Guss Turns 9

Guss turned 9 on March 30.  He was very excited for his birthday and he had big plans for it.  Dad was out of town on a submarine but I think the rest of us made it a good day for him.  He asked for white cake with raspberry filling and chocolate frosting.  Star Wars is his big obsession right now and so when I found some Star Wars cupcake wrappers and toppers at Williams and Sonoma I knew that was his cake for this year.  We had orange rolls for breakfast, which is one of his favorites and then I took cupcakes in for his class.  Lucas and Chloe were ready to stay for the rest of the day and they were not happy when I made them leave.  Right after school we did cake and presents with our family.  Then after a little play time we went to McDonalds for dinner.  Lastly, we went to cub scouts and took the last of our cupcakes to share with our friends there.  I think he had a good day and really enjoyed all of his loot.

There they are.  All 48 Star Wars cupcakes. 

The battle between good and evil goes sweet.

Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Bobba Fett, Darth Vader

and a Storm Trooper get ready to battle it out on this side of the cupcake stand.

Yoda prepares to use the force on the Dark Side up front.

Happy Birthday!!!

It takes a lot of power to blow out 9 candles, especially when they are trick candles.

This is a lot of loot.

Legos, alright!!!

Darth Vader and Yoda action figures.

General Grievious and R2-D2.

Star Wars lunch box to hold all the action figures.

It says, "A Wookie ate my homework."  I couldn't pass it up.

Lastly, we have Obi Wan.

We are so glad to have Guss in our family.  He is our bookworm.  He loves to learn and share what he knows with others.  Guss can often be found building with Legos or setting up battle scenes with his Star Wars action figures.  He is a great big brother and is a great help with Owen, Chloe and Lucas. 

Guss we love you!!!

Odyssey of the Mind

Guss competed in his second Odyssey of the Mind competition on March 26.  Ben was supposed to be out of town working but he came home the night before for my birthday and so he was able to see Guss compete.  The team had worked hard for about five months preparing their skit and designing and building a Rube Goldberg machine.  They had a lot of fun, a lot more playing than actual work most days, and they learned a lot about working with a team.  They placed 5th out of 13 in their category overall, which was very good considering they never nailed down all the details of their skit and they were the youngest team in their category.  It was really good for Guss to have to work hard and stick out the entire project.  There was a lot of weeks were he didn't want to keep working but he did and I am proud that he finished.

Setting up with Gavyn and Ariana

The Performance

The Performance Close-up

Clean-up

Maine Maple Days

The last weekend of March is Maine Maple Days.  It is always a good time to go and eat plates of yummy pancakes covered with all the fresh, warm maple syrup you can eat.  We always go to Triple C Farm in Lyman.  They have a good breakfast, a sugar shack were they boil down the sap and a barn where you can see farm animals.  This year it happened to fall on the same weekend as Guss's Odyssey of the Mind Competition and so he had to miss it this year but we did get him a sucker.  We didn't get a picture of him though, sorry Guss.   

Google Eyes

Usually people wake up with bed head.  Lucas wakes up with google eyes.

Just kidding!!!

Pi Day

National Pie Day was back in January.  We had friends over to celebrate and had an impressive table full of pies to feast on.  I took pictures but unfortunately they were on the memory card that I had to reformate because it became unreadable.  When I had told Ben about National Pie Day he said, "No, it is March 14."  It took me a minute to get the joke that it was pie day because the date was 3.14.  When March 14 came around I decided to celebrate that day with pies again.  This time I used store bought frozen pies but it was fun anyway and hopefully the boys learned a little bit. 

Guss finished before the camera was brought out.

Flat Stanley Comes to Visit

Flat Stanley came to visit us from Toby's class.  We decided to take him to some of our favorite local places.

We took him to the Weathervane for some fresh seafood.

Stanley with Larry the Lobster.

We offered him some fried shrimp and scallops but he didn't want to try them.

A cold, windy visit to Wells Beach.

Lenny, the life-sized, 100% chocolate moose at Len Libby's candy store.

Stanley in front of Eartha, the world's largest globe, at the Delorme Map company.

Oh no, Owen is going to get squished by the Bean Boot!

The 90th anniversary Bean Boot at the flagship store in Freeport, Maine.

Feb. Break 2011

We took advantage of Ben working in Groton for 6 weeks and joined him for the week of February Break.  On our first morning there Chloe threw up in Friendly's Restuarant and I spent the rest of the morning at a laundry mat.  The rest of the week we spent entertaining ourselves at local sites and swimming in the pool.  We had a really good time and I am glad we could spend some extra time with Dad.

Mystic Aquarium

Guss is "swimming" in the background.

The kids took all the pictures of the fish. 

Mystic Seaport

Guss drilling a hole by hand.

Lucas was very interested by the work going on downstairs.

Owen takes his turn at drilling.

This is the last whaling boat in the world, the Charles W. Mason.  It is being restored in the Mystic Seaport and is supposed to be done in 2013.  They are planning on taking it on a seaport tour in 2014.

On the Market

We have decided to put our house on the market.  We have been trying to move west for a few years but nothing has come of it and so we have decided to see if we can move to a bigger house and into a better school district.  We have put a lot of work into the house for the last 7 years and the last project I had last to do was to replace the carpet on the stairs and paint the tops of the stairs.  While Ben was in Groton, after the kids were asleep, I would stay up and work on the last little things that needed to be done to get things ready for the house to be shown.  I have always wanted to do the stair project and I am glad that I finally did.

The house has been on the market for almost 4 weeks and we haven't had anyone look at it, but hopefully soon.

Valentine's Day

Ben was working in Groton, CT on Valentine's Day.  Usually we go out the night before to celebrate the anniversary of our first date and then stay home on the 14th and have a nice dinner with the kids.  He was able to come home for the weekend and we were able to go out on 12th, before chaperoning our last stake dance.  (I was released from the YW the next day and called to be the second counselor in the Relief Society.)  On the 14th Ben surprised me with some flowers that were delivered in the morning.  I was really very pleasently surprised to get them.  I took pictures when they were fresh but the memory card in the camera had to be reformated and so I lost all of my pictures from January and most of February and so I took a picture after they were all dried.

They dried pretty nicely.