Soccer Tournament

Emory played in a 3v3 soccer tournament with his team, the Kickers, on January 2nd and 3rd.  It was his second tournament of this type and the second one played in less than great weather.  The first one was played in torrential rains that eventually forced the tournament to be canceled on the second day.  This one was just freezing cold.  It was at the very beginning of our two week long cold snap and the temps in the morning must have been in the 20s with highs in the 30s.

 Emory was happy to see his Under Armour clothing again to put on beneath his uniform.  I think that if he could have wrapped a scarf around his face to play that he would have done that too!  That was the only skin that he had showing in the morning it was so cold.

Scoring a goal was enough to make him forget about the cold temps for a little while!

The Kickers 3v3 Team - Jordan, Mack, Emory, Alex and Jack.  The only one missing is Cameron and he was out of town for this tournament.

Student of the Week

Ellie has been making us so proud this week!  At school she was on the "gold star" for two days in a row.  This is an honor that is earned when students receive three compliments from adults (other than her teacher, Mrs. Ledford) at school during a single day.  It's something she's been trying to do all year and now she did it two days in a row.  She even earned four compliments the first day!   Great Job, Ellie!!!

To make the week even better (if that is possible), Ellie found out on Monday that she is the Student of the Week.  All sorts of fun things come along with this honor.  A few of them are being line leader all week and getting to run errands to the front office, passing out the hand sanitizer before lunch (this is what she's doing int he picture below).

The best part of all is getting to bring home the Student of the Week backpack.  In the backpack are two stuffed animals, Lucky Bernard and Whiskers.  The student of the week gets to choose one to take with them everywhere all week, even home!  Ellie chose Whiskers the cat.  She also has a special journal in the backpack that she gets to write in each night about the fun that she had with Whiskers each day.  We're having lots of fun with Whiskers so far and we'll post something next week all about Whiskers adventures with Ellie.

Straight A's...again!

Emory and Ellie received their 2nd Quarter  report cards yesterday.  Emory made Straight A's again.  That makes six quarters in a row!  Way to go Emory!!! 

Ellie also made all Ms and Ps again, which would be equivalent to As  (no A, B, Cs until third grade in our county).   I think that she is going to follow in her big brothers footsteps with the grades.  Way to go Ellie!!!

Wacky Weather!

Our weather here in St. Augustine this winter has been crazy!  First it was in the teens and twenties every night for over two weeks.  Our poor palms and other tropical plants did not fair well at all.  We've finally warmed back up into the 60s and we're loving every minute of it.  Then last Thursday we were in for another surprise.  We'd been having storms all day with heavy rain and winds and tornado warnings.  At school, the kids spent a couple of hours sitting in the hallways away from all windows as the warnings passed.  Dan and I heard a strange sound and looked out to see hail coming down.  It was pretty to watch since we were at home rather than out in it.  Owen even came out to the lanai to check it out with us and he was in heaven.  He loves ice cubes and couldn't resist eating the hail that bounced through the open door into the lanai! 

This is about as close as we're going to get to snow this year I think!  Now, come on Spring!!!

Ringing in 2010

May all of your new year's wishes come true and 2010 be a great year for us all !

Santa Came!

Dash must have told Santa lots of nice things each night when he reported to the North Pole because Santa certainly was good to Emory and Ellie!  Christmas morning brought lots of happy faces in our house.

Ellie's big wish was for a Nintendo DSi.  Santa brought her one and it even came with a pink cover.

Emory was really hoping for an Xbox 360 Elite.  Santa surprised Emory with one of those wrapped in a big toy soldier bag that he didn't see when he first came out on Christmas morning.  He was so excited when he found it!

Other favorites were the hard to find Zhu Zhu Pet hamsters for Ellie.  Emory wasn't so excited about the RipStik on Christmas morning but has since decided that it's really fun and he loves it now.  He's getting pretty good at riding it too.

The coolest present might have been the hovercraft toy that Dan saw on the David Letterman show one night. It's fun for everyone -- and drives the dogs crazy!

Piper and Owen celebrated their first Christmas this year.  They each found presents under the tree with their names on them and received sweaters monogrammed with their names, new stuffed toys and lots of bones.  I think that they liked their first Christmas!

Thanks for the matching pjs, Ga!

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  We wish that we could have been with each of you!