Christmas Vacation

Elias has been off of school since December 15 because of snow days and Christmas vacation. We didn't do a whole lot; we had a lot of lazy days.

Our computer's hard drive was broken, so we had to get it fixed. While Mr. Graham fixed the computer, Elias got to play with Josh and Jesse from school.

On Christmas Eve, I opened one present; it was a stuffed animal collie. We also went to church on Christmas Eve before I opened my present. They did a play at church about the story of Jesus and the preacher told a really funny joke about the top 10 things to do to Santa Claus. Elias laughed really hard. One of them was to yell "Happy Easter." We got to talk to most of the Wrights on the phone that night at their get-together.

On Christmas Day, we had a really big breakfast of sausage, eggs and pancakes. Mommy and I could not even finish all of our food. Then we opened presents. Some of my presents were Plants vs. Zombies (computer game), LEGO X-Wing, The Battle of Hoth (LEGO), 2 LEGO Creators, Star Wars books - Outbound Flight and Survivors Quest, the book Hatchet, Mastermind (game), K'Nex roller coaster, snuggie, a homemade drum from Jamaica from Grandmother, a Dinomummy book, Diary of a Wimpy Kid book and mini football helmets representing every team in the NFL. Plus more...Mommy got a snuggie as well. Elias got a car from Josh called Screamin Hauler.

I watched Daddy play Plants Vs. Zombies for hours on Christmas Day. I never even got out of my pajamas because we were very lazy. The sunflowers help you get sun to help you buy things. You can earn pea shooters and you try to protect your house from the zombies because they want to eat your brain. When the zombies get you, your character screams, "NO!!!" and it says "The Zombies Ate Your Brain". There is a football zombie who wears football gear. Elias has done 19 levels and Daddy has done 87 levels. Mommy has not played it yet. She still likes playing Webkinz games like Pizza Palace and Goober's Lab.

On the day after Christmas Elias got to go over to Josh and Jesse's house to play again. He got to watch them play LEGO Star Wars - The Complete Saga. He also watched Josh play a car game on the computer. Josh got to choose a car and he had to face an opponent. He tricked his opponent by getting near the lava, the opponent went really fast and went into the lava. And Josh won. Elias got to see Jesse play Quest for R2-D2 and he only got to do the first level. That night we all went out to eat pizza at a restaurant. Elias got ham and cheese because he is not a fan of pizza. There's a train that goes around and brings your drinks to your table. But our waiter brought ours. On some tables you could play video games, but we didn't have that on ours. We had a tv on ours.



Daddy and Elias put together the K'Nex roller coaster and it's really cool. The cars actually run on the track. It's 3 1/2 feet tall. You can see what it looks like in the picture. The green one is faster than the yellow one because it's more hilly.

On Wednesday after Christmas Austin called because he wanted to play. So Elias went to his house and Mrs. Brandi made us go downstairs because the baby was sleeping. Austin played Mario on the Wii and Elias watched. Then he changed it to Mario Cart. Then he decided to stop. Then we played in his tunnel. Then he played with his DS. He was also taking pictures with his DS.

On Wednesday night we went to Pastor Allen's house for an open house. They don't live far from us. We had some good snacks and Elias watched Ice Age - the Meltdown.

On New Year's Eve, we all went to the movies. It was packed. We saw Narnia - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was a very good movie. We all liked it. Only Mommy stayed up to see the new year in. Elias and Daddy were fast asleep.

Happy New Year!

These are some pictures I made myself with my new digital camera. Juneau is my favorite subject!

Amaryllis plant

Here's a picture of our amaryllis plant. (Mommy finally figured out how to spell it.) It has 2 blooms right now. Daddy cut some off because they were dying. It's very pretty.

My Snow Week

Last weekend we went to visit Baby Anderson, my new cousin in Nashville, TN. We went to visit Aunt Jill and Uncle Jonathan too. Anderson was very cute. I wish I could play with him. In the picture above, I am reading to him. He slept a lot. I helped Aunt Jill make banana bread. And Mommy & I went with Uncle Jonathan to a cool science museum. My favorite part was the tower. You could go inside a human heart, and there was a water thing that I liked. Another cool thing was a map of the world that you could move around.

On Tuesday I played with Noah and Jacob. Noah was being really annoying and calling me baby. Finally he decided to go home and Jacob and I played nicely for a couple of hours.

I also had 2 snow days this week and already had Friday off, so only had 2 days of school this past week. And it's supposed to snow tonight and has already started flurrying.

Daddy & I have been working on the Pinewood Derby car some more. Now it has silver on it and lightning bolts and looks really cool. We'll be putting the wheels on it soon. The race is next Saturday, Feb. 20.

On Wednesday I played with Austin. At first he sat in the corner. But we ended up playing ping pong and having fun for awhile. Then he got annoying and left.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

New Baby Cousin

Last weekend we went to a ladies' Louisville Cardinals basketball game. We can't remember the team they played, but whoever it was beat them. Near the end I was screaming, "Boo!" to them because I wanted the Cards to win.

Daddy & I did some painting on my Pinewood derby car. It's blue right now and we're going to put some silver on it and some more coats of blue paint. You can see a picture of our progress above.

The amarillus plant that Grandma gave us is growing like crazy. I like to touch it, but Mommy keeps telling me not to.

Grandmother Wright came to visit on her way to see Uncle Jonathan & Aunt Jill's new baby. He was born on Wednesday, Jan. 27. The new baby's name is Anderson Sydney Wright. He's Grandmother's 2nd grandchild. He is my first first cousin on Mommy's side and my 3rd first cousin altogether. I can't wait to go see him. We may go visit very soon.

I had a lot of fun with Grandmother while she was here. We played ping pong. Yesterday I was winning 249 - 239.

On Tuesday we had another snow day. Austin came over and we played Star Wars Monopoly. We weren't fighting that day which made Mommy happy. He really liked Monopoly. We got some more snow last night, but it is melting today because the sun came out. We only got about 2 or 3 inches here, but other places like NC got a lot more.

I Started Basketball This Week

We finally had a full week of school last week. But we have today and tomorrow off for Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday and a workday for teachers.

On Thursday I had Noah and Jacob and Austin over to play. I was waiting with Jacob and Austin until Noah got home from school. When Noah got home, I called to him. I played with Austin for about an hour and with Noah and Jacob for 1 1/2 hours. We had some trouble getting along - having that many boys together. It drove Mommy a little crazy.

I have a Pinewood Derby car which Daddy & I are going to paint. We took a block of wood to a workshop and they shaped it into a car shape. Tonight Daddy and I are going to try to paint it. We picked out a blue color because that's my favorite.

This past weekend I started basketball. We had a mini-camp and it was fun. I got my own basketball and jersey. We had races with bouncing the ball.

Yesterday I went to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese for Andrew who is eight. It was fun. I liked watching people play shooting games. They were trying to shoot spiders and a huge plant and mosquitoes and wasps. And there was a butterfly too. My favorite game to play was the one where you throw balls and get points. I got a blue lizard and a sucker with the 24 tickets I won. The next time I go to Chuck E Cheese I really want to play that shooting game.

I built a whole car myself today out of K'nex. I'm going to pretend that it can take you back to the time of the Dinosaurs - kind of like on Prehistoric Park where they go back in time to the dinosaur age. The Megabuild I was building yesterday crashed into a Tyrannosaurus Rex and broke.

One day at school we made a cross and put pictures on the back to show what Jesus did. On another day we went to recess for a long time. We don't always get to go outside if it's too cold. We haven't been on the playground for a very long time.

All of the snow has finally melted. It hung around for awhile. About a week or more. Now it's just dreary outside. But at least it's warmer - in the 30's and 40's now instead of below 20 all the time. It is 34 degrees out right now. That's two degrees above freezing.

A few weeks ago I learned how to borrow. I learned how to add with four-digit numbers. Not too long ago I got my report card and did really well. My lowest grade of B+ was in reading, which is ridiculous because I'm a very good reader. But that's okay. At noon today Mommy & I watched Hotel for Dogs. It is a very cute movie which we saw for the first time during the summer free movies at the movie theatre.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to everyone!

I'm Reading the Left Behind Series

Grandma and Grandpa Johnson came to visit us last week. We played some UNO, Scrabble Scram, and a game of STARE and Clue Jr. Grandma won the Clue Jr. game. We also went to the Louisville Science Center to see the Titanic Exhibit. It wasn't that great, even though I like stuff about the Titanic. But the movie they showed was really good. I would like to have it on DVD. We saw a mummy that was in its case. I got to see what a mummy's skull looks like, both female and male skulls. They look different from each other.

On Thursday night, which was New Year's Eve, we went out with Grandma and Grandpa to dinner at Senor Iguanas. The food was very very good, and they liked it too. I got a hamburger, but I tasted Mommy's meal and want to get that next time. She got a dish with shrimp and rice and vegetables and Mommy thought that it was really really really good.

On Sunday I opened my birthday presents. I got a Nerf gun, digital camera and a case, a Dinosaur to put together and a dinosaur pop up book and some other dinosaur things. Grandma & Grandpa had also gotten me a new Webkinz for Christmas. It's an Oriole and I named it Eddie for Eddie Murray - daddy's favorite baseball player.

I went back to school on Monday, but it snowed so we didn't have school today. The snow is really pretty and I got to play in it for a little while with some other kids in the neighborhood - Noah, Jacob, Kayley, Taylor, Zack, and Austin.

Today Mommy and I have been working on a United States puzzle. It's really cool. We've got 8 states done so far - Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, and Utah.

I read The Vanishings this week. I read it in two days. It's part of the Left Behind series for kids. The seventh chapter is my favorite because all the Christians disappeared except for their clothes. Vicki's mother & father's bed was made, but they were gone. Vicki's mother died in a car accident because of the vanishings. And Vicki's father died in a plane crash. Vicki is 14 in the book. She isn't real. I'm excited to read the 2nd one. I kind of wanted to go to school today so that I could get the next Left Behind book from the library. It's #2. There's 40 Left Behind books in the library. I've taken AR tests on most of the Magic Treehouse books. I still have 6 tests to take. I have 27.3 points now, still in 6th place in my class. Ian is still trying to catch me.

I turned 8 this week. We had cupcakes and Grandma and Grandpa were here to celebrate with me. It was a blast.