Our Tiger Cub

This past fall, we signed Eli up for Cub Scouts. We had avoided getting him involved in organized activities up until now. He really isn't interested in sports enough to play in any organized leagues. Plus, he got his athletic ability from his mom and dad.......which isn't a good thing! We thought that he would enjoy Cub Scouts plus he could gain lots of great experiences and leadership skills through scouts. So when School Night for Scouting came around we signed him up. Little did we know how much Eli and the rest of the family would enjoy it. Nor did we know that Kevin would end up signing himself up to be a Den Leader!

Luke doesn't think it is fair that he can not be in Cub Scouts. He is counting the days until he can join!

The first den meeting of the year.

We were right... Eli LOVES Cub Scouts! He looks forward to the twice a month den meetings and the once a month pack meetings. He loves all the activities.

We found out that Eli is quite the salesman. When it was time to sale popcorn for scouts, my goal was to sale $500. Our pack will pay for one camping trip during the year for each scout that sales over $500. So when I heard free camping, I was motivated! But Eli was motivated beyond $500. He wanted to earn a telescope by selling over $1100 in popcorn. So we hit the streets and started selling. And I am happy to report, Eli earned his telescope! He was actually one of the top 5 salesmen in the pack. Three of the top five sellers came from Eli's den!

At the November pack meeting, Eli earned his Bobcat badge. This is the first badge that a Cub Scout earns. To earn this badge the scouts have to learn and memorize several things about Cub Scouts, like the motto and cub scout hand shake just to name a couple.

Kevin pinning Eli's Bobcat badge on. They pin the badges on upside down and the scouts can not turn in right side up until he does a good deed.

Part of Den 6 - Eli's den

Because all of the scouts worked hard and met the pack's goal in selling popcorn, the scouts got to throw pies in the faces of their leaders! Here is Eli throwing a pie at his daddy. To better illustrate his athletic ability, when Eli first threw the pie at Kevin, he missed him completely and hit an innocent bystander!

In January, Pinewood Derby fever hit our family. Eli, Kevin, and Luke began designing the Pinewood Derby cars. Luke was able to participate by entering the Outlaw Division. This is a division for non-Cub Scouts. After working on the cars for a couple of weeks, Kevin made a rule for our household... you have to be 4 years old before you can have a Pinewood Derby car! He wanted to put off have to make 4 cars as long as possible. When Eli is in his last year of cub scouts (5th grade), Kevin will have to make 4 Pinewood Derby cars!

Our races were held on Saturday, January 23. Eli's car came in 4th place in the Tiger Den Division. There were 12 cars that entered that division. Luke's car came in DL --Dead Last-- in the Outlaw division. His car didn't weigh near enough. Kevin learned a lot on what makes a good racer and what doesn't by watching and helping run the race! He took notes for next year!

Eli and Luke with their cars and participation ribbons. They didn't win any races or win any of the showmanship awards but they still had fun making their dream cars!

Eli's car
He is into GI Joe and Army things now. He wanted his derby car to be an army tank.

Luke's car
Luke first wanted a Cheetah but then decided that he wanted his car to be a dinosaur. I really think his car turned out looking really good!

All the cars in the Tiger Cub Division.

The cars in the Outlaw Division.

Eli's car racing. His car is the one on the far right track.

Luke's car racing. The Dinosaur is on the far left track.

The Tiger Cubs getting their ribbons and awards.

Luke decided to hand his ribbon in his ear!

This past weekend, our Cub Scout pack had their Blue and Gold Banquet. At this banquet, the scouts who have completed all of their achievements get their rank badge. The 5th graders also graduate from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts at the banquet. That was really neat to watch them cross over from being a Cub Scout and to becoming a Boy Scout. They walked into a tent with their Webalo II neckerchief on and walked out of the tent with their Boy Scout neckerchief on.

Eli and rest of his den members completed their achievements that are required in the Tiger Cub rank. At the banquet they were given their Tiger Cub badge! So he is an offical Tiger Cub now! Granna, Big Daddy, Nana, and Papa were able to come to the banquet. They enjoyed getting to see him get his Tiger Cub badge.

Eli and I walked up to get his badge and when we turned around, Luke had decided he wanted in on the action! We call Luke the Junior Tiger Cub.

Luke checking out Eli's new Tiger Cub badge after I pinned it on him. Eli has already completed his good deed, so he can now put his Tiger Cub badge on right side up.

US Representative, Louie Gohmert, was the keynote speaker at the banquet. Rep. Gohmert is an Eagle Scout himself. He was kind enough to take pictures with a lot of the scouts. I guess that is part of being a politician -- kissing babies, shaking hands, and having pictures made with constituents.

We are very proud of Eli and his accomplishments. He really enjoys Cub Scouts and so do we. It is really a family affair. If all the boys join Cub Scouts, we will have many, many, many, many more years to enjoy all the fun!! And we will have LOTS of popcorn to sell!

2 years old already!

It is hard to believe that our little preemie baby, Seth Benjamin, is now 2 years old! Where does time go? Looking at Seth today you could not tell that he started out so frail and small. God is so good! Seth has overcome his weight issues. Today he weighs about 30 lbs (give or take a pound or two). With the help of Early Childhood Intervention (ECI), he has overcome his physical delays. He took his first steps in August at 17 months. Now he doesn't walk, he RUNS everywhere! His language is improving with a little help as well. His vocabulary is expanding by the day. We are working on 2 word phrases with him now. Seth has his one year evaluation with ECI on Tuesday of this week. His case manager, Ms. Sallie, and his speech pathologist, Ms. Shelly, will be doing his evaluation.
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Seth LOVES animals and LOVES making animal sounds. He started with just a few farm animals but now he has all sorts of animals he loves to imitate. He loves to play in his brothers' room. They don't like him playing in their room because they have to clean up after him! He loves looking at books. You know when Seth has been in Eli and Luke's room, when all the books are on the floor. He still has to have his pacifer. Our other boys had thrown their pacifers away by the age of 2. But Seth (and mommy and daddy) are addicted to it! We had him taking it just at nap times but the month of February has been a sickly month for the Dickey household. So Seth got his pacie more when he was sick and when Mommy didn't feel good. So now we will have to start the weaning process again! Seth is a bundle of joy and a bundle of energy! Everyone who is around him for very long always makes comments on how busy he is. He is never in one place for very long. Like I said earlier, he runs now....he doesn't walk!

We had a Barnyard themed party this past Saturday with family and a few friends. Seth enjoyed getting lots of attention.

The birthday boy with his party hat on. I knew he had too many pictures made with his party hat on, when he put one on Sunday afternoon and looked at me and said "Say Cheese"!

Luke's horns finally showing up! I knew they were there somewhere!

Karis and her Dora doll

The Barnyard Cake

I think he enjoyed the cake!

If you want Seth to be still for something, you have to strap him in!

More Snow Pictures

Here are some more pictures of the snow we got on the Feb. 12 and 13. Kevin took these pictures early Friday morning. As you can tell when you compare these pictures to the ones where we were making the snowman, quite a bit of snow had melted in just a few short hours.

This is behind the shed at the back of our yard. Lots of snowy chicken wire!

An East Texas Blizzard!

Last Thursday and Friday we got 6 inches of snow! It snowed all day Thursday but it wasn't cold enough and it didn't accumulate very well. But Thursday night/Friday morning the big storm blew in and it was below freezing so it accumulated! It was so pretty! The older boys were so excited about the snow!

Thursday we went to a Valentine Party that our homeschool group hosted at a roller rink. We played in the snow a little that day but not a lot. Friday, I was mean and made Eli do school first before we went outside. I know it was a once and a lifetime opportunity for him to play in that much snow but we had missed so much school that week and the week prior due to illnesses. It took us two weeks to get one week of work done! So around lunch on Friday, we finally got out and built a snowman. By then the snow had started to melt. I had planned on building a HUGE snowman. But I quickly found out how much work building a snowman is. Add to that chasing a 23 month old in the snow from going to the back yard and keeping the dogs away from the 3 month old, and building any size snowman proved to be quite challenge!

Seth had a hard time walking in his rubber boots.

Eli enjoyed throwing snowballs! And yes, you are correct, he doesn't have on gloves. All we had for him were work gloves. He didn't care one little bit though.

Can you see Silas?

Mr. Snowman and the boys!

Thanks to the Valentine party the day before, Mr. Snowman had facial features! As soon as me and the two younger boys went inside, Poodo, our dog started eating the candy. When Eli came in about 5 minutes later, he said that he ate the rest of the candy to keep Poodo from eating it. I looked outside not long after he told me that and saw that Mr. Snowman had been decapitated. The dogs had taken Mr. Snowman's head with the toboggan on to try and find more candy. I guess dogs have a sweet tooth too!

Happy 2010!

Happy

EVERYONE!

Christmas Blessings

Merry Christmas from our bunch to yours!

Things at the Dickey house are finding a new normal! Our sweet addition, Silas, is doing well. The other three boys, including Seth, adore him. Seth pretty much ignores him. He does like to say "Baby" and make kissy faces at him! I am doing well. Things get crazy and hairy for me sometimes with four boys, but what did I expect?

Starting the first of the year, Kevin will once again be doing relief work. He did relief work for three years before joining Hughes Springs Veterinary Hospital. For those that don't know, relief work is when a veterinarian is self employed and works at different clinics in an area when the owner is out of town, wants a day off, etc. We are hoping this will provide us a little more family time.

On a side note, I thought I better explain why Silas is "naked" in this picture. I saw this sweet picture on the internet in black and white of parents holding their newborn with just a diaper on and they are lovingly looking at the baby. I thought, "Wouldn't that be so sweet to get all of us gazing upon our adorable baby?" Then when it came time for our family photo shoot at 9:00 at night after a Bible Fellowship party at church (yes that is the church's tree not ours!), it didn't take long for reality to set in. Taking picture with four boys is workout. We were lucky to get this ONE good picture out of about 20. Silas crying, Luke goofing off, Seth trying to walk away, Eli...well he was about the only one that behaved. The loving, adoring family picture turned out to be "just get a picture and we want do this again for a few years!"

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

June Travels: Part 3

I started this post nearly a month ago and as usual, stuff happened. I burned our pictures from the trip that were on Kevin's computer onto a CD. I did this so I could use my dinosaur (also known as my desktop computer) and make the post. One Saturday I sat down to load the pictures and finish the post and see that one of my sweet precious children (and I have an idea as to which one it was) had completely deleted my CD drive off my computer. So I gave up.

Since I have a bad case of heartburn tonight, I thought I would pull Kevin's laptop out and try to catch up on some blogging instead of going to bed. Honestly, I would rather go to bed but I know I wouldn't be able to sleep with this raging heartburn. So with no further ado, Part 3 of our June travels!

Our final trip in June was one we look forward to for the past few summers. For the past three years, we have participated in our church's Family Mission Trips. This year the Family Mission Trip was ministering to the beautiful town and people of Creede, Colorado. This was our family's second trip to Creede. The very first family mission trip that our church sponsored in 2007 was to Creede. Creede is an old mining town with only 400 residents during most of the year. But from May until September it expands to about 3000 due to retirees summering there. Tourism is there big industry now since the mines closed back in the 1980s. Most residents have two or three jobs during the summer to try and make ends met the rest of the year.

I believe we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 people from our church go on this mission trip. We had several different projects that people worked on. Some went up on the mountains and cut firewood for the church we work with to give out to those who need it during the bitter cold winter months. I believe with what we took up there on two 18 wheelers and what they cut during the week, the church ended up with over 60 cords of wood. We had a couple of construction crews that worked on individual houses and one that reconstructed a day care facility. There were paint crews. The log cabin school was stained and a National Forrest Service Campsite outhouses and cabins/pavilions were painted. There was a yard crew that did yard work at various places. The children also had several projects that they did during the week. They hosted a free car wash that was a huge success, planted flowers at some the houses that the construction crews worked on, sponsored a 4th of July craft day in the park, and they also washed windows and cleaned the sidewalks. And last but not least, we had a crew of people that worked in the kitchen all week feeding us three meals a day.

I worked with the children's projects and Kevin ended up on the paint crew that painted outhouses at the NFS campgrounds. One day, Kevin took Eli with him to paint. Eli really enjoyed getting to go paint.

Rio Grande River at the campsite Kevin helped paint.

The outhouse painting crew.

The head waters of the Rio Grande!

The sun was too bright for Eli!

Mr. Sid and Eli. Mr.Sid oversaw the campgrounds. Kevin got to witness to him throughout the week.

Luke in Kevin's work clothes acting like a clown! What else is new?!?

Eli FINALLY getting to climb the mountain, as he called it, behind the church. He begged to climb it everyday that we were there.

Kevin helping Luke along. Luke was a little scared.

Kevin, Eli, and Luke at the top of the hill behind the church.

Spring Creek Pass Continental Divide.

The family at the Spring Creek Falls.

Kevin and Eli decide to climb down the the bottom of the ravine.

The made it safely down to the bottom!

The view of the falls from the top.

We really had a great week. The two older boys loved it! They loved climbing all the mountains and finding lots of rocks. And they both worked hard. Looking forward to next summer's mission trip!