Baby Names

I've only recently become serious about picking out a name for this baby.  I remember with Gavin, I was so excited to choose a name.  I read baby books, talked to other people, listened for names wherever I went.  With Enoch, it was harder to come up with a name.  Kate was easy, her name had been picked out for a decade before she was born (when I was pregnant with Gavin).  This baby - I'm struggling.
I was pretty set on a  few girl's names before we found out we were having a boy.  I really liked Paige or Claire.  I didn't have anything in mind for a boy.  And still don't.  The one name I really like I have taken off the list.  Kirt.  It's too close to Kate. 
So now I'm searching.  Enoch thinks we should name him Coal, yep, after the dog.  Gavin likes Halt, after a character in his favorite book.  Kate thinks we should name him Cheesy.  I asked her if that was a nice name for her brother.  She said, "It doesn't matter.  He's a boy baby."  Okay, I guess she is a bit put out she isn't getting a sister.
I'm taking suggestions.

Seven

Seven?  How did that happen?  Just the other day I was telling Enoch that it was rainy and cold on the day he was born; he has been my sunshine every since.  And it didn't seem like seven years ago!
My sweet Enoch.  What a blessing he has been to our family.  So full of laughter, love and happiness.  Enoch truly understands joy.

 He has become quite a perfectionist lately.  This seems to me to be such a switch in his personality, but maybe not.  He has always liked things a certain way and now he is independent enough to make it happen.  If things aren't working properly or the way he wants it to, he fixes it.  What a great talent to have.  He isn't intimidated by much and really does think that he can do anything.  He sounds quite a bit like his Grandpa Fowler.  Have you seen the BYU Independent Study commercials that say "It's not about who is going to let you, it's who is going to stop you."?  Words to live by according to Enoch and Grandpa Dee.  I'm good with that.
Having your birthday on Sunday isn't the best, but Enoch was a good sport.  He did get sung to in Primary on his birthday, so that was fun.  We rushed to church at 9am, came home, ate lunch, cleaned up and finally had time to open presents before Mom and Dad's Cub Committee Meeting and Gavin's two firesides.  Busy birthday.
Enoch has been so into Legos lately.  I'm a bit frustrated that I spend a ton of money on a huge Lego set and he has it together in a couple of hours, but he loves it.  We tried to get him an extra-big set and a few smaller sets to keep him busy.

Enoch also opened a giant Styrofoam airplane.  He has already put it together and can't wait for the weather to dry out so he can fly it outside.
For dinner, Enoch picked out one of his favorites - meat loaf and mashed potatoes.  Mom threw in some broccoli and jello with whipped cream (guess which one Enoch liked best?)

Since we didn't have time to measure Enoch in the morning, we did it before bed (hopefully that didn't skew the results).  Enoch has grown a little over two inches this past year (I could have guessed that in the way his jeans are fitting!).

Happy Birthday, Enoch.  We love you so much!

Star Wars Adventure Club Birthday Party

Do most of the posts lately seem to be about Enoch.  I thought so, too.  Well, there are a few more coming.
Enoch decided about a year ago that he wanted a Star Wars birthday party.  Since our turn for Adventure Club fell on the Friday before his birthday, we decided to combine the two.
I suggested to Gavin that a really fun present to Enoch from Gavin would be to plan and carry out his Star Wars Adventure Club (is that manipulative?).  I was right, of course.  Gavin did an incredible job of planning the entire party, gathering the supplies, giving me my assignments and making the party happen.  Truthfully, he rather enjoyed being in charge and telling Mom what to do.
My jobs were to find and purchase Star Wars cups, make 11 Jedi robes with belts and find and purchase 11 cheap light sabers.  Done.  I had my assignments finished at least 20 minutes before the party started.
We had 8 adventurers, 1 sister and 2 Jedi Masters attend our training camp (Gavin invited his best friend Cayden to help with the adventure).  They started the party by watching Star Wars while we waited for everyone to arrive.  Once the boys were here, we served cupcakes and milk.  I hate serving cupcakes indoors because of the mess, but that is what Enoch requested - chocolate cupcakes with blue frosting.

After snack, Gavin and Cayden divided the boys into two groups.  One group went downstairs to blow up the Death Star and the second group stayed upstairs and made potato droids.  I wasn't sure how well the droids would go over, but the boys had a great time thinking up ideas and putting their potato droids together.  We covered potatoes in tin foil and had a variety of craft supplies for the kids to use - stickers, pipe cleaners, glitter glue, googly eyes and markers.  Never underestimate the power of glitter glue and googly eyes.

While half of the kids were designing droids, the other half were downstairs with Gavin and Cayden blowing up the Death Star.  The older boys would push the Jedi trainees in their ships (laundry baskets) through the maze of the death star (Brik-a-Bloks) and then the trainees would shoot the target at 'just the right time' and BOOM! Blow up the Death Star (which was cued up on the TV).  The kids really thought this was fun.

The last Jedi training challenge was the obstacle course (you remember, when Luke was carrying Yoda in his backpack running around in the swamp).  Each boy took his turn and had a great time.

Now that the training was over and all the boys passed, they were awarded their light sabers.  So fun!  The boys had been looking forward to this the entire party.  They kept asking, "Do we get light sabers?"  They played Jedi freeze tag in the backyard (luckily it was warm) and then battled with their light sabers.

Some Jedi were chased by Darth Vadar.

Some were chased by a Storm Trooper.  Although the Storm Trooper was beat up quite a bit, too!

Everyone had a great time.  We are so lucky there are so many fun Jedi to play with in our neighborhood!

Thanks Gavin for making this happen.  It was amazing!

Scattered Thoughts on Me

1.  I think I'm going to go live at the farm.  It's either me, Kate or Coal and at this point, I choose me.

2.  Last night I answered the phone and it was an opinion poll.  Usually I try to avoid these, but this was the Gallup Poll.  Wow!  I'm famous - I took the Gallup Poll.

3.  It's snowing right now.  I'm not sure how I feel about it.  I know we need the water, but I've really been enjoying the warm weather.  The kids can play outside.  Coal can play outside.  I like the sun.  Coal has been outside and just came in (I leave the door propped open a bit when she is out).  Greg is teaching her how to wipe her paws when she comes in from playing.  She's not perfect, but better than the kids.

4.  Next week is the week I've been dreading for the last few months.  How awful is that that I'm dreading my kids birthdays.  I can't say I'm in love with my church calling right now.  When it takes away from my kids, I have a hard time with it.  I have Enoch's birthday on the 12, Valentine's on the 14, Cub Scout Blue & Gold on the 16 and Kate's birthday on the 19.  Wish me luck!

Enoch is Student of the Week

Enoch has been waiting all year to be Student of the Week.  It is scheduled close to your birthday, so Enoch had to wait until February.
Kate and Mom were able to visit Enoch and his class today and tell a few things about Enoch.  When we arrived, he was already wearing his birthday crown and king cape. 

We showed the class the poster we made.  It had pictures of Enoch and listed some of his favorite things:
Favorite Food:  salmon and sandwiches
Favorite Treat:  brownies and ice cream
Favorite TV shows:  Wild Kratts, Magic School Bus and America's Funniest Home Videos
Favorite movies:  Star Wars, Spy Kids, Dolphin Tale, Bolt
Favorite Things to do:  camping, playing with friends, swimming
Favorite Places to go:  Grandpa's Cabin, Glenwood Springs, Legoland

We also took Enoch's favorite book to read, but we ran out of time.  He choose to bring Encyclopedia Brown.  He loves those books.  We read a chapter a night and sometimes he even figures out the mystery.
We are so proud of Enoch.  What a great boy!

Mrs. Templeton

Enoch has a wonderful teacher.  Her name is Mrs. Templeton and she is incredible.  Enoch loves her.

 Mrs. Templeton is having a baby in a few weeks.  Enoch is excited that she is having a baby boy like us, but sad she will be gone for awhile.  He kept telling me we needed to do something for her baby (we have been getting ready for our baby and I think that rubbed off on him).
This baby was a surprise for Mrs. Templeton and she had given away all of her baby things, so we decided that she could use some clothes.  I've been making some baby bags for our baby and thought that she might like some too.  I found some cute green frog fabric (I expect she will get a lot of blue things, so we went with green).  I made three baby bags and a blanket.

They turned out very cute, soft and warm. 
We are so excited for Mrs. Templeton and hope everything goes well for her.  Enjoy your new baby, Mrs. Templeton, but we can't wait for you to come back to school!

Enoch's Science Fair Prize

Enoch loves science.  He loves asking questions.  He loves the scientific process.  He loves discovering answers. 
He is so excited to do the Science Fair every year.  This year was no different.  He started out with an experiment with crystals.  That fizzled out after about a week.  He just wasn't getting into it.  We brainstormed some ideas with nothing really sticking.  I eventually looked online for some ideas and came up with one.  Enoch thought it was a good idea too, especially since it involved Coal.
Enoch asked the question, "Do dogs have a favorite color?"  We researched colorblindness in dogs, talked to Coal's vet and did an experiment.  Enoch put five different colors of papers on the floor (red, orange, yellow, green and blue).  He then put a treat on each square.  We let Coal into the room and let her pick one treat.  As soon as she ate one treat we picked her up (or tried to, sometimes she was faster than us and got two treats!).  Enoch recorded which color she choose.  He did this ten times.
Enoch discovered that Coal liked the colors blue and yellow the best.  That made sense to him because he learned that those are the colors that dogs can see the best.  He had so much fun doing the experiment and involving Coal.  The fun part was over, now it was time to put together his board.
The night before Science Fair, I spent the night at a Court of Honor for Gavin and Greg was at Webelos.  We got home about 8pm and it was time for Enoch to go to bed.  Enoch had the general layout of the board done and had laid things out, but nothing was glued on.  Sooo, Mom and Dad got the job of rubber cementing everything on his board.  We were even crazy enough to get out Greg's laser level to make sure everything was lined up.  It did turn out well.

Enoch turned in his project the next morning.  He was so excited and I was so excited it was done!  Phew!
That night, they invited the students and their families to look at all the projects.  Enoch's board was set up right by the doors.  When we walked in I could see a purple ribbon by his project, which is the color of the participation awards.  I wasn't expecting any awards so I wasn't surprised.  As we got closer, I noticed that Enoch's purple award had lots of ruffles and ribbons on it.  I was so happy!  He had won the Grand Prize for the first grade.  Wow.  Enoch really didn't get it and we didn't make a big deal out of it.
We walked around and looked at the rest of the projects.  There were some really good ones - I was impressed.  As we got to the end of the room, Greg leaned over and whispered, "Enoch has the only Grand Prize.  He won it for the entire school!"  What!  Really!

 Greg and I are so proud of him!  He worked hard on his project and really had fun with it.  He still really doesn't get how big of a deal this is, which is fine with me.  He was just happy to do it and had fun with Coal.  Congratulations Enoch, my little scientist!