper. Lucky for us, "The Beatles Rock Band" video game came out a few weeks ago, and with that, all of the Beatles CD's are now available at Wal-Mart! We went out yesterday to look for it, but couldn't find the Abbey Road CD at Wal-Mart and were a little bummed...but we did purchase the "White" album, because it had a whole bunch of other songs the "1" album didn't have on it. Last night, we realized that we didn't have enough milk and bread, so Darwin and I put the kids to bed and let Brooklin stay up while we ran to Fred Meyer. We found an album called "The Beatles Love" and it had "Here Comes the Sun" on it. (On a side note, I also found a CD called "The Best of the Monkees" and bought that too! I really loved putting on my mom's records and dancing in the living room with my brothers when we were younger!)

Anyway, we didn't tell Brooklin we found her song. We just put it into the CD player this morning and watched. It was so cute! Her face started out puzzled...and then it just lit up!! She couldn't stop smiling. So we are in full Beatlemania...we haven't purchased The Beatles RockBand yet (we stopped at PS2...no Wii, no XBOX, no PS3)...but maybe santa will smile on us this year... =)