I really love corn!

 So my title has nothing what so ever to do with my post, but as I am sitting here trying to come up with a name for my post (which I can't think of one), I am also eating my dinner which includes corn, and it is just really yummy, at least to me. So it is completely irrelevant, except for the fact that it is my post and if I want to tell everyone I love corn, then I can. Plus this is also my journal, and later my kids and grandkids can laugh at me for putting dumb things in like this.

I didn't end up posting last week, so now I have a couple of weeks to catch up on. Partly I didn't post, because some of the pictures I am posting today were on someone elses camera. So I decided to wait to get them and didn't get them until a few days ago. My life pretty much can be summed up in a few different areas. I spend my time doing the mom thing (whatever that might be for the week), cub scouts, and helping over at my sisters. If we are lucky we get to add a few other activities in there as well. Last week was pretty much consumed with scouts. It was Pinewood Derby week as well as Pack night, which we had a huge awards night, plus weigh in of everyone car. I had the decorations and the awards, plus I ended up having to finish the two arrow of light awards that week. I got them done the morning of. Cutting it close I know, but when the stuff isn't gotten to me until Monday, it's a little hard to get them done any sooner. I think they turned out great though and the boys loved them. After Wed. night we just worked towards making sure everything went well for the race on Sat. There of course was YW. Cello practice, homework, making meals, helping Mindy, a little family time squeezed in nightly and I think Todd an I even squeezed in a short date that didn't include grocery shopping. That's pretty amazing.

Awards night was great. We handed out 189 awards that were earned by our cub scouts over the summer. We were so proud of all of them. Especially our 2 Webelos scouts. One was Ki, between the 2 of them they eared 79 of the awards. They both earned their "Arrow of Light" and their All 20 super achiever awards, along with belt-loops and other things you can earn while a cub scout. That takes a lot of work, especially in a LDS unit. The boys only have one year to accomplish everything instead of the 2 years.

 This is our new "Arrow of Light" plaque that the boys will receive. We have a guy in our ward that his company does the wood working. He can do different raised and recessed thing as long as we work with the MDF type woods. So Todd and I went researching Arrow of Lights and found different things we liked and tried to put them together into one plaque. The arrow was fun to make. It was my first attempt to make more of an authentic type arrow. I Fletched the feather and used artificial sinew to put the arrow head and feathers on. The colors represent the boys cub scout career. Each color is for something different they earned while working towards their Arrow of Light. Then the words on top of the plaque are the 7 values they learn and work on while earning the Arrow of Light. The painting took awhile this time, but I will have a template I can lay on it next time, so I can spray paint the blue instead of hand painting. That will be nice!

 My little man, with his plaque!

 For Ki's ceremony, Todd went up and painted the Arrow of Light symbol on his forehead while the cubmaster told of it's meaning. Ki was able to have cousins, aunt, uncles and grandparents come to support him. What a fun event.

Though it was Ki's big night, we can't forget about my other little man. He worked hard and earned himself 29 awards. Way to go Kelten! We also stumbled upon some info. for Ki that made him way excited. We found out that if you have earned your Arrow of Light you can go into the scouting program. So Ki will start the scouting program in a week. This news was exciting to him, since he has earned just about everything that you can earn as a cubscout and still has 3 months left until he turns 11. His new goal is to have his scoutbadge, tenderfoot, and the second and first class ranks earned before he is 11.He will probably do it. He loves scouts!!!

 Wednesday was also the weigh in day for all the cars that would be racing on Sat. We had 37 entries. I think I got a picture of all of them. We had some fun cars this year.

Here are some shots from the big day. The boys had a blast. We are still working all the kinks out, but it does get better each year. For the fact that we had some major technical difficulties I think the boys did amazing and didn't get to crazy during the down time. We will keep working through the problems that we face from year to year.

So that was last week. This week was a little bit slower, but still busy and is over before we have time to breath. Tile is the project going on over at my sisters house right now, so I didn't do anything over there during the days, I just went over with Todd on the days that he got home early enough to work an hour or two. Tj and I did some shopping this week, we went to the library, Tay got to participate in YW/YM combined activity with the other 2 Mona wards, that was a "Survival of the Fittest" night. We are still short Wolf leaders so Todd and I still are going up on Wed. to help out. We did relays and Ultimate Frisbee and it was a complete success. Wed. Night I ended up getting a nail in our back tire on the Van. We are so not having tire luck with the van. Todd didn't have time to change it out until Friday night, so Monday I will get to take it in and see if they can just fix it. I really don't want to replace it. We also had another Movie night outside on Friday. We invited several of our friends with kids and each of our kids also invited another one of their friends. We got the fire up and going, roasted marshmallows and starburst, then watch Night at the Museum. It was a fun night. The kids were entertained and we got to hang with some amazing friends of ours. Adult conversation is always nice. Sat. we went to Burraston Ponds.to help with Monas Family service day. I believe they try to do it yearly to help keep our ponds area clean. Ours kids had a good experience again, helping and serving, and we got to share another lesson with them. Though all 3 wards of Mona were involved, our family and another dad and 2 boys, were the only ones that appeared to have come. I am hoping other showed up after we left. My kids didn't understand why other weren't able to help. I don't know all circumstances, and I know there are always other things that are precedent over things like this, but I hope that we can teach our kids that serving is so very important and that it will bring us happiness by helping, and for this particular service project, it also helps keep our city clean. After the service project, I dropped Todd and Ki over at Mindy's to work on tile and I went home dropped the kids off and got ready to go take some friends family pictures. I can't wait until I get better, I really love doing it, but I just don't want to take the time away from my family to teach myself all the other skill to be truly good at it. The home we took it at was cutting down trees, so I happened to ask them if we could get some of their stumps. They told us yes, so now we have some great stumps to make seating for around our firepit, we are excited. Afterward we got the stumps at lunch time, I went back with Todd to work on tile and switched Ki out for Kelten. Todd taught Kelten how to cut straight pieces of tile and Kelten did a great job and cut over 15 pieces for Todd. He was in heaven and felt very big. We didn't get home until Ten. Taylar was an amazing help. She made dinner, babysat and ironed all the church clothes for today. How did I get so lucky to have such an amazing daughter.

 Movie night! I just don't understand the love of Marshmallows and starburst over the fire, but I'm glad my family likes them. It always makes for a fun activity. We brought out the mattress for the kids to lay on, that was a hit. It was a perfect night for it as well. Not much wind, not to cold, and crystal clear with the stars overhead.

 Service, the kids had a blast, and I got some cute pictures!

 My beautiful daughter!

 Just some cool pictures!

 The kids found a skeleton of some mole or something. They were so fascinated by it. Todd had fun too, explaining everything to them. the decomposing process, about the bones, how they could figure out what it was. My kids eat this kind of stuff up.

 TJ and her Hotdog, :) Todd got to show the kids how to make cattail bombs. They had seeds all over them!

 I love shots like this!

 I got a picture of Tay taking a picture.

 Tay is so not camera shy, she loves to be in pictures!

 Here are our Stumps!

 So when we were loading up the stumps, there were these freaky looking waso things on one of them. 4 to be exact. Andy sqwished them, but Todd and I came home to try and figure out what they were. These are pictures of them. They are named

Megarhyssa atrata - Giant Ichneumon.

Their sole purpose of life is to lay eggs in wood boring larva. Then the babies eat the larva. That long stinger looking thing is what they use to lay the eggs. They don't evven eat as adults. Completely harmless, but freaky looking all the same.  Even though I now know they are harmless, I stll think I would have to kill them if I saw them again. cause they are just to freaky to have to look at. They are like 4 inches long, not right. Harmless creatures should look harmless.

 Our new neighbors house was brought in yesterday. It is put together, but still has all the side siding and inside to finish up.

See this is one of those creatures that looks harmless and even cute, but I can't let this poor creature live either, because it causes havoc in my home. This little guy somehow got in the bathtub and couldn't get out. I don't have a problem killing these guys with a mouse trap, maybe cause I don't see it happen. But to actually clean it when it is staring at you all trapped and cute, we could do it. Tay caught it in a cup and we let it go out at the end of Burrastons. It won't be long before another creature eats him, but at least I didn't have to physically kill it.

Another week wrapped up. Today in Church we were studying Romans and one of the things that stuck out to me in a scripture we read was that Christ needs us to become Living Sacrifices. Sacrificing ourselves to him, or at least our time and energies in his service. So this is something that I want to work on. I know it can only bring me happiness and If I could truly figure out how to consecrate myself and my energies for the good, I don't think I would have time to be idle, selfish, prideful, or any of those other things I don't like about myself. I will keep trying. That is all I can do! That is my thought for the week!