Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl 2014

Last weekend, Hannah's Reading Bowl team participated in their big competition. The team did a great job! Our team size doubled this year. Last year we had about 7 kids on the team, but as the competition date arrived, we lost a few and ended up with 5 students, which was the minimum. This year we had as many as 14 or 15 students during the year, but by the time the competition rolled around, we were down to 11. Of course, we could only have a maximum of 10 students, so we had to use a point system this year. Students earned points for each book they read and each set of practice questions that they wrote as well as for each practice they attended.


Here is this year's team with our beautiful banner.

Hannah and a friend waiting for the round to begin.

My beautiful daughter.

Let's get this round started!

 

 

The teams waiting for the award ceremony. 

Hanging out.

The team with their participation trophy. They didn't place in the event, but they scored 100 points higher than last year. That's 10 questions!

New House - Main Floor

We've been in our new house for a little over 3 months now. I was rereading some of my older posts & realized that I haven't posted any interior pictures as promised. Since the house was clean, I took pictures of the rooms on the main floor.

Entry Way - here is the front door & entry way. The French doors were just installed before Christmas. That room was a formal living room. We enclosed it & make a main floor guest room. Who uses a formal living room these days???

 

French doors are open here. 

 

 

View from the front door of stairway. The landing upstairs is very large, so we have quite a few boxes waiting to be unpacked up there. 

 

 

View of the stairs. 

 

 

View from the hallway of the front door/entry way. 

Powder room located off of the hallway/entry area.

Here is the guest room. It's not finished yet. We still need some furniture.

Another view of the guest room.

The hallway from the entry leads to the kitchen. We have a nice large, eating area that needs some furniture.

View of the kitchen from the eating area.

View from the kitchen of the eating area. Our living room is on the other side of the eating area.

More kitchen.

Kitchen view from the dining room.

The dining room is located between the kitchen & the guest room.

Living Room/Great Room view from kitchen.

Another view.

This view shows how high the ceilings are.

My pictures of the laundry room didn't turn out too good, so I chose not to include them.

So there you have it! The first floor of our new house.

Best Birthday Gift Ever!

My birthday was a few days ago. About a week before my birthday, my husband told me that he had something planned. I am not a fan of surprise parties, so I began to worry. He finally said that some friends were coming over on my birthday. We would have drinks at our house, then go out to dinner. He was a bit vague about who was coming and said it was hard to tell because not everyone had RSVP'd yet.

Over the next few days, my husband spent several hours cleaning and unpacking boxes in the basement. I figured that some of the guests he had invited haven't seen our new house yet. I always like my house to be clean for first time guests, so I did a lot of cleaning, too.

The day of my birthday arrived. I planned to finish up the cleaning, then go shopping for a new outfit for my birthday dinner. Plus go out to lunch with the kids. Chris told me to make sure that I was home by 3:30 -4:00. I did think that was a bit early to go for dinner, but I do have some friends that work early shifts, so that wasn't too unrealistic.

At 1pm, the kids were still asleep. I went to the garage to throw something away & noticed that my car wasn't there. I texted Chris & asked him why he had taken my car instead one of the other two like he usually does. He replied saying that he thought that my car still needed its emission test, so he was going to do that on his lunch break. (For some reason, all 3 of our cars have tags that expire on my birthday, not his!) I wasn't too happy, but I wasn't stuck at home, so things were ok. Finally, after 2, the kids finally woke up. They both gave me a cheery "Happy Birthday, Mom". But I barked at them because since they woke up so late, we didn't have enough time to go out & have lunch or shop.

I sat in my clean living room & played games on my tablet.

Around 3:30 or so, my sister called to wish me a happy birthday. She lives in Las Vegas and always calls me on my birthday. She actually sang the birthday song to me. Our grandmother & mother would always do that & they weren't around to sing it anymore. We talked for a short while because she was out with a friend.

Then, about 4:10, the doorbell rang. I went to answer it. There was a tiny baby in a car seat sitting on my front porch. I recognized this baby as my nearly 3 month old niece. I looked around and saw my sister poking her head out behind the garage. My husband appeared, too.  I was stunned. I totally wasn't expecting them. The kids had no idea either. Chris wasn't sure they would be able to keep a secret, so he didn't tell them.

This was such a wonderful surprise. My niece was born in October & it was killing me that I hadn't met her yet. They stayed 3 nights.

Here are a few pictures from Bethany & Charlotte's visit.


Hannah & her little cousin.

Hannah & her friend, Rachel, playing with Charlotte.

And feeding Charlotte.

James & baby.

Chris & a baby.

Babies eat & sleep a lot!

 

We didn't have any empty drawers (or cribs) for baby. So we improvised. 

Charlotte & me.

Bethany, Charlotte, & me.

James making a face because baby was fussing.

The visit was too short! We miss them already! This is one of those times when it's hard to live so far from family.  Thanks, Bethany, for such a wonderful birthday gift!

Happy New Year!

We were all too happy to say goodbye to 2013. The past year was filled with a lot of sadness with the deaths of my mother and Chris' father. Plus, we lost two pets as well. James' hamster Sushi and Hannah's rat Sadie died, too.

We decided to usher in the new year with a family game night. We made it a "technology free" evening for most of the night.

Hannah made me pick up some Christmas Crackers during our shopping trip. The kitties were quite curious about them.

That is until we popped them! Then they fled the area.

We all put on our silly hats that came from the poppers. 

Everyone picked out one game to play. The first one was my choice -Yahtzee.

Qwirkle was our next game.

We made some hot chocolate.

Then we decided to take a break from the games. It was time for the hot tub! James took advantage of the break to play on his computer. We had a nice view of fireworks from the hot tub.

We came in & changed into our pjs, then it was time to watch the traditional Dick Clark Rockin' New Year's Special with our special beverages.

After midnight, we decided to pass on the rest of the games. Mom & Dad were tired! Happy New Year!!!