Awana Grand Prix

Ellie and Austin competed in the Awana Grand Prix again this year.  They worked hard painting and designing their cars and John worked hard to increase the car speed over last year.  He worked with a friend from church on the axles, wheels and weight of the cars.  All of the work paid off!

Austin chose to make his car look like a skateboard ramp, complete with a skateboarder and boombox on it.

Ellie painted hers with with bright colored polka-dots and then glued seven little animals on it.
Austin won 2nd place for Design and 2nd place for Speed in his age group.

Ellie won 3rd place for Speed in her age group.

Crepes

So we've had a jar of Nutella in the pantry for quite a while.  The kids have been afraid to try it - not sure why they are afraid of chocolate, though.

John made some crepe batter last night and that came in handy this morning since the kids and I are home because of the ice storm.  I made the crepes and put Nutella in the middle.  Austin LOVED them.  He ate 3!

Ellie cried about it and didn't want to eat hers.  Eventually she ate it, but did not want any more so she ended her breakfast with Cheerios.

I was proud of Austin for trying something new!

Reading

My friend Jill is working on her Reading Endorsement and needs to do 15 hours of tutoring to complete one of her classes.  I volunteered Ellie to be her tutoring "guinea pig".

After her first session with Jill at the library, we got Ellie her very own library card and she checked out five books.  She read in the car all the way home and then proceeded to read to her brother!  I loved that she had been inspired to read.

Tae Kwon Do

The kids started Tae Kwon Do a few weeks ago.  They are learning lots of different kicks and a few punches.  I was a little concerned about Ellie liking it, because she really likes "girl stuff" and Tae Kwon Do would be mostly boys.  So far, so good, though.  There are three instructors (college age) and one of them is a girl!  There are also three other girls in the class.  Austin is actually not old enough to take the class, but they let him try it to see how he did and of course he did great.  So, he's the only 4 year old in the class.

Here they are showing off their new uniforms.

Our new security system

Recently we had a new security system installed...a Power Ranger that uses a Star Wars light saber to fight off any intruders!  

Who's in charge?

Often in our house, I ask the kids the question "who's in charge?" when they are not listening.  The answer used to be "Mom" or "Dad".  Nowadays, when I ask Austin the same question, he points his finger to the sky and says "God".  I can't argue with that!

Chocolate Unicorn

During our Christmas celebration with Nana and Pop this year, we played a few Minute to Win It games.  It turned out to be lots of fun.  The big story of the event was Pop was able to blow 51 cards off of the top of a bottle leaving ONLY ONE CARD!!  Way to to, Pop!

We also played a game called Chocolate Unicorn.  This game involved balancing Ding Dongs on your forehead. You had to stack 7 Ding Dongs and they had to stay there for three seconds.  My sister was the winner of that one!