Elite 8 for the Radical Reading Rockstars

The "Radical Reading Rockstars"  had the Regional Battle of the Books Competition this Saturday. They made to to the Elite 8 round of the competition. For Battle of the Books the kids read 15 books and then are quizzed on the books. The questions are difficult, most likely things you would not remember in reading the book once. In the first two rounds of competition their team won by 40 and 50 points. In the next round they played a much larger private school and won by 5. In their last round, they played OES. another private school.  They tied--neither team missed a question. So it went to 4 challenge questions and Allie's team missed the very last one. It was information from the afterward in the book.
This is such a great group of girls. They worked hard reading and re-reading the books and spending lunch recesses preparing. Our school librarian really spent a lot of time helping them prepare.  They set a school record for how far they got. As a side note,  the school that barely beat them charges $30,000 a year for tuition. Way to represent public schools!

Picnic

Last week we had sunshine and tolerable temperatures. Kate and I had a picnic after our trip to OMSI. Can you tell she isn't used to sunshine?

Battle of the Books

Allie's team won their school "Battle of the Books" competition so Michael said that she could pick a restaurant to go to celebrate. (For Battle of the Books the kids read 10-15 books and then teams compete answers questions about the books) She chose Olive Garden because she loves their soup and salad. We all had fun except for Kate who was tired and thought the restaurant was too loud. Now Allie's team is on to Regionals in a week!



Even tough it was several days past her birthday, Kate was still wearing her happy birthday hat.

Blue and Gold Dinner

Luke was supposed to bring a bug themed dessert to the cub scout dinner. We made spider cupcakes together. We found the cupcake idea on Pinterest. He wanted to do Black Widows, so we used fruit roll ups,  chocolate cupcakes, and candy eyeballs. (Man, those things come in handy) We used chocolate covered pocky that she cut and "glued" together with melted chocolate chips.





We took a picture of Luke and used it for the display.

More Basketball Highlights

I know I've already posted pictures of Luke playing basketball, but I just love it. I think watching basketball is so much fun. These are highlights from his game on Kate's birthday. He played a team that had a couple of buddies from school on it so it was even more fun. I didn't know Luke could jump so high!

Kate's Birthday part 2

The cool thing about having your birthday on the weekend is that it really gets to drag out.
Kate chose Elmo cupcakes to bring to preschool. She has almost grown out of Elmo, but not yet. Speaking of Elmo, Michael and I watched the documentary on Kevin Clash (the Elmo puppeteer) and it was really interesting. It was cool to hear his story and see into the making of the muppets.



Many thanks to a friend that showed me this idea on Pinterest. I simplified with jelly beans and candy eyeballs from Target. I bought an extra pack for my food storage. You never know when you might need candy eyeballs.




She wore this hat for days.

Kate's 4th Birthday

Kate has been ready for her birthday since Christmas. She woke up singing "Happy Birthday to Me" We started the day with her favorite--donuts! Especially blue donuts. Kate is never all that interested in eating, but donuts are what she really gets excited about.





Then we went to John's Incredible Pizza. There is one on the way to Costco, and since October, everytime we drive by it Kate says she wants to go there. It is painted blue, yellow and purple outside. She would says, "Mom! Let's go there! That's a place for me!" So in November we told her she could go there for her birthday. And she remembered. It was actually pretty fun. Kate was a bargain too because she was content to pretend to play the games instead of putting money in. I think her favorite part was the icee machine!



We took a break in partying for Luke's basketball game and then opened presents. Kate really wanted the trucks from Bob the Builder.  We couldn't find them, but we found this set instead. In this picture, Allie is telling her who Scoop, Muck & Dizzy, etc are with their "new paint jobs"





We got her an easel. (I know it's not the smartest thing to buy right before a move, but Kate sure loves it) She was so funny when opening it. She kept saying over and over again, "Don't tell me what it is". When she got it unwrapped she looked at it and said, "What is it?"





Kate requested a Dinosaur Cake this year. It was delicious.

Valentine's Day

I'm learning that Valentine's is a tricky holiday for little boys. Luke brought a giant heart home that he had to decorate for school. Went through lots of ideas of what he could do involving hearts, glitter, etc. but he didn't approve. Eventually it went back with pictures that he drew of ninjas, star wars guys and indiana jones. Nothing says "I love you" like ninjas.
Thankfully, Pinterest had some good Valentine's card ideas that Luke approved of.


Luke thought it was funny to give the cockroaches and scorpions to the girls.



Kate of course wanted to make the same Valentines for her preschool class. She always says she wants to be "Big like Luke" and do everything that he does.




I always have the kids write personal notes to the kids in their class. Here are some of the favorites that Luke write. And in case you are wondering, there isn't another kid named Luke in the class. He wrote one to himself. I think he has pretty good self-esteem. I'm happy to see that he signed his name with his "happy face u" He always did that in 1st grade, but doesn't do it as much in 2nd grade. He is too tough now.



The finished project.



***Allie is not pictured because her class did not exchange Valentines. Instead that had a secret friend for a week that the sent notes and treats to. I didn't get a picture of that!