Battle of the Books...the Duece!

Thursday was Battle of the Books for Sarah. It was her second year doing it. She did awesome! She even won a "challenge" for her team. A challenge is where your teams has an answer that is different from the judges, but believes that they are correct. A "challeging" team has 2 minutes to find a passsage in the book to back up its answer. The speaker then "proves" to the judge that it is there, through verbal argument backed up with written passage and/or illustrations. Sarah was the speaker during this question: "In which book does a character lay down and cry in fright?" The answer the judge had was "Akimbo and the Lions." Sarah's team wrote down "Roxie and the Hooligans." In the challenge, Sarah showed the text, which said that the character "sobbed in fright" and showed a picture where the character was lying down in the passage. Her team got the credit!

What I am even more proud of is her maturity. Her fellow team members were a year younger than she, and were often very implusive in their answers. Sarah was more thoughtful, and would often come up with the correct answer after the other girls quickly wrote down their best guess. They would get it wrong, but she never got irrated with them. She also is the only person on her team who read all 15 books. Since there are four people on the team, but only 3 play at a time, she wanted to play a second round and have someone else sit out twice for "the good of the team." I told her that wasn't how it worked. In that last round, the team missed around half of the questions, all of which Sarah knew. Had she played, they would have gotten a ribbon (give out for those in eighth place or better) Had they written down her answers, they would have medalled. (3rd place and above.) Sarah didn't pout, she didn't get mad at the girls, and told them they did well. She was dissapointed they didn't get a ribbon or medal, but she was proud of herself for not getting mad at the team. On the way home she told me, "That's why I sometimes don't like working on a team. I'd rather be on my own, because then I could've gotten a medal." Join the club, Sarah! But good job being a true team player!

A few pictures:

Both teams getting a quick "potty break" before the battle began:
Sarah tests her blood sugar and the team has a snack to prepare for the battle:

The team in the final round. Sarah was the alternate. The cute man in the brown shirt and glasses was not an official member of the team.


Way to go, Sarah!

Happy 100's Day!

Today was 100's day for Logan! He wanted to do something "huge" (gee, I wonder where he get's that from....!) so here he is, working on his project: (It only took 2.5 weeks. Not bad. To be fair, we only really worked on it for two Saturdays and Tuesday night. We were done one night early. Record!)

So, here it is. How to make a 4' x 8' caterpillar puzzle in 9 easy steps:

Step One: Trace 100 circles onto the wood, and then number from 1-100 so we don't lose track.
Step Two: Ask Dad nicely to cut out the pieces using the jigsaw and scroll saw. (Not pictured)

Step Three: Spray paint the caterpillar in tens with Dad.


Step 4: (Not pictured) Paint number 0-100 using a paint pen. (zero is is favorite number; we couldn't leave it out! Plus we sort of messed up. But that's neither here nor there...)

Step 5: Coerce your mom (ya, right!) to make a box for the puzzle out of duct tape. (Semi-pictured below...the red square on top of the green crate. You knew the duct tape had to be in here somewhere, didn't you?)

Step 6: Mix up the pieces and put it together again.

Step 7: Sort into piles by colors/tens and reflect about how you are SO much more organized than your mother. (Both order and inorder pictured below. )
Step 8: Set up the puzzle, and try t0 prevent your jelly faced sister from wrecking it as you go.

Step 9: Lay back and enjoy the fruits of your labor!
Good Job, on a great project, Logan!

Nostalgic Photo of the Week:

I post this picture because I love it! (duh) I also wanted to document just how proud I am of Rebecca. (The adorable child is not Rebecca, however. It is Elliotte.) A couple of weeks after her classmate died, she was having a really hard time and didn't have her favorite stuffed animal. She really wanted it, and I remembered how Unicorn (I know, what a display of creativity in naming a stuffed horned horse UNICORN!) had helped me through some really tough times when I was a kid. (Not as tough as this, though.) I pulled him out, and she was so happy to hold him and was so excited to sleep with him. She felt what I felt from him so for so many years: comfort, loyalty, non-judmental, friendship. She carefully mended his hooves (My sloppy stiches from years ago have finally broken loose) with green duct tape, wiped the tears from her eyes, and trotted (galloped) off to bed.

She's doing so well, and I'm so proud of her! She brings so much comfort and joy to her classmates. Let's hear it for Unicorn! Let's hear it for Rebecca!

Jesus Loves You!

I was driving around town the other day, doing my Therapy Mom routine, when I saw the greatest license plate cover. I'm not normally into this kind of thing, but this I was in love with. It made me say right out loud, "That is so true! That is exactly how I feel!" It said,

"Jesus loves you, but I'm his favorite!"

I am just so grateful that I have a Savior who's love is so pure and full that he makes me feel that way all the time. I do feel that I have that kind of personal relationship with the Lord, and I just love him so much!

I really hope you feel like you're his favorite, too.

Time for me to dash out and start my Therapy Thursday! God speed!

Melting Days

Okay, so last time I posted we were having a record breaking cold snap. On Sarah's birthday, it started to heat up, to about 30 degrees or so. All night Sunday it snowed, and all day Monday until we had about 6 inches of fluffy, warm, snow to play with. Hooray! The cold snap is over!

I'm assuming that in Arizona or even St. George they would have a "snow day" and cancel school for such a snowy day. Not here. 6 inches is nothin' in Alaska.

Until the temperature rises to 34 degrees over night, and it is still trying to snow. Guess what do you have then? Freezing rain. Sheets of ice covering the state. Over 50 cars off the road between midnight and 8:00 am.

It also means no busses, and no busses means no school. So while kids in the lower 48 might get a snow day and spend the time outside making snowmen, kids here in Alaska just endured 3 full days of melting days. It doesn't seem fair. Winter Break had one day over 15 degrees, which meant they were INSIDE. (Not that day. We went sledding as we knew it was our only hope of the break. The extended forecsast was unfortunately correct. COLD!) They finally get back to school, and have to stay indoors for recess (School policy says that if it's -10 degrees the kids stay inside. -9 degrees--outdoor recess!) They finally get some warm weather and snow, and then BAM! the chinook hits with warm winds gusting at 100 mph on Turnigan arm. They can't play outside for another week!

The kids might not get cabin fever this year, but mine has reached dangerous levels! Pray for 25 degree weather so my kids can go back to school and back to recess!

At least they got to play in the neighbor's igloo before the chinook: (These are from Sarah's cam--see post below.)

Nice, huh? I'm afraid to drive by the igloo after the melt. I hope it is still standing. It was really nice, it was carpeted and everything.


Inside the igloo

Sarah could really use some "self portrait" lessons from AH!!

Bring on the Sunshine!

So Sarah decided to turn 10 this year. What's up with being one decade old? Actually, one decade and one week, as her b-day was actually a week ago. I made her a cake: (It's always about the cake...and this one was really fast. It took about a half hour to decorate after baking the cake and making the modeling chocolate. It shows in the piping...definitely need to work on THOSE skills!)



And a scripture bag in her favorite colors.
Dad made her favorite meal: Terriyaki chicken wings.
She liked them a lot!



Then Dad lit the candles on her cake. Bring on the heat! This is the act that ended the cold snap of the decade!



Sarah got a camera, which she LOVES! She quickly emulated her role model, Abby. Abby is a Mia Maid who carries her camera everywhere and takes pictures of herself in every situation. Sarah quickly followed suit after taking a picture of everything around her! She wants to start her own blog now. We'll see. I'm having a hard enough time keeping up with mine! (Do 10 year olds need their own blogs?)


Maybe not, but they do need fairy books. Actually, this 10 year old just needs books, period. She LOVES to read. I don't know a soul like that. Books? What are they?



Happy Birthday, Sunshine! Thanks for bringing light and warmth to my world.

Rebecca's Nifty Knitting!

This is the first project that Rebecca knitted at Winterberry. Isn't it awesome? It took her quite a while to finish, but she did it. Most of her classmates learned to knit in kindygarten, but Rebecca was in boring old regular school while they were knitting holders for their wooden flutes. So, she had to learn fast, and knit even faster. It took her longer than most of the other kids, but it was still done in time for the "elephant parade" for the school. Rebecca loves her elephant, but can't decide what to name her. Vote on your favorite in the poll question!

Didn't she do a great job? Now her class is learning crochet. She learned to chain in one day, and is now doing rows. She would probably have comepleted an entire dishrag by now during handwork, but she hasn't been in school for many many days because of melting snow. (see above posts)

Great Job, R. Jane!