CATCHING UP!

Well, it has been a while since I posted. I really have good intentions but just don't get around to it as often as I should. We have had some fun things happen the past few weeks!

Ashlee won the school geography bee last week. Boy was she excited! The invitation to participate went out to all 4-6 graders in October. They were required to stay after school for one hour twice a week to study. She also had all kinds of maps to study at home. She spent a lot of time preparing for the big day and then.......poor thing......woke up sick! She had a sore throat, headache, stomach ache, and mild fever. She was devastated! I called her teacher and asked if I kept her home for the day, could she still come after school to participate. We were told that would be fine and off to bed Ashlee went. You know you child is "really" sick when they just want to sleep all day! I woke her up to get dressed and off we went. I really did not expect her to do well because she just felt awful. Before the test actually started, one of the judges decided to teach the kids some yoga exercises to help them loosen up. The first one was fine, just some basic deep breathing. But then she had them do this thing where they lifted their knees and touched it to the opposite elbow. That was OK...Ashlee just did it slowly. But then she wanted them to all bend over and touch their toes and then jog in place. I shook my head at Ash not to do it and the teacher teased her. Not to be mean!!! Just saying come on Ash....you need to try. I was about to tell her that she was sick when she told them to stop and they started the test. Ashlee was a little upset that she was singled out but she quickly forgot....thank goodness! Round 1 consisted of 7 mini rounds. They went through each child and asked a question. This happened seven times. Those children who got 3 of the 7 questions correct moved on. Ashlee got 5 right. In the second round the judge kept asking questions. You remained in until you missed two questions. This kept going until there were only 2 kids left. It didn't take long. I don't know who in the world would know the answers to most that stuff. The ones they got to use a map on were much easier but the other stuff was really hard. Ashlee was one of the final two. In the championship round they asked three questions. The child who answers the most correct, wins. If there is a tie, they play a sudden death round. Well, there was certainly a tie.....0 to 0! These question were a killer! That put it into sudden death. The first person to get a correct answer, won. The second photo is Ashlee holding up the winning answer! Not to take away from the fact that she is one smart cookie....but she sure got lucky on her question. Dave is from Argentina and Ashlee is fascinated with that fact and looks at the map of south America often. The question was " The Yamana are a people indigenous of Tierra del Fuego, an island at the southernmost point in south America that is divided between Argentina and what country to the west?" What??? I could not even pronounce half that question! Now it is not like she knew anything about the Yamana people but they had been taught that there are clues to the answers within the body of the question. She knew right away what country was to the west of Argentina so woo hoo....we have a winner! She received a medal and her Dad got her a rose. She was beaming....sick and all! Now she has to take a 100 question test and the top 100 students compete in a state competition. I would surely loose!!!

Are you wondering why Brandon is attempting to fix the wall in our basement??? That is our attempt to teach him not to break it! A few weeks ago Brandon and a friend were playing the Wii. (that is usually a mistake.....Brandon does better when he plays the Wii alone) The other boy heard me say to turn it off and he went to do that and Brandon told him NO!!! He wanted to save his stuff but the other boy either did not hear him fast enough or chose not to listen. (that part of the story has been hard to figure out since everyone in the room told me something different!) Either way, Brandon went into mass hysteria....something we have tried to remind him never works out in his favor....and went running through the room and headed up the stairs. He tripped over something right at the bottom of the stairs and fell into the wall. The wall did not stand up well against the force of his knee. He was then mad that the Wii got turned off and even madder that he had to come tell me that he broke the wall! Actually, this is not too unusual. Sad, I know, but my little Brandon is a bundle of excitement and is usually in the middle of something. Remember the ditch that just "broke" and he fell in??? So I went downstairs with him and let him know that throwing a tantrum is not the best way of dealing with things and he was going to have to pay for the repair. He said, "Well, I don't have a hundred, million dollars!" and ran upstairs. He was quite relieved to learn that he only had to pay a measly $20 and help do the work. This is a skill that will come in handy as this is not the first time he has broken the wall! I could kick myself for not getting a before shot! This is step 1 in fixing the drywall.




Random thought for the day.....

Preschool kids say the darnedest things! Today, after the Pledge of Allegiance, we talked about the United States having a new president. One girl, quite upset, said " What happened to President Monson? Did he die like President Hinkley?" I then had to explain the difference between the President of the United States and the President of the Church. She was quite relieved to learn that President Monson"still owns the church." Needless to say I did not get as much done with our winter fun theme in that class I would have liked to! It's a good thing all the kids are members. Try explaining to parents!