Homeschool Spelling Bee 2019

January is the start of Spelling Bee season! 

In January schools all over the nation start having their local competitions. We have loved participating in the local homeschool Spelling Bee for the last 4 years. 

This year was Mig's first year to join in. He did a great job!!

Mig sailed through 4 rounds spelling "burp", "robe", "tiptoe", "sloth", and "factory" correctly before being eliminated in the 5th round on the word "lore".

This was Gabe's last year to participate. He also did great, correctly spelling "yard", "after", "view", "quest", and "gravity" before being eliminated with the word "creatures". 

Selah was one of the last 5 spellers in the contest. She moved all the way into the 10th round before misspelling a word. It was quite impressive!! She spelled "game", "grade", "relax", "royal", "scratched", "sprouted", "mirror", "Japanese", "mockingly", "writhing". Her final word was "humanitarian", which she spelled "humanitarion". 

The bee was won with the word, "cologne". 

After the bee we went to IHOP and Mig didn't finish his pancake...that was our first clue that something was wrong. By the time the rest of us were finished, he started running a fever. For the next 2 weeks the flu would run through our family. January is the start of Spelling Bee season, but it  is also Flu Season. 

Our Goodbye to 2018

We always have fun celebrating New Year's Eve! This year we started by making our own personal pizzas for dinner. 

For the last 5 or 6 years we have celebrated with Minute-to-Win-It games and we always play boys versus girls and the boys always win!

Our favorite game this year was trying to get a cookie from our forehead to our mouth without using our hands. It could only fall to the floor 3 times. This was hard!!

Mig got so close!

It takes a lot of concentration and many different facial expressions. 

I was the only one who was successful!

In this one, we had to scoot a black-eyed pea off the table with a party blower. 

In the final game, the parents had to pass each other chocolate kisses from mouth to mouth and set them up with the flags up. This one was so embarrassing for the kids!! They continued to shout, "Ew!! Gross!!" It was awesome!

 The boys won again!

I love how Selah is just enjoying the moment here..Faith was getting sleepy.

 Mig and Faith went to bed after ringing in the new year at 10:00. The two big kids stayed up until midnight for the first time! We add had a great time! 

Welcome 2019!!!

Christmas 2018

This Christmas was a fun one! Santa was good to all of the kids.

He brought Gabe a board game he has had his eye on,

Selah a laptop for school,

Mig a toy drone,

Faith an Asian family for her dollhouse,

Adrik a cool helmet and knee pads,

CharliKate a horse,

and Tali ballet slippers.

After opening Santa's gifts and our stockings we had a lovely brunch of biscuits and gravy, cinnamon rolls and fruit. Then we opened gifts from each other. We always open gifts in order from youngest to oldest.

Selah, Faith and Mig all received terrariums containing snails from the Stepanovs.

We have a dungeon master.

Selah made super thoughtful gifts for everyone this year. 

 One of Selah's paintings for the Stepanov family.

Wearing the scarf Selah gave me:

The boys have been learning woodworking from our neighbor, Mr. Ron. This year he helped them make us Christmas gifts and they are amazing!

Gabe made a beautiful mantel clock:

And Mig made an airplane shelf that looks awesome in Byron's study!

Faith's favorite gift was definitely her snail. She named him Taco after the Cowboy football player Taco Charlton. Not because Taco is slow...but because she thinks he is a cool guy with a cool name and her snail is really cool, too. 

We had tamales for dinner and everyone had fun the rest of the afternoon with their gifts. 

The best thing about Christmas is all of the family time. Such a fun Christmas!