Boat Race!

Last night was the annual Sparkie/Cubbie Yacht race at church. All the kids get a kit, and make a "yacht" at home, to take part in the race. The boats are all kid powered--with hot air! Something our kids seem to have a lot of. Since Dad is a woodshop teacher, of course, these boats were streamlined, aerodynamic (or would that be hydrodynamic?) pieces of engineering masterpiece! They enjoyed all the huffing and puffing and had a great evening.

Bad Things and Busy Things

"Mom, why are all these bad things happening?" Deep question from a 10 yr old. The New Year has brought a series of events which at least one of my children views as "bad things". It's very easy to read Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good, for them who love God and are called, according to His purpose", but it is much harder to live that out in the middle of "bad things". Yet it is the KNOWING that gets us through.

Along with the 'bad things' we have had lots of busy things keeping us occupied. Hannah started violin lessons with a new teacher. This means one private AND one group lesson per week. More time out of the house! Rebekah and Hannah are both playing in our school's strings class this session, and that means lots more violin practicing!

Rebekah is in the middle of getting braces. . . . lots of appointments for x-rays, dentist visits, orthodontist visits, and she hasn't even gotten the actual hardware on the teeth yet! Some of the appointments are a bit scary, and many are the "hurry up and wait for the next appointment" type too.

Emily is looking forward to the annual jr high "film festival" night at church. The kids all make videos/films of each other/themselves, and then have a fancy evening when they view them all, and of course, get awards! The last 2 weeks have been full of get togethers for filming. She is in 2 films that I know of. I for one, would really like to see "Junior High School Musical"!

Not to be outdone, the boys have had their bit of excitement too. They both had nails torn off! Jesse is now missing his big toenail, and Johnny is missing half a fingernail. And these um, "trophies" didn't happen on the same day either! Jesse and Johnny had to work together to get that big toenail off, but apparently, Johnny managed to rip half his fingernail off by himself.

Someday I'll get the pictures out of my camera, from our trip up north. Sadly, the battery in my camera died our 2nd day there, so there aren't many pictures anyway. Note to self. . . remember to pack the battery charger next time.

Teacher of the year--AGAIN!

More Teacher of the Year stuff : ) John's video is now on the Orange County Dept of Ed's website! Very exciting!!! It does say that the video is 30 minutes long, but John is on first, so you don't have to watch the whole thing (the other teachers are great too though!). The first part of the video is an intro by the superintendant, then is a very inspiring song for the occasion, with a 'video montage' of all the nominees. Next are the "winner" individual videos and John's is first.

http://www.ocde.us/spotlight.asp

Enjoy!

Happy New Ears!!!

The clever title must be credited to my good friend Julie. Or should I say the awful pun was her idea?! Either way, two of my girls are sporting new ears this new years. Yes, Emily and Hannah decided the time had come to get their ears pierced. Truth be told, Hannah did it first. Both of them have been going back and forth about it for months now. I think Hannah's bravery inspired Emily to jump on the bandwagon.

Ready, aim, err. . . . .


Finished product, and still smiling!

Ready with my courage all together!
Not so sure about this part

Finished product here!

I have to say that I was very proud of Rebekah through all this. She didn't have any interest in having her ears pierced, and stuck to that belief. Didn't feel left out either. As we left the store, I had 2 girls with new earrings, and one with very cool new sunglasses!