Owen's tournament

Today was Owen's first karate tournament. Here he is waiting for the tournament to start. He could NOT sit still. He did such a good job in the tournament, though, and was so proud of himself. I think it really enforced to him what karate is. Two weeks ago, he was ready to be done. Now he's ready to go again. I'm really glad that he had the opportunity to participate. I think he's going for the intimidation factor. What do you think? Is it working? Aren't you SO scared of him?Practicing his bear crawls (used to be the hardest thing for him to do, now he's doing it voluntarily) before the tournament.All the students listening to their senseis talk about rules of the tournament. You can see how well Owen listens at times.The "Little Dragons" (Shon's kids ages 4-6) getting ready to do their katas.Owen doing his kata.

I didn't know they were going to do this. Owen hadn't really practiced except for in class. He was the last Little Dragon to do his and two of the others had to have one of the senseis come and help them. The other Little Dragon wouldn't say what she needed to very loud. I was a little nervous when Owen got up, but he did excellent. He spoke loud and knew everything he was supposed to do. I was proud of him. He didn't like to do his kata when he first started and now he does so well.More kata.Shaking hands after receiving his medal for his kata.Showing off his kata medal.

After their kata, they got to watch all of the older kids and adults do their katas. Then they started the sparring.

Getting ready for sparring.

They didn't have the Little Dragons do normal sparring. It was kind of like the flag football of karate. They had "tags" on their sides that their opponent had to steal. He was able to hold his own. Nathan and I realized that, in karate, his size is actually a hindrance. The smaller kids were able to sneak in under his arm easily and steal his tags. By the end, though he had it figured out.Waiting for sparring and hitting on the chicks.Getting his tags on to spar.

Here's a video of Owen sparring. This is his first attempt before he had figured everything out.

Here is his second sparring session. He held his own in this one.

Owen actually sparred one more time, but I figure two videos is enough for one post. He did well on the last one, too. Sorry about the choppiness of the videos. Zoey was on Nathan's lap and wouldn't get down. I'm sure she thought she was "helping."

Owen showing off his two medals. One for his kata and one for his sparring. Congratulations Owen!!

Ouch!!

Someday I'll go back and post about things I haven't, but right now I'm just trying to stay caught up with today.

Today was my day to volunteer at Jo's class, so I dropped my kids off at my friend Julie's house and went to school. When I got back, Julie met me at the door and was trying not to laugh. She warned me that Owen had a sore on his chin and his hand. She told me that she had left the kids downstairs and taken her youngest up to get dressed. All of a sudden she heard a crash and Owen screaming. Then Owen telling her son not to tell or they'd get in trouble. Julie went downstairs to see what was going on and found out that her son and Owen had gotten on the treadmill and turned it on. Owen says it was going SO fast!! He wasn't expecting it and fell and got a treadmill burn on his chin and hand. After laughing at the picture that made in my mind, I went down to talk to Owen. I've tried all day to not laugh too hard at him and to have a good mixture of sympathy, but still let him know that that wasn't the smartest thing he ever tried to do.

I think the burn is taking care of the consequences. Especially after hearing him talk himself into getting his chin wet in the shower. It went something like this: "Okay, just a little wet. See, it doesn't hurt THAT bad. Ooooo. Owww. Ohhhhh. Okay, THAT one hurts bad. Oww." It was all whispered because he knew he wasn't going to get much sympathy from me. I told him he didn't have to wash it, he could just let it get infected and never get better. I know, I'm such a mean mom.

Here's a good picture of the chin.
And a better one of the hand.

Poor Owen. I am sorry that he got hurt. I don't like it when my kids are hurt, but I still can't get the picture out of my mind of him realizing what that button does on a treadmill and wondering why someone would make a button that makes the ground move out from under your feet.

FHE with kids

I've decided it's so much more fun to let the kids decide what we are going to do for FHE. Take tonight for an example. Nathan was conduct, I was in charge of songs and prayers, Jo was treats, Owen was activity, and Zoey was the lesson.

We printed off a picture about Jesus blessing the Nephite children and Zoey told us all that Jesus loves us and there were angels. All the important parts, right?

Then, for activity, Owen led us in yoga that he learned on Sesame Street. We did a "dog pose" and "rolling down the hill" (where we had to take turns because our living room isn't big enough. He told us that was all he knew, so we did the "dog pose" again and were ready to be done until Jo remembered a "cat pose" that looked suspiciously like the "dog pose" so we did that.

Jo decided to make root beer floats (a favorite in this house), but she wanted to use rainbow sherbet. I was tempted to dissuade her, but decided to run with it. They were surprisingly good. The first bite was a shocker, but after a while, it grew on you. I finally realized what they tasted like. Remember those twin pop popsicles? They had lime, orange and root beer. We used to trade with a friend, half for half. The floats tasted like after you finished your first one and took the first bite of a new flavor.

Eating our rainbow root beer floats.

Jo, so proud of her creation.

Sleepover with M

This last weekend, the kids were out of school, and we had Nathan's niece come to spend the weekend. Jo and M are about a year and a half apart and get along great. It was fun for Jo to have a girl come play. Most of her friends around here are boys. M came Friday and we took her home today. We had lots of fun, the girls stayed up late every night and will take a while to recover. Hopefully they can be somewhat recovered tomorrow for school.

Friday, we hung out and got to play with Tara's kids when she came to help me out with a problem (more on that later).

Saturday, we played for the morning then went bowling that afternoon. There is a old little bowling alley about 10 miles away from our house. Nathan had been talking about going there for a while and we decided what better time to do it than when M came to visit. It was fun. The lanes were warped and threw the ball to the side every time. No really, it was the lanes fault!! If you didn't bowl fast enough, it would work it's way over to the gutter. Nathan kicked all of our butts, Owen came close, and even Zoey hung in there. I was proud of M and Jo. They both decided to do it without the kiddie help. At first they were frustrated, but by the end, they were both getting the hang of it.

Sunday, we went to church and played some more. That night we did the usual popcorn, apples, and cheese with a movie and watched Wall-E.

Today we just did some more playing and I tanked M full of sugar before I took her back to her house.

I was really impressed with how well the kids did. Every time I'd ask them to clean up the downstairs, they jumped right in and had it clean so fast. M even rolled up the sleeping bags this morning before I could get to them. She was so fun to have here and the kids are already asking when she can come back.
On the way to the bowling alley. Don't they all look SO excited!! They were actually watching The Lone Ranger and totally enthralled in it.

M bowling.

I love that she had no fear. She would just race up to the lane and huck her ball at the pins.

Here's Nathan giving Jo some pointers about how to aim the ball. This was after the 5th frame when her score was still 0.

Woo Hoo! The ball actually went down the center of the lane. Go Jo!

Owen would do this cute little dance every time he rolled the ball down the lane.

Then, he'd sit there and do a smaller dance while he watched it.Here's Zoey, so excited for her first time bowling.Watching the ball go down the lane.

She knocked down SIX pins!!

She finally decided that it was much more fun, after pushing her ball down the ramp, to come back by us and do a little dance and get all the congratulations and high fives.

Then she always had to jump off the little step.The girls' set up for the night.

They would always read books until we made them turn off the lights, then they would talk and laugh until . . . I'm not really sure what would stop them from doing that.

We had a lot of fun. Thanks M for coming to play at our house!!

Horse Rides

Yes, this was back in December before we got any snow.

We finally have horses again at our property. We have Pepper and Duncan (Owen has no problem remembering his name). After Gabby and the boys brought them up, Jo started bugging Nathan to give her a ride. One day we bundled all the kids up to have rides. Unfortunately, the only pictures I got were of Zoey. Jo and Owen both rode alone. I missed the rides, but Nathan says they both did great. Pepper even jumped at one point when Jo was on him and she stayed on. She was a little nervous, but from what I understand, she kept her cool. She is still talking about it. Zoey was a little nervous at first to ride. She didn't really want to, but mean mom that I am, I gave her to Nathan anyway.

This was her face when I first put her up on the horse.

She warmed up to it quickly and started having a fun time.

Here they are riding off into the sunset. Well, not a sunset, but . . .

When Zoey got back from her ride, she didn't want to get down. Now, Jo is not the only one who asks to go on a horse ride. I love that my kids are growing up around animals. To them, it's just how things are.

Jo's Christmas Tree

Jo was given the assignment to decorate a Christmas tree to represent our family. She had a week to do it and we had the hardest time coming up with stuff. Finally, I had to just turn it over to her because I had to get the other kids ready for bed and it was due the next day. Nathan was at a meeting, so she was on her own. I think she did a fine job. She used a truck (she wanted a tractor, but we couldn't find one with our limited time), a heart made out of wood, bits of old sewing projects, chicken feathers, and a half an eggshell from our brown egg layers. She also wrote on it things that are important to her: her family's names, "you," and erth (earth). I was proud of her.

Elephant Hunting

One night, after a rousing game of nerf guns, I came into the living room to find this. I asked Owen what he was doing and he told me he was elephant hunting. This is a wind up toy we got from my grandma. He would wind up the toy and then as it slowly made it's way across the floor, he'd shoot at it.

Look out!

Last night, I tried to talk Nathan into combining our blogs. He told me that he felt it would probably be better to keep them separate and after his post last night, I'm willing to agree. One thing his post did do for me was to kick me in the butt and get me thinking about blogging again, so look out world, I'm hopefully going to be blogging up a storm in the next little while to get caught up.

Thanksgiving

This post has been tripping me up for quite a while now. Yes, I know it's a new year and Thanksgiving was almost two months ago, but I had a TON of pictures to wade through, so it took me forever. I didn't want to skip it because I knew I'd probably never get back to it, so everything else got pushed back as well. Here I am trying to catch up.

This year, we decided to go to Utah for Thanksgiving. We ended up reserving a church because with parents, siblings, and their children, we are such a large group that it's pretty hard to get together at any one person's house. There was lots of good food, then lots of good pie. We also had fun hanging out with everyone and the kids had a ball having room to play and run and yell. My sister and her kids were sick and didn't get to come (we missed you!!), but there were still plenty of people to hang out with.

She's so excited to be there!

The kids started off just running like wild banshees through the gym. They were so cute any time anyone new came. The screaming and running started all over again.

Then my sister-in-law set up a fun Cranium for kids game. I think most of the kids played it at one time or another. It looked like fun.

Then Mimi and I decided to play horse.

Nathan joined in.

I was doing pretty good until Mimi figured out that layups would kick my butt. (Danny and Andrew, WHY did you never teach me a good layup?)

The girls having fun sitting on the floor playing ? ? ? ?

Then we decided to break out the volleyball stuff. So they tried to put up the net.

The kids got tired of watching them TRY to put up the net, so they began practicing their moves.

Still practicing.

I love the look on Turtle's face. It's like he's saying, "THAT's not where I meant it to go!"

Have no fear, Daddy to the rescue.

He teaches him how to aim and follow through.

And here he is practicing again. Now THAT's better.

And more cousins practicing. They had plenty of time to practice.

Still trying to get the net up.

It's finally starting to get there.

Tie the last few strings, and they're done.

While waiting, I took some pictures of Zoey and Mr. Carter. They are close to the same age and she loves seeing him.

Ahhhh, squeezing your guts out.

Here's Zoey, trying to steal a smooch.

And the volleyball game got underway. Here's the girls team. They had great participation.

The boys team, not so much at first . . .

But it did get better at some points during the game.

An action shot of the girls.

Zoey decided to do a little floor show in the middle of the game.

And some real floor moves.

Then someone found the nursery and found out the toy cupboards weren't locked. And that's where a lot of the kids played for a LONG time. It was great, once we knew where our kids had all run off to.

Of course, Zoey found the slide. Thanks to Stella's birthday party, she knew all the cool moves to do on it.

We took advantage of the piano.

Even Mr. Carter got in on the action. (Notice his pink potty sticker? Yay!!)

It looks like we're playing this intricate peice. Nope, chopsticks.

Crazy boys!!

Mimi and her cute baby.

The older cousins finally pulled the younger ones out of the nursery room and made up a cute play about Thanksgiving. But first, we got the pre-show of "Banana."

Jo and AJ's part in the play.

And they're off!

We had a fun time. I loved getting together with everyone in an environment where there was plenty of room. My kids were sad to leave. They loved getting together with all of their cousins. Thanks for a fun Thanksgiving!!