Battle of the Books!

Elise participated in the Battle of the Books at Winterpock.  She was chosen to be the team captain because she read 18 of the 25 chapter books.  You had to read 10 & pass a test on each book to be on a team.  Her team came in 4th, but I was so proud of Elise because she was a great contributor & buzzed in quite a bit with the right answers.  We also found out a few days later that the librarian & the BOB qualifiers voted her to be on the county competition team!!!!  Only 8 students were chosen for that.  WAY TO GO ELISE!  She's reading two more books to prepare for the competition that will take place in April.  Super proud of her. Her team called United Unicorns is on the left.  Here's a video of her answering a question, too.

Dian Fossey

In 2nd grade at Winterpock, the kids prepare to be a famous American in a wax museum.  I saw Elvis, lots of sports stars, Thomas Edison, three Susan B Anthonys, a Betsey Ross, a few Steve Jobs, Pocahontas, Walt Disney, and others. Sadie chose to be Dian Fossey.  Who's that you ask?  She wrote the book, 'Gorilla's in the Mist' after studying mountain gorillas in Africa for 18 years.   Sadie really wanted to be Jane Goodall, but she is English.  Can you guess why Sadie was interested in these two ladies?
Here she is:

 Notice her red button?  Here she is being very serious and reading her lines. 

She said making the jungle was hard and drawing a gorilla in the backdrop was even harder.  It's hard to see it, but she also dress her house.  I loved how she took the initiative to pick out her own unique American and I also loved how easy the outfit was.  It sure beats Elvis!!

 

 

 

Time flies...

Here's a few highlights since October~

 Pumpkin patch

 Fall bike ride in Farmville

 Sadie is October's Core Value Student!!

 Anabelle is October's Student of the Month!!

 Anabelle turns 12!

 Anabelle made it into the school play

 Last year for Tacky Light Tour...over 43,000 lights this year!

 Passing out candy canes to cars at night

 Voila!

 Our first year at Bevell's Hardware for the train display.  So cool

 My beauties before church on Christmas Eve

Made lots of cookies and hot cocoa

Christmas Spirit Team preparing for action

January trip to Wintergreen! 

Sadie Turns 8!!

 This year Sadie had a party at a local pottery place.  They made really cute jack-o-lanterns out of clay and painted them. 

We sure love our sweet Sadie. She's definintely her own person with her own sense of style. If there's one kid who's going to express themselves through their clothing and not worry about what other people think, it'll be Sadie. Check out her birthday outfit.

Here's some other examples of our little eccentric :0)

 She wore this spider all day at school.

We found her wearing these in her sleep.



 At least she's wearing a helmet :0)

Halloween

 Okay...it's almost Thanksgiving, so it's time to post our Halloween pictures :0).  Elise was Cookie Monster, Sadie a Monkey, and Anabelle The Bride of Frankenstein.

Fall Hues

 I just can't get enough of the colors at this time of the year.  I find myself being hypnotized by it.  Here are a few pictures I snapped one day in our neighborhood.  I just couldn't drive by without trying to capture what I enjoy most about the season.

 These pictures were taken on High Bridge Trail in Farmville.  I'll post about that adventure later :0).  Even though we missed the peak of the leaves, the colors were still worth admiring.

Rocks & Sticks

So the kids had an early release day and we didn't make any plans.  After some squabbles about what we should do on a beautiful fall day, I decided we would compromise and do one small thing on each person's list.  For Anabelle, we went to Target to look at shoes.  For Sadie, we got ice cream.  For Elise, we played outside and for me, we walked through the woods.  Despite the bumpy start, it ended up being a great afternoon.  My favorite part was when I took the kids to a little spot by the reservoir to eat our ice cream.  At first, we all sat there on the dock, but after a few minutes of chatting, the girls started throwing rocks and trying to see who could make the biggest splash.  Then that turned into finding the biggest rock which turned into digging in the mud to pull out those rocks.  Then that turned into making tools to pull out the rocks.  Which turned into who could come up with the coolest collection of rocks.  I really enjoyed watching my girls play.  I think lots of children don't have opportunities to do that or just choose not to...especially middle schoolers.  Sadly, play takes a backseat to phones, TV, and video games.  I was such a proud mom watching my girls just be.  It was so wonderful for me to see their play develop and change; to see them interact with each other and have fun outside on such a beautiful day~