What's Going on

Elias has been reading The 39 Clues series of books and is really into them. He read the first one for a book report a few weeks ago and is hooked. He had his friend Luke over a few weeks ago to spend the night. They went to see The Phantom Menace movie in 3-D and slept in sleeping bags in the basement.

He had his final basketball game today. Christian Academy has started intramural sports and the season lasted about 7 weeks. He enjoys playing and especially likes running down the court and stealing the ball. Not so much shooting. He's also doing running club on Wednesdays and getting his energy out. (Well, he still has plenty actually.)

Elias also is continuing with piano lessons which he started last year in third grade. He has improved a lot and enjoys it. He really likes playing the recorder as well.

He has decided to start a reading track in the NIV Bible. He's doing Two weeks in the life and teachings of Jesus. He read Luke 1 today - preparing for Jesus' arrival. He and Mommy have also been taking turns reading Bible stories in the E-100 track at church where we read 100 of the most important Bible stories.

He and Daddy are still going strong reading Star Wars books before bed. And for his most recent birthday, Elias got a fish tank. He recently bought a cool-looking castle for the fish. Right now he has 7 fish, but hopes to add to his fish family soon.

PS. This post was done by Mommy

February Happenings

Yesterday was the Pinewood Derby. My car came in 3rd in the den. There were lots of cool cars.

I've been sick with the flu but am feeling better now. Went outside today and played with the neighbors some since it is warmer here.

Last weekend was my birthday sleepover. We played with our mini-light sabers and I got some fun presents. We roasted hot dogs and had s'mores for dessert. We ran around a lot. I had six friends over for my sleepover. We put our sleeping bags downstairs in the basement. We didn't stay up too late - about 11:00 and got up about 7:00 the next morning.

We have started announcing to people that I am going to be a big brother. Mommy is going to have a baby in July and I am excited to be a big brother. I want to find out what it will be, but Mommy and Daddy are going to let it be a surprise probably. I have told a few of my friends about the baby - like Noah and Jacob, Josh and Jesse, and my whole class at school.

Elias's Birthday

This week was my 9th birthday. I'm having my sleepover party later, but Mommy and Daddy got me a cake with a football on top and I got to open presents. I got Dino-opoly, 3 Cars movie puzzles, and 7 Star Wars books and a LEGO jet. I also got some money from family.

Pinewood Derby is coming up again soon. We got my block of wood and it's been cut out, but that's about all right now. I hope I win this year. Daddy is going to try to make mine fast so I will.

It has snowed a little this week, but not enough to miss any school. It's also been really cold - like in the teens.

Austin came over this week and I taught him to play Plants vs. Zombies. He liked it a lot.

I want the New England Patriots to win the Super Bowl. I like watching football with Daddy. I like using my new mini-football helmets to set up who's playing the games. The Baltimore Ravens, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Green Bay Packers, the Seattle Seahawks, the New England Patriots, the Pittsburgh Stealers, Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears and the New York Jets are still in it.

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!