Phone Monsters

Remember back the end of March when I showed you Prima Donna's cute Saving Water video? Well, sadly, she found out today that she didn't get that scholarship.

But she was only sad for about 30 seconds because she got another email that made up for it.

That exact same day she was putting together the Water Scholarship, she also entered the Creatables Contest at the Salt Lake County Library.

And she won first place...
Including a $1500 scholarship!

We were so excited :) I want to share her project with you now. I didn't dare before because it was supposed to be something pretty unique. She called it Phone Monsters.

 

Step #1:

I came up with this awesome sock-monster as a way to help teens and 

adults remember to not use their phones while driving.  First, you'll 

need stuffing, a colorful sock, felt, needle and thread, and stuff to 

decorate your monster.  

Step #2:

Cut a slit on the top of the foot part of the sock.  This will 

become your creature's mouth.  Sew in two pieces of felt as shown. 

Then, stuff the head and sew the roof of the mouth closed.  Be 

sure to measure along the way that your phone can get in and out 

of the mouth.  

Sew a strong ribbon or piece of yarn through the top of the head. 

This is how you will hang your phone monster from the car's 

rear-view mirror.  

Step #3:

Decorate your sock as you want!  Finally, place your phone in to 

measure how far down the monster's throat you want it to go.  Then, 

just a little below that, sew straight across.  This way, your phone 

won't go alllllll the way down into the bottom.  You want it to be 

easy to get out - but not easy enough to do it while you are still 

driving.  ;)  

Step #4:

Finally, hang it in your car and you are all ready to travel with 

safety!  Raaawwwrrr!!

 

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Guest Blog: Aspire Dance Competition by Drama Queen

In typical me-fashion, I forgot that I promised to have the girls help me write this post for Mom until after they had all been sent off to bed. But I'll do my best and have them fill in the award details later...
So Friday afternoon, Scout, Crafty, Baby Doll and I all loaded into my truck with a cooler full of sandwich stuffs and made the hour and a half trip up to Ogden. We managed to hit some ugly traffic, but only two Salt Lake drivers conspired to kill us, so it could have been worse. We got there in plenty of time to check in at our hotel and then get Crafty all dolled up for her solo. At about 20 minutes before we had to be at Weber to check in, Mom sent me a text saying "Did Crafty remember her music cd? We weren't ever able to submit the music electronically, so she had to bring it on cd." Of course, sheer panic, but fortunately she had the song on her Kindle and her awesome dance teacher arranged for it to be taken to the booth and all was fine.

Crafty did an awesome job! She is a beautifully graceful dancer, and two of the three judges ranked her in a Ruby category, but the third's score was an outlier and she was disappointed to only receive a Sapphire over all. (The scoring works so: Diamond = 100-96, Ruby = 95-91, Sapphire = 90-86 Emerald= 85 and below).
Meanwhile, Princess was driving up to meet us as soon as she got off work, so we rendezvoused back at the hotel where the girls went swimming and I battled the Ogden nightlife to get us some Little Caeser's. We rounded out the night by eating Oreos and cramming onto one of the hotel beds to watch a chick flick on my computer. Then Baby Doll and I slept while Crafty helped Princess snapchat a whole slew of silly face swaps.

We had a nice slow morning of TV watching and free hotel breakfast before packing up and heading back over to the school. Scout had three dances and Crafty had five. Baby Doll and I had fun doing her hair and, since it was a dance comp, we might have let Princess put a touch of mascara on her too...  We had yummy sandwiches thanks to our well-stocked cooler and played cards while hanging out in the classroom-turned-dressing room.

About every hour or so we would have a new dance to watch. Overall, our studio got quite a few Rubies, but no diamonds, sadly. Princess had a date so she and Baby Doll headed out right after seeing the studio's biggest dance: The Willy Wonka production number. It was very cute. Of course the best part was Scout's adorable Violet Beauregard dance!

My favorite dance of them all, though, might have been the crazy 80s-inspired one that Crafty was in. Her dance teacher had gone all over the valley to thrift stores to get their costumes and showed up just a little before with a big bag of crazy bows and leg-warmers from Claires.

By the time final awards were done and all our stuff cleaned up, we didn't hit the freeway until almost 10. It was a fun weekend, and I was super proud of how grown-up these girls are getting to be. They were so professional, and even if the silly judges didn't get the memo, they are definitely both Diamonds.

Another Saturday

For a Saturday it was relatively calm. My girls were still at the dance competition (except for Prima Donna), but they have promised to write the post for you tomorrow so you can hear all about it. We got up early because Sport had baseball practice at 8:30, which is pretty lame since they had a game last night that didn't end until almost 10:00.

At 9:45 I took Curly and the Dog Walker to Lowe's to build a bird feeder. Their numbers were down a bit today and I was so excited when they agreed to give me enough kits for my Cub Scouts to put together on Wednesday. That will make my life much easier.

After we got home from Lowe's, we headed out with the last of the Scouting Expo tickets. The boys still had 11 to sell so that they could both reach their goals of 20 tickets. It was discouraging, but they were eventually able to sell every one of them. We were even able to donate (with Bossy's boys' help) 10 tickets to The Beast's troop. He lives in an area where the boys can't really afford tickets, so every time we had one donated back, we put it in a stack for him. Our family, friends and neighbors are always so ready to help. Thanks everyone!

After we cashed in the tickets and brought home the first day prizes, Curly discovered that the skillet he received as one of his prizes was actually 2 skillets. So I sent the Dog Walker back to the prize center with the 2 extra ones. Unfortunately, he was confused about the mix-up, so he brought one back again. The thing he didn't realize was that Sport had also received 2, so we still had one too many.

I dropped Sport at his Teen Advisory Board meeting at the library and then I ran back to the prize center one more time to make things right.

Prima Donna's friends came over and were just settling in to play a board game when my Sweetie, the Dog Walker, Sport, Curly, and I went to see Saturday's Warrior at the theater. It was a homework assignment for the Dog Walker's Mormon Lit class and so much fun. When I was a senior in high school, we actually put on the show as our musical, but I think I've told that story before.

After the movie my sweetie helped the boys design and cut out their BlastCars on the band saw (similar to pinewood derby cars but they have a motor) while Prima Donna, Baby Doll, and I ran to a couple of grocery stores. Then it was time for a late dinner.

Princess had a date, so I am still waiting up for her while the Dog Walker is reading to me from the nutrition book. Only a few more weeks of school for him and I think he is hoping to take the summer off.

Me too.

She Finally Did It!

Prima Donna is only 2 months shy of 18 and today she finally got her driver's license! Can everybody clap, please?

At first she wasn't really interested in learning to drive. Her first time out on the driving range she told the advisor she hadn't driven and she wasn't comfortable putting the car back in the gated area. He insisted and she sideswiped the gate, taking off the side mirror. He was so angry he grabbed the other one and it detached as well.

She wasn't really interested in driving after that.

Then she turned 17 last summer and decided she better get on it so she began working toward getting in her hours. She was just starting to feel confident and she had been out with the advisor with much better results when she fell at camp and broke both the bones in her leg.

When she finally got moving again, the musical started and she was busy every night and there was no time for driving. By November she was ready again and she got her second couple of hours in the driver's ed car and a second permit because her first learner's had expired.

Then she was in The Importance of Being Ernest and she didn't get her next couple of hours in until spring break. Then finally, on the last day of the break she was able to complete her road test. She passed.

I made her an appointment early in the week to get her license at the DMV, but she had some other drama thing and then it became today. And she did it.

Really.

I even have a picture to prove it.