Alex’s Birthday Party

We started the day off having Uncle Mark and Grandma and Grandpa Konlock over to open Alex’s gifts from us and have a family celebration prior to the party. We then all met up (with the exception of Grandpa) at Kids In Motion for Alex’s first friends only birthday party. It looks like a lot of presents, but it is really only six. (On a side note, I think Andy may have a toy buying problem.)

While I am getting to the point (already) of not wanting to have separate birthday parties for the kids anymore, since this was Alex’s first official birthday where he got to invite all his friends I felt like I couldn’t let him miss what Jack got to experience twice. He invited six of his friends from school (because that is the maximum amount of little boy energy I can effectively monitor) to Kids In Motion (the same place Jack had his first party) and they ran wild around the indoor playground for two hours.

They have tons of different rooms full of all kinds of activities and a big climbing place in the middle of it all. Alex got caught up in the magnetiles room and I had to push him a little to get out and enjoy his friends.

He is fairly happy playing alone as long as he likes what he is doing and I found that his friends gravitate towards him rather then the other way around.

Of course, they all just ran amuck and were completely sweaty and disgusting even though it was a chilly single digit temperature outside.

We brought in Pizza for the m since we had the party at a later hour then normal (from 5-7pm). We also had cake even though most of them were so excited to paly that they barely managed to get a bite down before they were off again.

They got to play a round of laser tag after they were done eating and near the end of the party. It was a big finish and everyone had a ton of fun.

I was worried about how Jack might get along with all the younger kids but he pretty much did his own thing and I found him periodically helping other smaller children do things. He joined in on the laser tag at the end, but was good about letting Alex have his time with his friends.

Afterwards we adjourned to Andy’s parents house where Alex opened all his gifts from his friends and then proceeded to paly with everything.

We let them stay the night with their Grandparents and their Uncle Mark. (Can you see how well trained they are? They know when they open a gift that they are to stop and pose with it so I can get a picture.)

2013 Pinewood Derby

I think that Jack may have a bit of a skewed sense of what the Pinewood Derby entails. Last year he won third place and it was the first time a Tiger scout had broken into the top three positions. This year he moved up a notch to the second place position and I am a little nervous that he if he doesn’t get first place or at least one of the top three positions that he may have a little bit of a meltdown. As I was watching the races all night long I kept calling him over to tell him he did a really good job, but that so did a lot of other people. You know, the whole winning isn’t everything speech. He would nod and say “I know Mom”, but then come back and ask me if it was possible to get a ribbon AND a trophy. LOL. That boy has more faith in his and his daddy’s ability to build a fast car than I did. Luckily, I was proved wrong.

Weigh in started at 6:00pm and this year they didn’t have to make any adjustments so they were assigned a number and the car went straight into the pit. They got a brand new track this year so there was a lot of uncertainty as to what to expect with the speed of the  cars and other factors. turns out lanes 1 and 3 are the fastest.

While Andy did the majority of the labor each year he increases Jack’s participation according to his ability to use the power tools and other things in a safe way. This year Jack chose the shape of the car and the paint design. He also used a saw to cut the rough shape of the car out and was able to sand a lot of it down. Andy did the fine sanding and the placement of the weights as well as the paint job. It turned out pretty neat.

Turns out that there are a lot of rules that I am blissfully unaware of that have to be followed in order to make the car eligible to race. One of those rules is that you are not allowed to move the axles of the car from the prepositioned place on the bottom of the car block. The three cars to the left of Jack’s in the picture below had their axles moved which increases the speed of the car. The judges did not catch this on weigh in and so at the end when all the race averages were being tallied there was a leader meeting on what they should do.

The fair thing was that since it wasn’t caught in the weigh ins before the races they allowed the three cars to take the places they earned with no penalty. In the defense of the three boys (who are actually triplets) the rules were never given out until about a week before the race and by then it would have too late to change anything and still get a car in on time.

While this made it unfair for everyone who did follow the rules, the design of their cars would have made them fast no matter what and they didn’t tell everyone what actually happened so there was no cause for anyone to be angry. Also, considering that they are all brothers and their cars are identical it wouldn’t be too far fetched to believe they would all race the same. Had they placed higher than 4th through sixth position the judges would have given them all a single trophy in order to make it more fair for the other racers. (Can you see how tiny Jack is on the far left compared to all the other boys? He is definitely not one to let his size get in his way.)

And again, while winning isn’t everything it is nice to know that when you follow the rules you can still beat someone who doesn’t (even unknowingly) and come out on top. I believe that is what is called a life lesson. Jack’s best time was 3.446 followed by a couple of 3.6’s and a 3.7, so he was pretty consistent. the first race was the slowest because he got so excited that he put the car on crooked and didn’t take the time to straighten it out. He was much more careful afterwards and did a ton better.

Can you tell how excited Jack is about his second win in a row? Next year should be even more interesting as it will be Alex’s first year in Cub Scouts and he is a bit more competitive then Jack, so there may be some sibling rivalry going on there.