FOOD, Missing Eyebrows, Dads and Donuts, Band Festival, Smoker, Maturation

My family eats so much food!!  Just an example of what I am talking about happened the other day.  We had burrito bowls for dinner.  Matthew LOVES burrito bowls.  He piled the food on his plate.  There is shredded chicken, beans, lettuce, salsa, guacamole, sour cream, Spanish rice, and cheese on his plate as you can see:

 From the side view you can see it is about 3-4 inches tall.  Matthew cleaned the entire plate along with two tortillas.  Seriously we go through so much food!!  One nice thing is that most of us like a lot of the same things so I don't have to keep making separate meals for everyone which makes things a bit easier.

So a quick question....Can you tell me what is missing from this picture of Matthew?

His eyebrows are what is missing!!  Matthew has been having a bit too much fun with his electric razor again.  DOH!!  He used it right before bed and then woke up early and left for school.  It wasn't until he got home from school that afternoon that he told me he shaved off his eyebrows.  Yup, both of them are gone and look like this:

 What am I going to do with this kid?!  Last time he shaved his head hair off we had a long discussion about what is ok to shave and what isn't.  Obviously that conversation didn't sink in as well as I had hoped.  We had another conversation about what is appropriate to shave.  Hopefully, he won't surprise me with anymore bald areas besides his mustache and beard area...Good thing we love him no eyebrows and all **SIGH**.  It didn't help that he broke his glasses a few days before so there was no hiding the missing eyebrows behind his glasses, either.  I don't know what to do with this kid.

Aaron and I were at the grocery store and they had their Valentine candy on super clearance.  We bought two big boxes of chocolates and let the kids try them.  They thought it was fun to bite into the chocolate to see what flavor it was.

 Last Friday was Dads and Donuts.  It's where the kids bring a book to read with their Dads while they eat donuts before school.  Here's the kids enjoying their dad:

 A fun way to start a Friday:

 Reading Harry Potter:

Daniel loves basketball.  He played a game this last Saturday and got fouled.  He got a chance to make double free throw shots.  Here's the second one:

 Saturday was such a beautiful day.  That afternoon we went to the park as a family.  The kids played on the playground for a bit.  Josh supervised and helped bring the zip line to the kids since he was the only one tall enough to reach it.  He officially has hit 6'2" and is still growing.  I still can't believe he is only 13...

 Daniel and Aaron practice throwing the Lacrosse ball while Noah drove the Wiggle Car around the walkway:

 Josh, Matthew and I played Frisbee in the opposite field.  It was a bit difficult to play because it was pretty windy.  Luckily, it was still warm, though.  After playing a while we came home and had a family movie and pizza night.  Again my family eats a ton of food.  We ordered 4 Little Caesar's pizza and there were no left overs.  I only had two pieces and everyone else in my family plowed through the rest--Josh and Matthew being the biggest eaters.  I still can't believe it took 4 pizzas to fill them up!!

Poor Sarah has taken after me.  Whenever I cry my face gets so red and splotchy and stays like that for a long time afterward.  Sarah got upset yesterday and her face does the exact same thing as you can kind of see in the picture.  Her face was more red than the picture showed, though.

It got passed down to me by my own mom.  It's funny how you can see different things in your kids and know exactly who and where they came from.  Another funny thing is I sneeze whenever I go from dark to brightly lit areas.  For example walking out from a dark movie theater to the sunshine I will definitely sneeze.  Everyone one of my kids sneeze, too.  Every time it happens Aaron just looks at me and says, "No maternity test needed here.  They're definitely your kids!!"

Monday for Family Home Evening Noah was in charge of the refreshment after the lesson.  His choice was to get an ice cream cone from Macey's grocery store.  No one disagreed so that's where we went.  They just got baby cones instead of the ginormous Kong Kones, though.

 As you can see Daniel is in his swimming suit.  He started a Swimming, Medicine, Lifesaving, Public Health merit badge class that night.  Hopefully by the end of the month he will have completed and received all 4 merit badges.  It is crazy to think he is in Boy Scouts although he is just in the 11 year old scouts.

Noah is a sweet boy.  The other night I was checking on him and he had stolen one of my throw pillows from the family room and used it to tuck in his stuffed minion.  I am sad he is getting so big so I have to enjoy the cute little things he does because he will stop before I know it!

 Josh had a band festival Thursday of this week.  6 local schools intermediate bands got together and played in front of a music judge.  Since this was every bands first time performing in front of a music judge they weren't ranked, but were able to get honest feedback from the judge for next time.  Josh's school was the last one to play and they sounded pretty good.  Here's Josh getting everything set up.  He's the super tall one in the picture:

 We were glad G&G T were able to come and listen.  Noah and Daniel were able to get their lubs in.

 Aaron stayed back at the house to wait for Sarah to get home from dance and to wait for Matthew to get home from his afterschool program then they were going to come over for the concert.  Unfortunately, Matthew's after school program staff got pulled over by the police which made him really late in getting Matthew home.  That meant that Sarah, Matthew and Aaron missed the concert because of that.  Oh well what can you do?!

Josh's band has really improved from the beginning of the year, though:

 Since Aaron was stuck at home waiting for Matthew to get home he sat down on the couch.  Sophie had been following Aaron around waiting for him to sit down.  As soon as he sat down Sophie the snuggler jumped up, curled up in his lap and gave him lubs:

Noah got to do his first research report.  He got to pick an animal to do research on and he chose a monkey.  It was an oral report he had to give in front of the whole class.  He gave different facts and clues about his animal while the class tried to guess which animal it was.  At the end he showed a picture that he drew of his monkey:

 He got full credit and was pretty excited about it.  Wahoo Noah!

Aaron has been waiting patiently for a chance to get a smoker.  Every time we had the money set aside for it something would happen and we had to put it off until we had some more saved.  Unfortunately this happened a few times which was frustrating for him.  Thankfully, he got a bonus at work and part of that bonus immediately got earmarked for the smoker.  He ordered it last week and picked it up last night.  Oh he was like a kid in a candy store assembling it.

 Sarah and Noah were excited to play with the empty box after the smoker was out.

 Aaron worked a while to put it together and season it.  As you can see he was pretty excited about it.  I bet you can't guess what we will be having for dinner tonight...I will give you a guess--something that will be smoked.

 Josh had his MESA club this week and they got to look at sheep brains.  Josh thought it was pretty neat and texted me this picture:

Gross, but I am glad he was excited about it!

Today Daniel was so excited--it was maturation at school today.  Actually he really wasn't excited and was dreading it as you can see:

Oh well what can you do?!  Good thing Aaron was able to go to maturation with him.  It's about time Aaron learned about the 'Birds and the Bees' and I am sure he took some good notes--haha!  Now Daniel knows all about the 'Birds and the Bees' whether he wanted to or not--haha!