Karate Kid part 2

This weekend, we attended a Taekwondo Tournament with our oldest son. He did great. He got second place in sparring and third place in Combat Sparring. 

However, as well as he did, today he met his match. 

As he was getting up from eating lunch today, the chair swung around and got him in the eye. Needless to say, the chair won that match. He's ok now but he'll have a scar. My poor baby! 

From the Princess

Since my oldest son took part in the blog, now it’s my daughter’s turn.  “The Princess” answered the same list of questions that her brother did.

1. What’s your favorite color? Pink

2. What’s your favorite TV show?  Elmo’s World

3. What’s your favorite movie? Cinderella

4. Do you have a favorite subject for school? Yes, Handwriting

5. What about a least favorite? Yes, coloring

6. What’s your favorite food? Turkey Sandwich

7.  Are you involved in any sports right now? Gymnastics

8. What do you want to be when you grow up? Doctor

9. Do you have any pets? 1 dog, 2 fish, 2 hamsters, and temporarily 15 newborn hamsters

10. Anything else you want to tell everyone? No

Karate Kid

Last night was a special night for my “karate Kid”. He has been doing Taekwondo for a while now, and last night he received his recommended belt. This belt means he is being recommended for a black belt and the next belt he will receive will be his black belt. He’s so excited and has worked really hard on this. If all goes as planned, he should have his black belt by the end of the year! We celebrated last night at our favorite frozen yogurt place. We’re also going to a tournament this weekend. We’ve only been to one other tournament. This will be his second. He got 2^nd place in sparring last year; hopefully, he’ll be able to bring some more medals home this year. 

What would you do?

As we were leaving from getting an oil change today, we look across the road at a little boy, probably only 5 -6 years old, walking down the sidewalk. This was not in a neighborhood; this was a busy street. I pulled over to a parking lot beside him and watched him as I tried to figure out what to do. I wasn't sure if I should get out and talk to him, I definitely didn't want to scare him but he was heading toward an extremely busy intersection and there’s no way that I could leave. I watched him as I tried to see if anyone else was with him. I saw a police man coming through the intersection, who thankfully stopped and talked to the little boy. He sat and talked to the boy for a while, so I decided to go on home. The only thing I can think of is this little boy’s ride from school must not have picked him up as it was 3:30 and relatively close to a school. He was also wearing a little back pack. I felt scared for this little boy. I hope he is ok and I am sure the police made sure he made it home. I’m not sure if someone called the police or he was simply in the right place at the right time, but so glad he was there. What would you have done?

Another similar thing happened to me about 1 year ago. I was on my way to take my daughter to Mom's Day Out. I had my youngest son and daughter in the car with me, it was raining that day and as we turned off of our street, there was a toddler standing in the road splashing in puddles. The child was only about 18 months old and no adult was in sight. I stopped my car and asked her through the window where her parents were. She looked at me and kept splashing. I pulled into the nearest driveway and asked her to come here. She actually came running right to me. I walked to the door and rang the doorbell and the man inside had no idea she had gotten out. He was the grandpa and was babysitting for his daughter. My heart was pounding and I was so glad that I happened to find her and nothing bad happened to her. Definitely a scary moment for both of us. 

Random Facts

My oldest son really wants to help take part in this whole blogging process. So, I told him we would come up with a list of random questions and he could answer them. If you want to ask him anymore questions, he would be thrilled to answer.

1. What’s your favorite color? Red

2. What’s your favorite TV show?  Alf

3. What’s your favorite movie? Dolphin Tale

4. Do you have a favorite subject for school? Yes, Science

5. What about a least favorite? Yes, math

6. What’s your favorite food? Pizza

7.  Are you involved in any sports right now? Taekwondo

8. What do you want to be when you grow up? Marine Biologist

9. Do you have any pets? 1 dog, 2 fish, 2 hamsters, and temporarily 15 newborn hamsters

10. Anything else you want to tell everyone? Jesus loves you

Homeschool

So, as many of you know, we are a homeschooling family. This is our first year and I have to say I really enjoy it. Sure, we’ve had our moments where I wonder what I was thinking, but I actually really do love it. A lot of people ask me what made me decide to start homeschooling. Well, the main reason was I felt God telling me to do so. You see, my oldest has never been a boy who liked school as I’m sure most boys are. He absolutely hated school. I talked with his teachers and they all said that he was fine while he was there. He had lots of friends. He just didn’t like it. One problem we did have was that he was not completing his work. This often went unnoticed since he wasn’t a problem child; he simply would just sit there quietly. I don’t exactly remember what first brought homeschooling to my mind, but I began to really pray about what to do. Homeschooling just kept coming up. Everywhere I turned. I would pray “God, please show me what you want me to do, show me if you want me to homeschool.” I would turn on the TV and someone would say something about homeschool. We watched one night and it talked about homeschooling. I would read something online and would see more homeschool stuff. Literally, it was everywhere. I said, “Ok God, you want me to homeschool, I get it.” He couldn’t have made it more clear to me, which is what I needed. I was torn at first, I was afraid of what people would think of me if I homeschooled or that I would totally lose all free time I had. I was being very selfish. I finally got the courage to tell my husband what I was thinking, knowing he was going to shut me down. So I was ready to tell him all the benefits of it. I told him one night as were getting ready to go to bed and he said, “I think that’s a good idea, do you think you can handle it?” Wow, not the answer I expected but liked it so much better. I knew 100% that this was totally a “God thing with God’s timing”. You see, I actually thought about homeschooling my oldest son when he was just getting ready to start preschool. I knew several people who did it and I liked how involved I would get to be with his academics instead of sending him off to school. However, my husband didn’t want me to and I began to doubt my ability. After all, I had a newborn baby at home as well. So, I closed that door and didn’t think anything about it again. I sent him to preschool, Kindergarten, 1^st grade & 2^nd grade before God told me to bring him home. Now, nothing was wrong with the preschool or the school system we were in. We loved all our teachers and had great ones! But I’m so glad that I decided to follow God’s plan and homeschool. I know homeschooling is not for everyone but if you are on the fence about deciding if you should, you definitely should. You won’t regret it. I don’t. This year we are doing third grade with my oldest and preschool with my daughter. My youngest is only 2 and he hangs around in the school room with us until naptime. He’s learning a lot as well. He can count, knows his alphabet, pledge of alliance and the God our father prayer for lunch time. You’d be surprised at how much they pick up on at that age. I look forward to the many years ahead of us as we continue our homeschool journey. 

                                                  Our First Day of Homeschool

Hamster babies

Hello! I’m brand new to the blogging world but have thought about blogging many times. Let’s face it, my life is always entertaining. I have 3 kids, 2 fish, 2 hamsters, 1 dog and a husband; you better believe we always have a story. Did I mention we had 2 hamsters? Let me start with that story. About 2-3 weeks ago, my son came to me with the bright idea of getting another pet. I was open to the idea, but being a planner and a researcher, I started researching. Now, he didn’t want an ordinary pet, no… he wanted a mouse. See, we had been to a local pet store earlier in the week and saw the cutest little mice, but as cute as they were, I was totally opposed to this idea. I mean it is a rodent. He talked of guinea pigs, rabbits, birds, etc. You name it, he was asking. I started asking friends about past experiences and scouring the Internet for help on these critters. After reading every possible Internet website and watching every video, we decided to go for the fancy mice, but we wanted female. We went to the pet store, which only sold male animals, and bought all our supplies for these mice and then traveled about 20 minutes to the next town’s pet store, where the female were sold. When we got there,they were sold out. So, on to the next pet store we went. Next store didn’t have them. Neither did the next one. We went to a total of 5 pet stores that night. Before we arrived at the fifth one, the kids were all crying in the backseat because we had no mice that they had looked forward to getting and it was also bedtime, being that it was now 8:45. We stopped at the fifth pet store, they didn’t have them either, but they had hamsters. Now I told the kids we didn’t want hamsters because I heard they were mean. We got to play with them, and they were so cute and friendly and on an impulse; I said we’ll take them. Now at this particular store, they had the male and females mixed together in the same area. I asked the pet store associate what the chances were of these hamsters being pregnant. She looked at them, as if she knew what she was doing, and said very assuredly, no, they are not pregnant.  Well, let me tell you that 11 days later, we have baby hamsters. Oh yes, how many you ask? Oh, only 15! Wow, 15?! This coming from someone who wasn’t even sure they wanted a rodent in the first place. Now I’ll admit, after I went to sleep that night we came home from the pet store, I was feeling some major buyer’s remorse. I felt like we really shouldn’t have bought these little girls. I mean I did all the research on mice, not hamsters. Believe it or not, they are a lot different. But a few days changed my mind, and I love these little hamsters. Now, I have to find homes for all these little hammies or they will be going back to the pet store. In the meantime, we’re learning a lot about caring for newborn hamsters and the mothers. It’s always an adventure around here and I’ve got plenty of stories to tell.