Middle school is a heavy load

This is how Steven looks when he walks out the door to catch the bus. Along with his backpack full of books and his lunch, he has his trumpet for band, track clothes (his newest sport) and a waterbottle. Let's hope they all make it home!

Amber's newest wearable artwork

Amber made these for Megan for her birthday. She loves them! Pretty cool, huh.

Megan and Steven celebrate birthdays

Megan celebrated her 15th birthday on the 15th. Amber decorated a very colorful cake for her.

Megan was excited about getting the newest Fablehaven book.

Megan's YW leaders gave her a nifty light up ring and Dad gave her some gorgeous lavender roses.

Steven is now an official teenager. He turned 13 on the 18th. he was thrilled with his new mp3 player and team apparel.

We celebrated at Red Robin to get their free sundaes and to get sung to.

We now have 3 teenagers! How fast time has flown!

Easter

Amber and Megan hid about 80 filled plastic eggs all around the backyard. Everyone went out in their pajamas and Steven, Marissa and David had a great time trying to find all of the eggs. We are still finding eggs!

March update

I know it has been a while, so here is an update of what has been happening in Minnesota with the Stotts family.



Steven tried a new sport, swimming. He has never been on a swim team before. He enjoyed it and really improved and learned some new things.

Amber was honored as one of the top art students in the district. Her piece, Treasure Map, is now on display at the local community college. Way to go Amber!

Megan had another symphony concert. They played the theme from the 3rd "Pirates of the Carribbean" movie, and even sang a little.

Mom and David enjoyed a fun day at the zoo seeing the baby farm animals.

Steven and his fellow deacons Matt and Brigham made homemade pizza dinners for a service project.

Tree trimming

We spent a large part of Saturday cutting a couple huge branched off of our Box Elder tree. We were worried about it falling onto our neighbors property (Box Elders tend to be weak trees). So our friends the Allen's came and helped us. It was quite the team effort.

Here is the before image

Pulling the limb to make sure it falls the right way

Success! (it really isn't that close to the house)

The finished product

Now we are left with dirty snow!

The wood piles. Bring on the bonfire weather!

Amber the artist, again

Over Christmas break, Amber worked on a poster to be entered into a contest for the poster for her high school's Broadway production. She had a list of the songs included in the production and listened to each on the internet for inspiration. The theme was "Love". She found out yesterday that her entry won the contest and now her poster is all over the school and also around the community. Here are some pictures of her working on it and the finished product. If you click on the last picture (the poster) you will see her name in small letters as the artist. Way to go Amber! We are especially impressed that the work was all done free hand with colored pencils!

Images of winter

This is what it looks like here after a big snow storm. This is winter in Minnesota!

David's letters

Marissa got the game "Bananagrams" for Christmas (it is kind of like scrabble). David spent a lot of time Sunday morning putting the letters in alphabet order and then knocking them down like dominoes.

We also worked on some simple words to read and then put together a special message!

Christmas morning

Christmas morning was enjoyed by all.