let the race begin!

its pinewood derby time! this was our first year involved in it and we had NO idea what to expect.  we knew it was a big deal - lots of competition - lots of complaining about the dads doing all the work - but we did our best....

both my boys made a car but only my youngest was in the actual race.  his is the bottom tank car. 

we did the cutting of the wood for him and he did the painting.  this is actually the second paint job.  as i was giving him the colors to apply - i gave him white last........and it was bright.  so when he walked away for it to dry - i tried to make it less bright by applying a bunch of colors on top of it.  eventually it looked like a big ole mess - so my husband and i decided to just repaint it all green and have e start over.

big mistake

poor e came in and just cried and cried that we had decided that it didn't look nice b/c he thought it looked perfect just the way it was

sigh

he was absolutely right - it was his car.  after much apologizing by us - he repainted it and luckily was just as happy with his car the second time around.  major lesson learned by us parents.

he came in 32nd place out of 64.  smack dab in the middle!  we were very happy with that!

they gave away awards for design.  one was for most patriotic.  there were only 2 army tank cars in the race...the other boy's won

the other boy's car looked like his father did the paint job

i guess that dad didn't learn the same lesson we did

i tried not to show my annoyance with that

but e didn't care

b/c he still got an award for participating

and then i didnt care either

guess that makes 2 lessons i learned that nite