AWANA Grand Prix 2015

This winter the kids and PopPop were so excited about the AWANA Grand Prix!

On Jan 10th they started making their cars.

Last year PopPop enjoyed the race so much that he wanted to join Mig so they could race together! Mig is too young to do the Grand Prix unless he races with a grown up. PopPop and Mig decided to make a mustache car!

By the end of the weekend the cars looked like this:

The big race was on February 7th! Selah's group was up first!

Her car was fast! She came in 5th place out of lots of kids!

Then she brought home a 2nd place trophy for AWANA design!!

Next up was Gabe's group!

Each racer gets a card with their name, racing number and three boxes on it. If your car comes in one of the last places in your heat, you get an X on a box. When your card is full of X's, you are done racing. Gabe was so happy! In the past two races, he got his three strikes right away. This year he came in around 8th place!

The last race was PopPop and Mig's race.

Their car did well, too! They came in 7th place....

AND brought home the 3rd place trophy for AWANA design!!

Faith thought it was all super fun!

And she loved snuggling with PopPop!

And here are the races on video!

The races were so fun and exciting!! The kids are already planning next year's cars!

100th Day of School 2015

On February 6, we celebrated 100 Days of Homeschool!

We started by singing Psalm 100:1-2 by the Rizers. Then we took our Spelling Tests. The kids wanted to know how that was part of the 100th day of school. I told them that it was because they would make 100's on their test. Which they did!! 

Next, we played Roll a Hundred. Each child took a turn rolling two dice, adding up the number and dotting that many on a hundred chart. The first one to dot to one hundred won. Gabe won the game. 

Selah doesn't lose very gracefully - so her eyes are a little red in the next picture - but I promise - they all had fun! 

These are our 100 snacks - a HoHo and chocolate donuts. Not healthy at all, but totally fun!

Next, we made hats! Even Faith had fun with this!

Each hat had 10 strips of paper, and each strip had 10 stickers - so 100 stickers on each hat!

Gabe and Selah also had some fun 100 trivia worksheets. Last, we went to McDonald's for lunch and to Wal-Mart for a short list. At Wal-Mart I had the kids search for 100s. I am so proud of everything the kids have learned this year. Homeschooling has not been easy - we had the trip to China to break our momentum and now a toddler in the mix, so it was nice to celebrate all that has gone well and all they have done despite the "distractions".  It was a fun day!! 

2 Months as a Serna

On January 25th, Faith celebrated being a part of our family for 2 months. 

My how she had changed already!! Smiles came easier, she is gaining weight and she is learning our routines.

Eggs and yogurt are still favorite foods, but now she also likes a lot of new things, like peanuts. 

She LOVES to give kisses - and who could resist those puffy cheeks?!?

She is also so much more comfortable with Dada!

We can't imagine life without her!

Our New Year Celebration

We had a fun New Year Celebration!!

Like last year we incorporated a little bit of the Chinese New Year Celebration with our New Year - of course this year we are also planning a Chinese New Year dinner, too. 

We ate egg rolls, Chinese dumplings and fried rice and the girls wore their silk dresses from China.

After dinner each of us got a red envelope filled with money. We took them outside and hid them in the backyard - the next morning we brought the envelope and money in. This merges the red envelope tradition of China with my family's tradition of bringing money in on the new year. (I think it is an Irish tradition.)

Once our envelopes were hidden we started our game night!! For the last three years we have done Minute to Win It Game Night on New Year's Eve. This year I got our games from The Idea Room.

Our first game was The Countdown Knockdown. We had to knock over 12 cups arranged like a clock using only the ball inside a pair of pantyhose, which we wore on our heads. 

HILARIOUS FUN!

We also played "Drop Around the Clock" 

We used straws to pick up and place M&M's around a clock face. 

Here the kids are playing "The Final Countdown" - moving a colored cup up the stack by only moving one cup at a time.

This is "Tick Tock, Tic Tacs". In this game we moved one tic tac at a time, from one paper to the other,  using tweezers. 

We also played "Ball Drop" and "Time Flies". It was so much fun!

After our games, we headed downstairs to ring in the New Year with noise makers, poppers and singing Auld Lang Syne. 

Faith took the "4" off of our banner to reveal the "5" for 2015.

We are ready for an exciting New Year!!

I usually do a post about our top ten moments of the previous year, but since this post is over a month past the new year, and since adding our precious Faith to the family is the obvious #1 moment of the year, I decided not to do our top moments this year. However, I look forward to the moments that will be considered for our top ten this year! 

More Christmas!

I have more pictures from our Christmas. Actually, I totally forgot them on my last post. Can't believe it! We had some more sweet moments on Christmas that I just had to share. 

First, Christmas was also the 1 month anniversary of Faith's adoption day!

I just adore that sweet smile!

If you remember, in China, Faith would not let Byron hold her. After we came home Faith would still not let Byron hold her, touch her, sometimes even look at her. There were real attachment issues going on. Finally on December 20th, Faith held out her hands for Dada to hold her, and continued going to him all day! It was a precious moment for the two of them!

By Christmas Faith was getting much more comfortable with Daddy!

But is still a Mommy's Girl!

Mig asked us for a full Darth Vader costume for Christmas. He is the cutest Darth Vader EVER!!

My favorite moment this Christmas was watching Byron teach his sons how to "shave".

Both boys received shaving cream and blade-less razors in their stockings. They had so much fun with them!

It was a really sweet moment!

Mig needed a shave again the next day. Ha! They grow up so fast!!

Such a fun Christmas at home with our crew!