Ben's 1st Pine Wood Derby

OK so, I'm the Mom and I don't understand what the big deal is with scouts and especially the Pine Wood Derby. The boys never really get to "make" it and then they get upset if and when they loose. Well, this being Ben's first I thought it'd be a little better than this:

He got his kit a month before the derby and Joel kept saying he would help him and never did and never did. I had 3 other men volunteer to help Ben with his car and that made me feel stupid. So right before we left to Lehi Joel took it to work and cut it out for him and packed it for Lehi to finish it and nothing happened. We got back Monday and race was on Tuesday. So Joel took it to work, I thought to put the wheels on and get it ready for Ben to paint and put decals on but when he came home it was painted bright red (Ben wanted it blue) and still had no wheels. It had 3 layers of paint on it that never dried! It sat under a fan for 18 hours and never dried! I was panicking 3 hours before race time to get it dry enough to put decals on it. So I got the incredible idea to put clear fingernail polish over the entire thing in hopes that it would at least dry the top coat enough to pick it up and race it. Well lucky me, that's just what happened. If you pushed hard you could leave a fingerprint in the paint. It was weird. Like a blister. The top was hard and dry but it was liquid underneath. I stuck the decals on and then Joel came home 10 minutes before "check in" time and hammered wheels on it. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen. Joel took him over to get it signed in and when I got there I asked him if Ben had given it a test run and Joel said he didn't want him too because it was only riding on 3 wheels and he hoped the other one didn't fall off but he didn't want to tell Ben that. Well I was mad and embarrassed. Right then and there I said a little prayer asking God not to punish Ben for the stupidity of his parents and to let him at least keep his wheels on. Well, thankfully God is loving and understanding and Ben was able to even win a couple races. He won an award for the "most striking" car since it had lighting decals on it and since every kid get some kind of award. He was so excited. I wanted to cry. He was happy and that was all that mattered. I hate scouts. I probably always will but I was glad that Ben was happy and not totally embarrassed by his parents.

Baptism and Easter Egg Hunt

Easter weekend was full of family fun. We had Friday and Monday off of school so we went up to Lehi. Joel's counselors said they'd cover for him so he even got to come. Tyler and Laynee were baptized on Saturday and we had a huge BBQ and Easter Egg Hunt for the kids.

This is the little kids lining up for the hunt.


Here is the Joe Shelton Family minus Brad and Ashley.

Here is Aunt Polly and Zack Lucero, Sheltons and Pecks all together. About 63 in this picture. We were missing a few. Granny would be proud of us. She always loved it when we all got together.


The next day I made this amazing cake. Thank you very much! It's darling I know.

Then we made recycled bracelets with the pop tops from pop cans. It was super easy and since we all drink way to much soda at grandpa's we had over 100 tops to make everyone a bracelet.

And last but not least, here is a picture of David and Jenna who had both just pulled out a tooth. Evan wasn't happy because he still hasn't lost any.

It was a wonderful weekend full of memories that will last forever. I love my family!

Coloring Eggs

Well, I forgot to take actual pictures of us coloring eggs. But as we started to play our annual "King of the Cracked Eggs" - I just made that title up but I like it and I am going to use it - I remembered my camera so this is what you get. After we color Easter eggs everyone gets their favorite egg and you go against someone and hit one end of your egg against their egg. Whoever cracks looses. Then you turn your eggs over and hit the other ends and keep going.


Blaine and Brescia came over to color eggs with us.

Blaine I've mentioned before but feel I need to elaborate on. He is the son of Camille Salisbury who was Ben's Kindergarten teacher. He was also Shayne's swim coach when she was a freshman. Let's be completely honest for 1 second. I know neither of them will like that I published this but it's TRUE! They totally liked each other for about a month before he left on his mission to Australia but she was 15. Flirting like crazy went on. But nothing happened. So she wrote to him on his mission and he came home on January 18th. I'll stop there.

OK now onto Brescia - Brescia is a lifeguard at the Washington Community Center with Shayne. She is from a tiny little town near Heber Utah and is going to Dixie College. We have taken her in and made her our new daughter. She is 20 and has lived, what I think is a sheltered life. She had never eaten a burrito until last month and has never been to DISNEYLAND! So we are taking care of that. We are sending her and Shayne to Brad and Ashley's for Shayne's graduation so they can spend a few days in the Happiest Place on Earth. She is darling and I am trying not to taint her like I have my other kids. Her name is from a town in Italy because that's where her dad went on his mission. Same as Joel. Funny huh? Well Blaine and Brescia are now a permanent part of this family and everything we do. They helped us out with the Dogtown Half Marathon and were part of the water fight problem.

Shayne had to work so didn't get to color eggs but was home in time to crack some.

I think Brescia won over all. She had the world ugliest egg that had about 7 coats of coloring on it which is what made the shell so hard.

Peck Baseball!

Twice a year the Peck boys all come down to Southern Utah to play in a couple baseball tournaments. We love to go watch them. Here is Colton. He is a head and a half taller than all of his teammates.




Here is Jaxson, first pitching, catching and hitting.




And don't forget the cutest little sisters/cousins you'll ever see.

This is what I love to see - Jared out coaching. What a great dad.

And Addy. Cute, cute Addy. My girls were singing Camp songs and she thought it was so funny but kept telling them to sing another one.

Chase and Austin played too but I wasn't able to go see them. Shayne took the kids out to Austins Friday morning to watch, but I had to work. We'll get pictures of them next time. They all did such a great job. They're a bunch of talented sluggers. They got done around 7 and the weather that started out gorgeous and ended up cold and threatening to rain. But it waited until 9:30 when we were sitting at Jaden's high school game against Payson. The wind had stopped and the rain came straight down for a solid hour. Joel had about all he could take so we left at the bottom of the 5th. Jaden did a great job and we are excited to see how the rest of his season goes. The games will be much better in the sun.

Soccer, Hiking and Ben's Baptism!

Saturday March 10th we had a busy day. It went like this:
9am - Ben's soccer game

11am - Then we took everyone up to see the Petroglyphs. It was a lot of fun. Those who wanted to hike up did and the rest of us watched.







Grandma tried to get a tan. Apparently only on her face and the palms of her hands because everything else was covered.




My all time favorite picture!



Then we all piled back in the back of Kyle's truck to go back.

Here is Paula with her new BFF Olive.

1pm - David's soccer game

2pm - Sophie's soccer game. She was goalie for the 2nd half and didn't let a single ball get passed her


4:30 Josh and George left to go get their soccer team pictures taken and we left to go to the church. Their game was supposed to start at 5 but they had to miss it and their team had to forfeit because they didn't have enough players.
5pm - Baptism.
As luck would have it both Ben and Kali were being baptized the same day. Since Joel is the bishop of our ward and our chapel is the stake center, it was really easy to get permission for them to be baptized together. The only problem with the baptism was that my camera battery DIED! After all that and it dies before I could take the most important picture, one of the family together after the baptism. Oh well. At least I got these.


Eric gave a talk on Baptism. Shayne gave one on the Holy Ghost. Sophie lead the music and the Grandma's said the opening and closing prayers. Eric's talk was from the heart and about his recent baptism. It was wonderful. After everything was done my Dad took us all to Golden Coral. I think that was Ben's favorite part of the whole day.