What A Tripp!

Last Run

This past week, Zephram participated in his last pinewood derby.

He made a good showing with is hot pink car, but only came away with silver…again.
At least he got one of the super cool trophies that his mom made for the event.

Zephram also participated in the library’s annual Battle of the Books. He had to read at least 10 books from a chosen list of 20, then the students competed on randomly selected teams and answer all sorts of random questions from the books. Not only did they have to know which book, but they had to know all of the authors as well. Zeph’s team didn’t win, but they did quite well, and I was rather impressed at how much the kids knew, and how serious they got when answering the questions.

Ada started taking gymnastics last month, and is loving it. I don’t usually take my camera to regular practices, but this time turned out to be an excellent opportunity to document some of what she is doing.


Learning the basics of a cartwheel.

Tyghe gets to go to his very first friend birthday party tomorrow. I’m so used to making gifts for my girls’ friends, that putting something together for a little boy was a bit different. I’m learning what I need to add to my “stash” for such times. I’m quite pleased with what I whipped up this afternoon though.

Tyghe wants one, so I think it was a success.

“Fat”ening Tuesday

Mardi Gras food is totally fattening, but oh so yummy. Along with our traditional King Cake

I also made beignets this year. This was the first time I’d ever made them, so thankfully they turned out beautifully. Yum!

The kids also made some pretty cool masks. Too bad they didn’t have a parade or party to wear them to.

Maybe next year we’ll plan ahead and invite friends over to share our jambalaya.

Vegas, baby!

We took a quick overnight trip to Las Vegas (New Mexico) Friday and Saturday for the Regional Science Fair. Caemlyn didn’t win any awards, but we are very proud of her and all of her hard work.

While Caemlyn spent her time in the gym at NMHU, the rest of us did a bit of sight-seeing. Unfortunately, Las Vegas is old and quite small. We took the brief drive out to Montezuma to see the castle there. You can’t get very close, so the kids didn’t even get out of the car. Justin and I only got out long enough to take a few pictures.

We walked around most of the campus and the historic downtown. The highlight for the kids being the nachos they got at the old drugstore.

We found the patches of astroturf around campus a bit amusing…well, Justin and I did. By this time, the kids didn’t care about much but getting back to the car and out of the cold.

At least the hotel had a decent pool and the kids all got to spend a long time swimming and playing (with many others from LA) on Friday evening.

February happenings

At the end of February, a couple of friends that teach piano held a recital. Since I teach my own kids, they invited us to participate. The kids did quite well. I’ve got video, but this picture of them just before the recital will have to do.

In other musical news…Kezia played the roll of a kid (on the hill) in the school’s 3rd/4th grade production of “Working on the Hill”. It’s a musical written for the local schools all about how this lovely town came to be. Really quite humorous, even though the atomic bomb isn’t.

Caemlyn and Kezia also got to attend a daddy/daughter date for activity days in the middle of the month. They had dinner, dancing, a dessert auction…and these fun pictures.

more crafty goodness…

Looking back at the pictures from February, it appears I must have spent most of my time making stuff. I hosted a baby shower for a friend one morning and made this cute bunting.

We served cinnamon rolls and fruit and had a hot chocolate bar. I even made cute little ducky marshmallows.

For her gift I made the cutest owl taggie and crocheted a darling bonnet.

Before the shower, I decided that my super awesome laundry sign (that I made months ago) had to be hung. I *love* it.

I attended another shower later in the month for one of my former young women. I crocheted a baby sweater and the cutest baby shoes. I also made her a small taggie blanket.

We also participated once again in a fun secret family exchange during the weekend leading up to Valentine’s Day. Caemlyn and I worked together and made them this cute pillow.

The kids all made their own valentines to hand out at school, but I think Ada’s turned out the cutest.
(OK, you’ll have to picture it with a sucker stuck through where her fist is.)

Science Fair – on to Regionals!

Earlier this month was the school’s science Fair. Kezia had a class project on micro organisms in the classroom.

Caemlyn spent months working on her individual project, “Do Peanuts Make Chickens Eggs Bigger?”. She spent a couple of months weighing the chickens eggs every day. They she started feeding them 1 oz. of crushed peanuts each day for 2 weeks, and then upped it to 3 oz. of peanuts a day. The recorded a lot of data and spent a good amount of time on her research and putting all of her information together. The school science fair was just for display, but she also entered her project in the District Science Fair, which was yesterday.

In the Animal Sciences Junior Division, she won 3rd place, earning her a place at the Regional Science Fair. She was shocked when they called her name, so it took a moment for it to register. She also won a LANL award, of $30 in cash. As part of the science fair, she had to spend 3 hours at the middle school for judging – answering questions and explaining her project. So she definitely had to “earn” it.

During the break between Judging, then public viewing and the evening awards ceremony, I took Caemlyn out for ice cream and a photography lesson. I ended up with this great shot of my beautiful daughter.

This one is Caemlyn’s favorite of the photos she took – with her new camera that she got for Christmas.

*maybe I should note that I also made Caemlyn’s sweater.*

And since I don’t want to write a post just for this…
Last month when we had a good amount of snow and ice, Kezia found this interesting piece of ice.

I think it looks like a bird, and made for a very cool picture.

swimming

Caemlyn, Kezia and Justin all swam in a swim meet in Albuquerque at the beginning of the month. Caemlyn posted PRs in 4/5 of her races.

This was only Kezia’s 2nd swim meet, and her first time swimming either of her events.

I didn’t take any pics of Justin, be he did quite well in all of his events as well. I did take this pic though, as it was fun to see all 3 of them standing together down on the deck.

crafty projects

*warning – picture overload*
I was busy crafting a good bit during the last few months of the year.  I participated in a small craft fair and sold a good number of crocheted hats and such.  Then 2 of my former young women had bridal showers and got married.  My standard shower gift for these girls has been an apron with a matching hand towel and hot pad.

towel and hotpad not pictured

My standard wedding gift has been monogrammed roasting sticks and a bag for them (along with $ for s’mores stuff).

This is the most recent one (sticks are inside), but I actually remembered to put a tag on it! I most often forget to tag the items I make.
One of my former young women also had a very premature baby that was in the nicu, so I made her a bag to hold lots of comfort goodies and a hat for her tiny baby.

For Christmas, I made my game sets for the ladies I serve with at church.

I also made these cute mug rugs and homemade marshmallows (super yum!) for the ladies I visit teach.

I also made these hand towel and hot pad sets that I sent to my sisters.

Oh, and I didn’t even leave myself out of the crafty gifts. My family was bugging me about not having my own Christmas stocking, so on Christmas Eve, I whipped up a super awesome one. Here it is (I’m sure you can tell which one) on our mantel.

My girls even got in the crafting and made these cute trees out of old magazines.

Then I found out that my recently married niece didn’t have any hot pads. Not sure how a newlywed ends up without a ton of those, but I decided it was only appropriate to send her some. The glove was sent with one of the local girls heading back to school. The others would have been, but due to bad weather, I wasn’t able to get them to them.

I to think this isn’t even all of what I made! I didn’t realize it was so much until I started editing what pictures I did take (and I often forget to do that before wrapping them up). I’ve got some baby showers coming up, so I’m not close to done.

Christmas Jammies

It has been a tradition for many years now for the Stubblefield cousins to exchange jammies for Christmas.  We’d like to thank our cousins for the wonderful jammies we received this year.  The kids were all well pleased with the jammies they received.

Kudos to Sara for making Zeph’s jammies and pillow, and to Gabby for making Kezia’s pillow. It was nice to see others picking up on my tradition of making the cousin jammies.

Rough December

This December started out pretty rough for me. I’m pretty sure I was either sick or injured for the first 3 weeks. First a cold, then a badly bruised little toe, then strep, then another cold. Ada was pretty sick as well, and between the 2 of us, I spent way too much $ at various doctors, and the pharmacy. Ugh. Thankfully, we were still able to accomplish quite a bit. I will do my best to provide a glimpse into our many activities – with video!
Just a bit further back…
On Ada’s birthday, both of the oldest kids participated in their school talent show. Zephram played the piano and sang a song, and Caemlyn was in a dance with a group of friends. They both did a good job, and I was very proud of them.

[video http://www.megadaisy.org/video/2010/zeph_mockingjay.flv nolink]

[video http://www.megadaisy.org/video/2010/zeph_piano.flv nolink]

[video http://www.megadaisy.org/video/2010/caemlyn_dance.flv nolink]

(Caemlyn is at the back on the far right)

The first weekend in December, Justin had a swim meet in Albuquerque. No pics, but I had to share that he did quite well, getting PRs in all 3 of his events. Yay! While we were down there, I took the kids to Walmart to pick up some stuff for lunch. Outside (at the Game Stop next door) there were several storm troopers collecting Toys for Tots. We got the boys out of the car and went back with the camera. If it weren’t for this, we wouldn’t have had a Christmas card this year.

In early December, the 2 oldest also had their Winter Band Concert. Zephram plays baritone on the beginning band, and Caemlyn continues to play flute in the Advanced band.

[video http://www.megadaisy.org/video/2010/zephram_band.flv nolink]

[video http://www.megadaisy.org/video/2010/caemlyn_band.flv nolink]

I just noticed the tilted trend here, but most of the activities involved the older ones. Sorry munchkins. Anyway, the 6th graders also got to go on a field trip to the local ice rink. Tyghe and I stopped in for a brief visit with cookies and the camera.

We also had a Ward Christmas dinner, in which the kids all got to visit Santa. It’s a sure sign your family is growing up when you no longer have a little one that screams at the sight of the man. Tyghe was thrilled.

All before Christmas arrived!