Happy Spring

I believe the theme for this month's blogging 10-on-10 is 'Spring'.  We just came off our week long Spring Break with the girls, so I thought I'd share some of our fun and adventures.  

We start with a 'Feed it Forward' story.  Brooke attended the Girl Scout Thinking Day, where she put together a bag of food & water that she was to 'feed forward' to someone in need.  We've been carrying that bag around with us for a couple of weeks, waiting for the right person to give it to.  Then, my older daughter, Sydney came home with an extra credit assignment to conduct a random act of kindness.  She decided to put together a few of her own bags of food & water to hand out.  We had to go downtown to take care of some tasks, so it turned out to be the perfect opportunity to find a good home for our bags.  

I guess we assumed homeless people would be on every corner downtown, but when you're out looking for them it's amazing how hard they can be to find!  Then we came across a few people that we thought may be homeless, but we worried we'd offend someone who wasn't!  

So...we carried the bags for quite a while...

We completed our downtown business, were still carrying our bags, so we decided to take a break and visit this yummy Donut Bar that we keep hearing out.  Yum!  We came to the famous donuts to find a huge line down the street.  But, we waited.  We had to taste these donuts.

Yum!  I highly recommend Donut Bar as a fun stop if you're downtown.  A lesson I learned though - you can pre-order the donuts you want and have them ready when you get there - because they sell out!

Brooke was lucky they still had an Oreo filled Birthday cake donut left:

So after our donut break, we set back out to complete our act of kindness.  We finally found a man who we were sure was homeless, who didn't appear too crazy, and the girls set off (with Daddy) to give him some food.  We decided it was his lucky day and he got double the bags, rather than us continuing to search :)

The girls were nervous as they crossed the street.

But they gave the nice man the food.  He thanked them, and wished them Happy Easter.  It made the girls feel very proud to have helped him out.

I even got them to pretend to like each other for a quick pic!

We left downtown feeling accomplished, and headed off for our next exciting Spring Break adventure - jump rope camp!  

The girls wanted to attend this camp during their break, so every day they jumped their hearts out and became amazing jump ropers!  We got to watch a 'show' on their last day, and were so amazed at all they could do. 

In just a couple of weeks, Miss Brooke will be performing during the EBS Idol talent show.  Tickets are on sale now to watch her fabulous jumping skills!

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog to read about our Spring Break adventures!  Please continue along our 10-on-10 circle and take a peek at Suzanne O'Brien's lovely post about coffee!.

10-on-10 for March - The Annual Pinewood Derby

The Girl Scout Pinewood derby race has been a fun tradition for our family for five years now.  The girls have learned a lot about car styling over time, and Jason has learned how to make really fast cars!

I went way back through my blog to find our first derby race!  I realized a few things...wow, first off, I've been doing the blog for quite a long time!  Here is our very first Pinewood Derby race for Sydney, 5 years ago!  The second thing I realized, wow, I used to be SO much better about blogging.  I loved going back through all the old photos just now, I must do a better job at capturing more of our everyday lives this year.

Ok, onto 2015...

I must let you know that Jason started these cars literally the day before the weigh-in, lock your car up due date.  Yikes!  Life is has been ultra crazy.  There has not been a moment to sit, not a moment to make fine-tuned fancy cars.  But, he pulled it off, with minutes to spare the two beauties made it into the weigh-in last Saturday evening.

Sydney's car - #68 - 'Not so Mellow Yellow':

Brooke's car - #18 - 'Night fury':

As a side note, I must thank the lovely Connie (http://clickychickcreates.com/) for letting me borrow her awesome 50mm lens. I was complaining to her how I had sold my lens that worked so well for the derby race and she did not hesitate for one second to bring me her lens to use for the night...thanks Connie!  I had fun testing it out, and it takes great pics :).

Here we have the coveted trophies, what every little Girl Scout longs to win...

I just love this pic of one of our buddies after her car won the first race.  Go Kaleigh!

And my girl with her buds, watching anxiously as the cars are selected to race...

Sydney's was our first family car to race.

It took off fast...

...and won!  You can see Syd rather non-chalant in the background.  She's used to winning...ha...and, she didn't feel too good :(

At last it was time for the awesome dragon:

It too took off fast, and won!

Brooke, though, not at all non-chalant.  She was as happy as could be - fist pump and all:

And big cheesy grins too!

So we continued through the first round of races, the cars continued to do well and win.

We giggled at the celebrations and cheesy faces...

Until...

The semi-finals.  Uh oh.  It's sister vs sister.  We can't continue having them both win 1st place in every race.  Who will win?

It was a tight race, and then ended in a big pile together...

But Sydney's car was the fastest...and the celebrating took a pause:

But thankfully in the end, both girls were in the top finishers, and both got trophies, and that made them both thrilled.  Sydney got to be the champ this year, which seems fitting after working at it for 5 years.  Congrats Syd!!

They were both winners, they both celebrated together when we got home, and are already talking about next year.

We need bigger trophy shelves...

As for Mom, well, she's pretty happy to mark one more thing complete!

If you are joining mia via the 10-on-10 circle, thank you!  You probably arrived thanks to Luciane Steiner.  I hope you'll continue along to our next amazing photographer, Connie.

I'll see you next month!

10 on 10 in January - Puppy playtime!

It is so very true that a new puppy is just like having a newborn baby!  He is sleeping better now, but still wakes up at the crack of dawn.  He's into everything in his sight, and he has ton of energy!  We call it his 'zoomy' time...when it happens, we must go out and play!

We fetch!

We tug and chew!

I throw things as far as I can across the yard to get him to run as much as he can!

It seems like just the other day he was teeny tiny, now he's giant...

This is always a good sign - the tongue, the look of exhaustion...

Finally a tired puppy :)

He's my sweet doodle love bug :)

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog!
Please continue along to all of the other talented ladies by visiting Kathleen Ries!

10-on-10 December - Baking Cookies

Last weekend was supposed to be a soccer-filled weekend.  We were all geared up to spend two days on the field when we heard late Friday evening the rain had forced a complete cancellation.  We were left with the question of what to do with a full free weekend!?  This never happens.  We were excited, but then biggest kid of the family woke up not feeling great.  Ugh!

Mommy has a cookie exchange party to go to Monday, so we decided to get the baking going instead.  Fun!  First things first, get the baby settled with a nice solid chew...

Then it was time for some cookie baking!  Brooke was my super star helper.  She poured in the
sugar...

Helped Daddy eye the measuring of the vanilla to ensure perfect amounts...

Helped with the flour mixture...

And the butter...

Lots of butter in these cookies...

Then after the dough was ready she rolled the balls into the pecans for me...

They were quite lovely balls of pecan dough!

Here's the first batch, ready to bake...

Big buddy still busy...

And the final result after a little maple topping was added....yum!  We're set to do a big swap!

Thanks to these creative ladies for inviting me to join in the 10-on-10 project.  I just realized I have not posted at all since last month's 10-on-10!  I love capturing these everyday moments that I never would have otherwise.  Please follow along with the circle, and visit Kathleen Ries at her blog to check out her fun with outdoor ice skating!  

Thanks for stopping by!