Trek Book 1 ~ DONE!

Boo finished her first AWANA Trek book this past Sunday night! It is written to be finished at the end of May. She has been working extra hard & is done 7 months early! I'm very proud of her!

As you can see by her smile she is very proud & happy too!

And of course she wouldn't be Boo Bear if she wasn't a little silly. Lol!

Congratulations, Boo Bear! Daddy & Mama are VERY proud of you!

Very Proud!

I am bursting with pride! Boo Bear competed in the AWANA Quiz Team Competition for the very first time. She was extremely nervous though she had studied for weeks. She was paired up with her friend that challenges her the most at AWANA. They were an amazing team! They only missed one question in the first round. In the 2nd round they "challenged out" which means not only did they answer the top amount of questions but gained bonus points for doing so. Her teacher told me this is the first time their group has ever done this! WOW! They ended up winning FIRST PLACE in their division! Go, Boo Bear! I thought she would do well but she exceeded my expectations! She was beaming & if it wasn't for the "golf game" cheering environment I would have been doing cartwheels & whooping as I twirled! LOL!

I forgot my camera but made sure to take pics when we came home.

So happy!

Her medal

Yay, Boo Bear!

Another division in her group won 1st place as well. They earned their medals plus a plaque for the church to display. The other divisions all placed too. It was a great day!

I was so impressed at this competition. These boys & girls really had to work hard in order to compete. They had to remember specific details from Bible verses, details about people in the Bible & lessons from their AWANA books. They also had to quote Scripture word for word often matching reference to the verses. It was very impressive & also inspiring. I don't know many adults, myself included, who could have stood ground in this competition. How wonderful to see our children learning about God & hiding His Word in their hearts.

I'm extremely proud of you Boo Bear! I love you!

AWANA Award Night

At the end of May our church's AWANA program wrapped up the year with an Awards Night. The kids had been eagerly anticipating this as they would earn more patches & ribbons. Sweet Pea had a End of the School Year Bash to attend for the middle school & high schoolers. The girls were all asked to bring a treat & the boys a drink. She made a spice cake from scratch.

All ready for a big night.

Bugs marching into the sanctuary with his Cubbies group.

Getting ready to sing their song.

Singing their Cubbies Song. Adorable song!

Receiving his award & certificate.

Boo's turn.

Posing with her ribbon.

So grown up!

It's now time for Elvis' group.

Proudly showing his ribbon.

As we were leaving Princess made this funny face

The kids thought she was very funny.



It was a fun night & Dave and I were very proud of our youngsters.

They can hardly wait for AWANA to start up again!

AWANA Games

It's taken me awhile to get these photos downloaded & posted. But smile! They are finally here! =)
As many of you know Boo Bear participated in her first AWANA Games the last Saturday in Feb. She was asked to be on the team after her teachers saw how fast she was in the regular Wed. night games. After that she attended Friday night practices and had fun learning the games & gaining faster speeds & skills.
We caravaned with the rest of the crew on that Saturday. The games were held at a high school in Nashville. We let Boo Bear ride the church bus and she was super excited about that. Once we all arrived the team stuck together, warmed up, and then sat together to wait for the younger kids, (the Sparks), to compete. We waved from the bleachers as they marched in and then enjoyed the games.

A Proud Boo Bear

CRAZY!

This game was insane. The teams (each church had a team) each lined up on their own colored line. When the whistle was blown they crawled as fast as they could to the opposite colored line. The goal was to have their entire team all lined up on the opposite line and be the first to do so. I was certain someone was going to crack heads as they raced as fast as they could straight towards the middle. They even played it twice! By some miracle no one was hurt. As a bonus our church team won both times! Yay!



In this game they ran around the circle with a beanbag on their head. If it fell off they had to stop until they got it back on again. The first team to have all their members do this and then run and grab the pin in the middle won. We won one of these.

Our cheering squad.

They had these pom poms for sale for $1 each at the door. Our teams' color was red. We had fun cheering with them.

I love Bugsy's face in this pic.

Go, Team, Go!

Daddy & Bugs

Mommy, Baby & Bugs

She's pulling my chain here. LOL!

Here come our older team! Rah! Rah!

There's our Boo Bear! (on the right)

Boo is 2nd from the right here in red.

This game they lined up & the person standing alone had to toss the beanbag back & forth to each team member in line. Boy were they fast!

Here they go!

This time the team lined up 4 players. They each took a turn running as fast as they could to the middle to pick up the beanbag and then give it to their team member. (BTW, when they were playing these relays 3 other teams were doing the same thing at the same time. To see who was done first, once they finished they had to run to the middle and pick up the bowling pin.)

Boo in the 3-legged race.

In this game they had to hit the balloon over their team line.

No kicking allowed & the balloon had to stay in the air.

Love this little boy!

The whole event lasted 6 hours. A LONG TIME to sit in those bleachers. Near the end we were getting bored of sitting and frankly I was very sore from sitting. The boys had some fun goofing off while we waited for scores to be tallied and such.

Bugs goofing off in the bleachers.

More horsing around with Daddy.

Boo Bear's team won FIRST PLACE in her division! I can't even tell you how happy she was! It was a fabulous experience for her and I hope she can do it again next year.

I didn't get a chance to get a pic of Boo & her medal. I need to do that soon! They did proudly wear their shirts & medals to AWANA the following week. They were going to wear them to church on Sunday but we had snow & church was cancelled.

CONGRATULATIONS BOO BEAR! We are all very proud of you!

Keeping Busy

Some snapshots of school this week & last. Sweet Pea also started her Apologia CD-Rom. She loves it! I'm very pleased with this as it not only makes things easier for me but it motivates her to complete her science assignments. Definitely worth every penny. I didn't get shots of Biology or the many baking projects the kids completed. They made muffins, cupcakes, cake & cookies. Sweet Pea also made dinner for us many times this week. But here is proof that we ARE doing school! LOL! =)

Bugs works on some puzzles while I do math & Explode the Code with Boo & Elvis.



Explode the Code.........he is motivated to finish Book 3 and move on to Book 4. Love this program!



I wrote lesson plans for Sweet Pea in between helping Boo & Elvis. I found she works best if I give her specific assignments and specific days.

Coloring Time!

We started reading & discussing The Light & The Glory. While I read & we talked the kids colored pictures I had printed off the Internet. Hopefully our scanner will be working soon & I can use the pics from the Light & Glory coloring book.

Bugs joined in for a few minutes at least. =)

One of their completed pics.

I had to crop it as I forgot they had written their names on the front of their papers. I was impressed on all that they remembered from our discussion & reading even the next day.

Bugs wanted to show his off too.

Math Time

Our counting blocks are still packed away somewhere. But the beauty of it is that we can use pretty much anything to count, right? We grabbed some matchbox cars and were back in business!

Elvis used these cars to do some abstract math. He really got it seeing the numbers come to life.

He did almost all of it on his own. I was impressed! I think he is ready for some tougher math but I don't want to skip the in between parts. We'll just work a little faster to catch up from the time we took off for our move & illnesses.

The three younger kids went to AWANA again this week & Sweet Pea went to youth group. They were all so excited when they returned home. Boo & Bugs had successfully recited their memory verses to their teachers. I was proud of both of them. This is the first time Bugs has ever done anything like that! Elvis had lost his paper so he didn't have his verse memorized. His teacher was very understanding as this was only his 2nd time there. He did however have a blast during game time. Sweet Pea came home all pumped up from the message her youth pastor had preached. She has a real heart to win those she loves to Christ. She even made her own t-shirt last week and it declares, "Will you fight for Christ with me?" I love seeing her heart on fire for the Lord. The kids are all having a great time in their Sunday school, AWANA & youth group classes.