Happy Earth Day

Yesterday we spent the day with our craft club friends b/c we missed last week with some of the kids being sick. Since it was so nice and sunny out (again - we're loving every minute of it!) the kids played outside most of the time. They also painted flower pots and then helped plant some flowers to celebrate Earth Day!


Belen, Julia & Maddie pretending that it's raining - don't worry girls, it's coming!

Some of the pots and flowers.

Aubrey helping Olivia paint her pot.

Julia's big sister Paige got to come play with us today - what a huge help she is with all the kids!!!

Rylan checking out the grass!



Aubrey & Maddie playing ball.

Melaura & Maddie painting.

Maddie

Rylan, Nora, Julia & Olivia

Rylan & Nora

Busy Weekend

This weekend we were blessed to be able to travel with our youth group and several other members of our church to Vienna, West Virginia for the Bible Bowl at Ohio Valley University. It was an amazing weekend and we are so proud of all of our kids that were involved. There were 24 kids from our congregation of 150 members, that was 6 teams that we took to compete. (I believe thre were 48 teams total.) There are 3 different parts of the competition, a written test that the kids compete individually in, speed round - teams of 4 compete against each other to answer questions correctly and the fastest, and the team competition - teams of 4 (can be different from the speed round) answer questions at the same time as all teams and the top teams advance to the next round. We had 3 teams compete in the speed round, they started out competing against each other, so we were able to only have 1 in the semi-finals, and they won the entire speed round competition. We had 5 teams out of 15 in the semi-finals of the team competition, then 3 in the finals and 1 team placed 1st and another placed 3rd! There were also 4 perfect scores on the written test (which wins you a $1000 scholarship to the school, if you choose to attend) and we had 3 of those 4 perfect scores!!! Also, Erie won the overall competition and got to take home the BIG trophy!!! It was a wonderful time and awesome to see how much these kids have learned. They begin preparing for Bible Bowl in November and most have memorized most, if not all of the entire book they are studying - which was Exodus this year! Below are some pictures we wanted to share! We are so proud of all of these kids!


Our family picture in the shirts - it's a drawing of Moses parting the Red Sea.


Coach Rod

Kelly, Rod's wife

Aubrey playing with Lydia and Julia during one of the speed round competitions.

Aubrey and Lydia playing quietly - they did so well the entire day, there was lots of sitting and being quiet!

Our 3 perfect scorers - Danielle, Jake & Caitlin

Our team that won the speed round competition - Abby, Autumn, Tyler & Jake

Our team that won the team competition - Abby, Danielle, Dustin & Jake

Rylan - one of his many catnaps for the day.

All of the kids that participated - what an awesome group!

Everyone that was there to participate as well as support the teams.

A picture of all the previous Bible Bowl shirts 2001-2007

The backs of the shirts.

Aubrey getting ready to go swimming at the hotel - she was so excited!

Aubrey helping carry one of Rylan's bags - such a big girl!

Another of our speed round teams - Dustin, Emmanuel, Rebecca & Trevor

Aubrey riding the bus with Julia - the highlight of her weekend!

Rylan playing with Tammy.

Rylan's first bite of lemon - he wasn't to thrilled with it!

Lydia and her mommy, Kelly. Lydia just lost her first tooth!

Aubrey met one of the servers at the restaurant and had quite a conversation with her - telling her all about her shirt she made with Miss Katie and that mommy braided her hair!

A Beautiful Day at the Park

Today was a gorgeous day. We went to storytime this morning at the library, then went to the park and played and had a picnic lunch with our friends. It was absolutely wonderful!


Maddie & Aubrey


Justin

Rylan

Maddie

Jeffrey

Paige

Justin

Paige giving Jeffrey a kiss!

Maddie

Enjoying our picnic lunch.

Rylan

Playing with chalk.


It's time for hopscotch.

Aubrey

Maddie

Aubrey & Maddie

Sophie

Sophie