Nathan's International Thanksgiving Class Party

Nathan's class was asked to bring a dish that comes from a country that his ancestors are from, so since Charlotte served her church mission in Switzerland and since my Maternal Ancestors are from the same area we had him bring Muesli. Being California half the class had food from Mexico and the other half from European countries.

Bird Watching

While I want to a conference Charlotte and the boys walked over to the local park to look at birds for one of Nathan's Scouting requirements.

Halloween 2013

 

 

Acacia Halloween Parade

Nathan was a Ninja yet again

 

Nathan with friends Julian and Andy

Ben was Death yet again

 

Ben and his friend Sunoo

Charlotte convinced me to do a couples costume when she mentioned being Princess Peach.

My Birthday Cake

Charlotte made me a Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cheesecake for my birthday last Sunday, for some reason she made me hunch over for the picture though. It was a good ckeesecake.

Acacia's 50th Anniversary

Friday was Acacia Elementary's 50th Anniversary so they had an assembly and the community was invited.

October Pack Meeting

I know that I've posted a lot of Pack Meeting photos, but two cool things happened this last Pack meeting, the first was that it was announced that Ben and Nathan sold more popcorn sales then anyone in the Stake, they sold together and ended up with $1,070.00 in sales!

We also had Tracy Garcia from our ward come in and talk about abilities awareness, she has a son Jacob with Down Syndrome and so she talked to the boys about it and had them do some activities that helped the boys understand how hard it was to do things like putting marshmellows in their mouths and reading some lines, walking while looking through binoculars along a zig zagging line and picking up buttons with gloves on. Jacob joins Scouts next month.

Chuck E Cheese's Ticket Blaster

I know that I've posted tons of pictures of Chuck E Cheese's, your probably tired of it and frankly so am I, but this was cool. Acacia had a fundraising night at Chuck E Cheese's and they had it where you could pay $2.50 per kid to get into their ticket blaster where like a money blaster a giant fan from below blew up tons of tickets and the kid has to grab them, Nathan didn't grab a lot, but he had fun doing it.

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Bar B Que Desserts I made

My Home Teaching companion wanted to try out his new Bar B Que so we invited our Home Teaching charges for dinner. I made my Peanut Butter-Toffee Cheesecake Brownies and Shelly Larsen's Peanut Butter Cup Pie (Thanks Shelly!) both turned out well. Here's the recipe for the Peanut Butter-Toffee Cheesecake Brownies for those interested. Very good, but very rich! http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/peanut-butter-toffee-cheesecake-brownies/f0b18bef-197d-4955-8347-7970c58188de?src=SH

September PAck Meeting

This Pack Meeting has the usual round of awards for both boys, but more importantly they started Scout Popcorn sales and said that the boys can work for prizes! We went out Saturday and already got $290.00 between the two of them, they plan on working together for a bigger prize.

They also had some cooperation activities

Ben's group won this one, they had to fold and stack paper to hold up a paperback book, the highest one won.

Promethean Board

I've been volunteer teaching cartooning in Ben and Nathan's classes ever since Ben started Acacia 5 years ago, but this year the PTA (Potty Training Association as I taught my boys to call it LOL) fundraised and got these awesome Promethean Boards for the classrooms its like drawing on a giant tablet with a drawing program that's a lot like drawing in Photoshop. I usually teach them to draw something from their imagination and then a commercial character. We focus a lot on shapes, dominant mass (the big shape) and other important principles that I've learned in various Character Design classes that I've taken. With these new boards I think that I'll now teach them some color and composition stuff.

Los Angeles Science Center Scout Trip

Since the boys had Rosh Hashanah off of school Ben's scout troop went to the LA Science Center to see the Space Shuttle Explorer (the last one) and science stuff. Our whole family came along.

Last Day of School Field Day/In-In-Out Truck