Building Leaf Presses

Today's Home Depot craft was pretty easy to put together.  We assembled layers of wood and bolts to build a couple of leaf presses. 

The boys each had a little bit of hammering to do to nail the bolt supports to the presses.

Now we need to go find some fallen leaves to collect and press.

Pumpkin Racing

Becky thought of cool thing for the Bear Scouts to do today.  They each decorated a small pumpkin and then went out onto the big sledding hill behind the school and raced them by rolling them down the hill.  It sounds like a sure recipe for pumpkin gut explosions, but none of their pumpkins busted.  The scouts all loved it.  I expect this may become a yearly tradition.

Pumpkin Decorating Frenzy

Tonight we all gathered at the school for an hour of furious pumpkin decorating.  The feedback from previous parties was that they had been too long.  I'm sure no one complained about that tonight.  They was no time to really carve several pumpkins, though becky did do a little of that. She hollowed hers out, then cut out several flourished football shapes.  She stuck cat's-eye marbles into the center of the cutouts to look like numerous eyes looking out from the pumpkin - very cool.

The rest of us painted and decorated our pumpkins with stickers.  This is Aaron's and it is a bit of a mish-mash.  The striking feature is all of the flowers scattered around the edges, but that is snow on top and blood in the bottom center.  Creepy on many levels.

Alex went for a tiger-stripe pattern all the way around. I believe that he did paint the non-black stripes orange.  Don't ask why.  We don't know. :)

I painted a scary vampire on one side of mine, but balanced it out with this cheerful stencil on the other side.  Happy Halloween!

Building Firetrucks Near A Firetruck

Today's Home Depot Kids' Workshop was held outdoors as they had a fun fair set up in the parking lot to make people aware of fire safety.  The boys got to build firetrucks, right next to...

...large Toledo City firetrucks.  They had a trailer set up to simulate a 2 story home and taught the kids how to get out of a burning house, complete with fake smoke.

Grammy had come into town for Grandparent's Day at school yesterday with the boys at school.  She took the picture up top of the four of us crafting at Home Depot, and paused for a snuggle photo here.

Baby Hat

Becky crocheted this cute baby hat for a friend who is having her first daughter. Very cute.

Making Goals

Today's Home Depot Kids' Club project was making football goals, just in time for football season.

They came with a template for making paper footballs that could be flicked through the goals.

Ready....Set.....HIKE!

Paper Scout Planes

Becky got the Scouts to make paper airplanes from a pattern book that she found.  They decorated them in the art room and then...

...went outside to the jungle gym to launch them.  They had a blast and it was a great kickoff to the new Bear den.

Pink Ribbon Pins for Komen

Becky and her mom have been crocheting these pink ribbon pins for several weeks now.  They're selling them for $10 and all of the money is going to Komen for the Cure.  If you haven't gotten yours yet, please contact us and we'll get one to you.

Kids Club Family Carnival

The Kids' Club at our gym sponsored a Family Carnival in the gym after swim lessons today.  They had games, crafts, activities, and food set up as a fun thank you to the kids and families that use their facility. Aaron tried his hand at a ring toss game - ring the pop bottle, win the bottle.

Alex clowned around a little...

..and found a spider on his arm.

Aaron made a wacky mask at the craft table.  We all ate hotdogs and popcorn.  The other half of the gym was open, so we played basketball for few minutes before heading home.  We'll look forward to this next year.

Montana Vacation - Day 5 - Nature Hike and Craft Day

After breakfast we climbed back up that hill behind the cabin that ran near the ski lift to see if we could see the moose family again, but they were nowhere to be found - probably hiding.  We found a plastic tub that had been discarded and used it to gather other trash off the mountain - the kids really got excited about helping the environment in this way.

Nana pulled out some more crafts for the kids.  We used paint and stamps to decorate shirts and visors.  Becky also brought some pet rocks for them to paint and decorate.  It was neat because each creation was different and reflected their personal style.

After lunch we broke out the Wii again and let the kids play each other in Mario Kart - a racing game with the Mario characters.  You steer by holding the Wiimote horizontally and turning it like a steering wheel.  We had rented the game, but a purchased version comes with a steering wheel-shaped controller that accepts the Wiimote plugged horizontally into the center. 

This evening we tried the hot tub again for the kids at a lower temperature and it was more enjoyable.  Nana even decided to soak awhile with them.  While no one in the tub had longer toes than Nana, they could all bend their great toes backward toward their ankles, proving that they were all true Evans grandkids :)

After they dried off and warmed up, we used the fireplace again to make s'mores.  Aaron got this glazed look in his eyes that was a combo of a full day, a relaxing hot tub soak and a sugar coma.


Marli asked Becky to teach her some basic crochet techniques and she spent the evening before bedtime curled up in a blanket by the fireplace practicing her new skills.

Paper Sack Serape

During Alex's Spanish immersion class this week, he learned about different Spanish-speaking cultures, food, crafts, and sports from all over the world.  One of his crafts was to make this serape from a paper grocery bag.  He was pretty proud of it, so we decided to immortalize it here.

Building Catamarans

This month's Home Depot Kids' Workshop project was fun and unique. They got to build matching catamarans with a canvas sail. I doubt they'll see water as they are partially glued together.

Recycled T-Rex Puppet

Alex had to make a puppet for class out of found or recycled materials.  The body of this T-Rex is a paper towel tube. The fingernails are, you guessed it, pistachio shells.

Home Depot Day - Fake Flower Pot

Today was one of the odder crafts.  Here, Aaron is hammering away at a flower pot.  You'd think that perhaps you might fill it with dirt and plant some flowers. You'd be close, but you'd be wrong.



Instead, they made 3 flowers from dowels, tinkertoy-like spools, and wooden petals.



Because of all the details, it was a lot of work compared to other projects.  Maybe they can keep pencils in there also.

Building Bat Houses

Becky and the Cub Scouts of Pack 90 built bat house kits as an Earth Day service project.  They are going to be put up all over campus to encourage bats to move in, which will eat mosquitos which will require less pesticide to control - in theory.  They even presented their work in front of the rest of the school during the weekly town meeting.  Alex used this as part of the requirement for his Wildlife Conservation Award.

What Pretty Eggs

It is officially Spring , but you can't tell by looking outside. However, because of the weird calendar juggling that picks Easter each year, the Easter Bunny is going to need to bring a thick layer of fur, and possibly a coat on top of that. We all prepared with our traditional colored hard-boiled eggs.
We tried traditional dyes, as well as stickers, shrink-wrap plastic sleeves, and clear crayons that kept the dye off of the eggs, allowing us to make neat reverse patterns on the eggs. We even tried a few two-tone eggs.
All in all, a pretty plate of eggs. Now if we can just get the boys (esp. Aaron) to try one. Alex will usually eat the whites with a little salt and pepper.

Pinewood Derby 2008

Alex was chosen as one of 2 Wolf Scouts from his den to participate in the Swan Creek District Pinewood Derby. It was held in the shell of the old Southwyck Mall in South Toledo. They were actually great - donating the space and setting up judges' tables and chairs for the audience. First, Alex had to get in line to have his car inspected. Each car had to conform to certain size requirements, both in physical dimensions and in weight. The also were prohibited from certain modifications (like liquid lubricants).
The Scouts then took turn racing each other three at a time on mutliple tracks. Becky showed up in her uniform to support her Pack, but was quickly spotted and recruited to be a race judge for one of the tracks. Alex was thrilled by the round-robin style of the derby. Since this was our first one, he was concerned that it would be done in a single or double elimination tournament style. As it was, he did not have one of the fastest cars, but still got to race it multiple times.
He actually came in third in all of the races except his final one, in which he got very excited to come in second. While this put him near the bottom of the standings, he took it in stride. Coming from a small pack, we also enjoyed seeing all of the Scouts and leaders in uniform participating in the same event. Becky got him and all of the Cub Scouts in his pack a participation ribbon. He was a good sport and conducted himself very well throughout the day. I took the boys home (Aaron had had enough by that point) and Becky stayed to help judge the Bear Scouts' heats.
Alex has already started mentally designing next year's car. It was important to him this year that he designed a car that looked cool, but next year he wants to design it for speed.

Derby Racing at Town Meeting

Alex and the rest of Pack 90 got a chance to show off their Pinewood Derby cars in front of the entire Lower School during the weekly town meeting today. Maumee Valley had an old track that had been in storage, but Becky tracked it down and the maintenance crew set it up for them in the Resource Center in the middle of the Lower School. Not only did they get to show the other kids their cars and how they race them, they held the Pack Derby heats live at town meeting. Only 2 kids from each Den can represent their Den at the District Wide Pinewood Derby, so they raced their cars and got the 2 fastest. Alex was one of the Scouts who will get to race his car at District. All of the kids will get to participate though because of our small numbers, the slower cars can enter the design competition at District.

Building Race Cars

Fresh on the heels of building a Pinewood Derby car, we all went to Home Depot's Kids' Workshop to build Nascar style Home Depot race cars.
Becky and I like these because they come prestained Home Depot orange, they are relatively simple to build (nail the top to the botom, attach the wheels, apply cool racing stickers), and the kids get a toy to play with when they're done.
Zoom, Zoom, Zoom!