pinewood derby

last thursday, the night after the cub scout pinewood derby, the activity days girls in our ward participated in a pinewood derby of their own.

summer and bryan worked on her car on-and-off for a couple of weeks. after bryan explained some of the basic physics involved in creating the fastest pinewood derby car, summer designed, sanded, painted, and helped weight her own car. the lego figures (meant to represent her and her dad) riding atop her purple glitter creation were the crowning achievement in summer's speedy-car design. 

at the official weigh-in, summer discovered she was a tenth of an ounce short of the optimal 5.0 ounces, so lego dad had to lose his head, and summer and bryan borrowed a quarter from the generous harper family in order to peak out the car's weight at 5.0 exact. 

summer named the car purple quarter. for obvious reasons.

each of the eleven cars raced three times, once in each lane. the top three racers then went on to compete in three more runs to determine the night's winner.

summer came in fourth by two hundredths of a second.

the whole group of racers.

great job, ladies! and many thanks to the organizers! 

root beer floats all around.

let's get a close up of that

spring!

if you do not live in the pacific northwest, then you have no idea how much this afternoon meant to all of us.

bless you, sunshine! bless you!

tickling the ivories

afton and summer at their spring recital with their piano teacher, miss christina.

i'm so jazzed at the talented musicians summer and afton are becoming. they practice with consistent effort (often without complaining), and sweet afton even remarked the other day how the pieces that she finds the most frustrating and difficult to play at first, usually become her favorites (insert mom heart emoji explosion!)

looking forward to many more years of piano recitals to come!

girls' night

out to women's conference with my little women.

(our last triple threat selfie, here.)

bee B-E-E bee

summer and afton both won their class spelling bees and participated today as two of nineteen students in the school-wide spelling bee. 

sibling rivalry at its finest. 

ha! just kidding. do you even know summer and afton? they have maybe one competitive bone between them. and they, like, share it nicely and stuff.

as an added bonus--and like all spelling bee participants who boldly came before them--they will never, ever forget how to spell the words which eliminated them today. 

so proud of your efforts, girls! after school mcflurries for all!

that's why her hair is so big

....it's full of secrets.
--damian

RIP the day emily discovered the crimper.

#bloodbrothers

chillin' out maxin' vaccinatin' all cool.

(and all shootin' some b-ball outside of the school.)

weather report

in school until july!

free to be three

dallin is three years old!

his birthday was yesterday, actually, but it's being celebrated today as we're in the middle of having every single wall in our house painted and so #fourthchildproblems.

here's to you, dally woo!

the most perfectly toddler toddler that ever there was in the world.

ski!

after missing a couple of winters, summer and afton (and bryan) are back on the mountain. expect a full report on their downhill adventures (but so far, so good!) come february.

a sunbeam!

dallin moved up to sunbeams a wee bit early (his birthday is january 30th), but as he was going to be the only one in nursery for six months and just barely missed the birthday cut-off, the primary decided to give it a shot. (fingers crossed emoji)

moving to nine o'clock church was a "less than smooth transition" (only summer and her father managed not to burst into tears at some point during the morning), so it seems that sundays will be holding all sorts of new and exciting adjustments for the wheelers. wish us luck!

more sunbeams here, here, and here.

and a happy new year

mes chers amis, 

there we are: wheelers 2016.

we jumped out of the car, set up the tripod, and took a series of shots in five minutes (in the freezing cold) before anyone had a chance to melt down (momma included!), then we went home, changed back into our pajamas, snuggled under warm blankets, and fixed the children delicious hot chocolate that all of them wanted and half of them didn't drink.

and...that pretty much epitomizes the wheeler family happenings this year. 

we've been busy doing what everyone else has probably been busy doing: trying to get things done, trying to figure things out, trying to appreciate the moment, the day, the phase. trying to teach, trying to learn, trying to get it right (on at least the third or fourth try). trying to be kinder, more patient, more forgiving. trying to help others more and to hurt others less and, of course, trying to enjoy this incredible ride.

wishing you all the love and laughter on your many varied journeys, friends! you got this!

wheelers out.

(sooo...tell us how you really feel about taking family pictures, caleb...)

more christmas pics

i know i'm their mom because i just want to squee! every time i see pics of them in their matching christmas jammies.

much love and many thanks to grandmas and grandpas and 

uncles and aunts for making their christmas morning so magical!

snow day

a quick trip up to stevens pass yesterday to check out the powder before ski lessons begin next month.

also to have a snowball fight, of course:

and to all a good night

merry christmas from the wheelers!

dallin's first snow man

this pic is a late installment from two weeks ago when it snowed and school was cancelled and all the kids were sick and sooooo mad at me that they couldn't go out and play in the snow (like i made it snow *just* when they were sick so that i could relish in raining down sorrow and misery into their little lives).

anyway, dallin was not sick and built this snowman with his dad.

ps - it's snowing again today.

pps- go hawks!

the wheeler kids

as photographed in their sunday best in twenty-nine degree weather 

watching their mom do a pretty stellar impression of scooby doo.

nutcracker sweet

last thursday, we took summer and afton to see their first professional ballet, pacific northwest ballet's george balanchine's the nutcracker.

ian falconer (of olivia fame) produced the set and costume design, and it is just a breathtaking and visually stunning reimagination (think: red stripes!), to say nothing of the dances and the dancers whom i wished would just go on and on forever.

our group's favorite dances included: waltz of the snowflakes, coffee (arabian dance), tea (chinese dance), marzipan (dance of the reed flutes), and waltz of the flowers.

bonus: mere was in town to join us!

visions of sugar plums dance in their heads.

bonus: bryan came, too!

and after the show, we were treated to another little bonus: 

snoooooow!!

c'est parfait.

pucker up

we couldn't resist this cute little stand at one of our favorite local tree farms.