Jan 21st: Spelling Bee Champ

Today was Savannah's Elementary School Spelling Bee. About a month ago, each 4th and 5th grade class took a written spelling test to see who would represent each class at the school spelling bee. The top two from each class would go forward. There were a total of 16 students who qualified, Savannah being one of them. Over the next few weeks the students stayed after school to practice together. For the next month Savannah practiced and practiced her spelling words. She worked very hard.... and had fun too!

Finally, the Spelling Bee arrived! I was so nervous for her. She looked so calm up there--waving at her friends, making funny faces at her teacher (who was making funny faces at her), and smiling at me in the audience. I can't remember the last time I was so nervous! I could feel my heart beating so fast. I felt like I was shaking so bad that I thought would ruin the video-taping. But every time Savannah stood up, she looked relaxed and like she was having a great time. It just broke my heart when some of the kids just rushed through a word and misspelled it--many looked so nervous!

Here is a video of her spelling the last word of the round and the championship word....

Jan 19th: The Lollipop Queen

Every night we let the kids choose a treat after dinner. Tonight, Eliza choose a lollipop (one lollipop). I left the room to for a few minutes to help Savannah with her school project.... when I came back in I found The Lollipop Queen with her stash......

As you can tell, she was quite pleased with herself

Somehow she got a hold of three more lollipops, unwrapped them, and was taking turns licking them. I even found her at one point with two in her mouth. I do have to note that she didn't finish any of them, after awhile she got tired of them and said to me, as she waved her arms, "All done!"

Jan 11th: The Christmas puzzle that lasted through January....

Earlier in December we put together a 500 piece Christmas puzzle. We were all very proud of ourselves for finishing it within a few days. So I went out and bought the "next level" puzzle of 1,000 pieces. The puzzle was fun for awhile.... until it came time to piece the tree, garland, and wreath! By the time January hit, we had to make a goal of at least finding 4 puzzle pieces a day. You pretty much had to organize the pieces by shape then try each one in each space. It painfully took FOREVER! But we finally finished it on January 11th! Thank goodness :)

Here is Madison putting the last piece!

It's finished!!!!!!

The finished product.....

It was painstaking taking it apart. I just didn't want our hard work to go to "pieces." I asked Jesse if we would do it again next Christmas. His answer was simply "no."