Some fun the last few weeks...

On January 29th, Joshua got to participate in the county wide 4-6th grade spelling bee.  It was held at COS.
He looked so handsome and even though he was nervous, did his very best and we were very proud of him.

The fifth grade gets to go to an outdoor school/camp in May. They earn money by selling tickets to a lasagna dinner in early February. 
Between the tickets sold prior to the dinner and at the door, as well as desserts sold and auctioned off, they made the $5,800 that they needed to go ot the camp.
Joshua worked so hard!!  He was great during the dinner serving, etc., but I was even more impressed come 6:30 p.m. when it was clean up time (and he hadn't been home since 7:40 that morning when he caught the bus)  and he was still going strong helping clear tables, fold up and put away tables and chairs, and doing whatever he could to help out.

One of the most exciting things about 1st grade - making rockets!!  Nathaniel made the coolest & tallest rocket - it ROCKED!!
He used water bottles, Lifewater bottles, a Powerade bottle (can you tell we'd had someone sick earlier in the week), Dad's Nexium bottles and Mom's potassium bottles (thank goodness for our prescriptions, right?) plus a cone for the top.
He had drawn a plan of it beforehand and colored each section how he wanted it painted and the teacher later spray painted it for him.

Tuesday morning, right before we were getting ready to head to Etna so I could help in Joshua's science lab this is what greeted me - Miss Grace in her baby stroller (her Christmas present from great-grandma Donna) - she looked so cute...then it was time to get out and she was STUCK!!  I told her she might have to wait until Daddy got home so he could get her out - that wasn't an idea that she thought was very good. She told me I'd just have to try and get her out...well, we did manage to get her out and she has decided that maybe that isn't the best place for her to sit and she'd leave it for Maggie (her favorite baby doll) and others.

Snow White - complete with tiara.  I can't remember what inspired her to but on her Snow White costume the other day - maybe she'd been watching Sofia the First again.
Anyway, she curtsied and was quite regal for awhile.

few fun things

A lot has gone in the past couple of weeks since my paternal grandfather passed away - but that is a post for another day - I'm not quite ready to do that one yet. So here are the kids and a few fun things from the past week or so.

Nathaniel and Grandpa Bruce (finally Grandpa was able to come to a Veteran's Day program at the school!  Joshua had been wanting that since we moved up here in 2008...and was sick and unable to go to school the day of the program - but Nathaniel was excited to have a Veteran there!)

Grace got her first reall haircut on Tuesday (as in by a professional, not Mommy)...bang trim and ends trimmed...and then she got her hair curled...she was so excited about it.  She then got to go spend a couple of hours at Grandma and Grandpa's and play with Geddy one last time before he had to go back to Utah - which she was thrilled about. She gave Geddy the flower (leftover from the flowers from her great-grandpa's funeral services over the weekend) and told me that she was going to give it to Ged, then he'd give it back to her and this was because she loved him and he loved her.  She then proceeded to have the whole conversation herself as we got ready to head to Etna that day.

She got a treat after her "short cut" (that is what she keeps telling us - that she went and got a short cut...and she didn't get much cut off - don't know where the short part is coming from :))

Yesterday was the school spelling bee for 4th and 5th graders. Last year Joshua, as a fourth grader, took 3rd. This year he achieved 1st place (he told me that it is his greatest achievement yet) and will go on to the county competition at C.O.S. at the end of January. He's got a lot of words to study :) He did a wonderful job...all the kids did. I never want the honor when I was in school and managed to make sure (though I spelled well) to not get into any of the competitions. Takes a lot of guts to get up in front of a lot of people and do this.

About Joshua...

Joshua's had a couple of busy days.  Yesterday was the Veteran's Day program at school.  He was chosen to sing a solo in one of the songs.  I videotaped it for Brian since he had rotation yesterday, but Grace was totally uncooperative so he may get seasick watching it, but you can hear the singing :)

Today was the school-wide spelling bee.  Joshua found out last week that he was going to get to be in it...there were 4 fourth graders and 4 fifth graders.  He came in third, 2 fifth grade girls got 1st & 2nd.  He got a trophy, but he doesn't have to study another big list of words (as he put it) for the county-wide competition in January. 

I'll do posts on Nathaniel and Grace later...