Memorial Day Weekend

Oops.  My pictures are backwards.  We had a fun weekend at my parent's lake with my Aunt Cindy, Uncle Mike, Cousins Zoe & Alec, and two of their friends.    

Sunday: We woke up to rain, but it turned into a beautiful lake day which allowed for: swimming, sliding, pontoon rides, fishing, eating the fish, campfire, and making smores.  Unfortunately, my Dad missed the last couple of activities because he was in the E.R. with a fish hook in his thumb.     

 Saturday:  It was rainy and cold.   The kids were outside for a little bit, but most of the day was spent indoors.  We played board games, indoor beanbag toss, and darts (Eli's new favorite game).

 Friday: Noah showed up at the lake in this lovely get up ready to fish.  Joel and I went out to eat to celebrate our 10th anniversary.

Mother's Day Weekend

 swimming

 outdoor reading

 fishing

relaxing 

Marathon weekend

Friday night: 5k with friends

Saturday: 10k with Joel, my Dad and sister

Thank you friends and family for a GREAT weekend!!!!

yellow belt

Noah had his yellow belt test tonight.  I have to admit that I was quite nervous for him.  I wasn't sure he new all of his skills well enough, but he did great!  He had to jump over another kid while breaking a board, and he did it on the 4th try!!!  We are so proud of him!!

Noah's first taekwondo competition

 was a learning experience for all of us.  He earned a bronze medal for forms and a silver medal for sparring.  We are so proud of him!

Noah Orange Belt Test Video

Here is what I edited from the raw footage of Noah's orange belt tests to get sized enough to upload on this site. A couple of his tests:

St. Patrick's Magic Birthday Party Fun

Rainbow cupcakes = never again

The kids loved, loved the magic show!!

It has been a fun and exciting week at our house. Pictures of our Spring Break/Birthday Celebration in Iowa coming soon.

Mister Noah, Orange Belt

Today was the big day of Noah's tae-kwan-do belt test, which he has been working hard training for to become an orange belt. He was required to repeat everything he has learned over the last few months in a series of five skill tests alone in the middle of the gym with just Master Chris: patterns (20 moves), blocks (3 different blocks), kicks (3 different kick combinations), escapes (3 different escapes), and finally the board breaking! Additionally, he was required to count to 10 in Korean and know the Korean words for "ready", "bow", "attention, "stop", and "go" (I didn't get that part on video). We can proudly say that he passed all of them with flying colors and most on his first try, with a few small adjustments. Master Chris was pretty impressed with a 5 year old being able to memorize all those things including his 20 move patterns so well!!! He said he rarely sees it. It did take hi
m about 6 tries to break the board, but he nailed it with the last try! On his second escape move, he actually put the instructor on the ground with a thumb to the throat escape he executed so well! We are so proud of the little guy; tae-kwan-do and Master Chris have done miracles for his self-confidence and helping him really progress socially. Below are some pictures and I (Joel) captured some rudimentary video captured on Heidi's pocket camera phone which will be on Heidi's Facebook page. I got a little excited at the end and lost focus with the video. Way to go Noah!!!

Board Breaking (click to zoom and get a good look)

Our newly orange-belted Mister Noah with his board

The board was 3/4" thick!

1:20pm

Eight years ago we were blessed with this cautious, careful, clever, contemplative, creative, certain, compassionate, considerate, conscientious child. I had to add this picture. Eli was sooo excited to show me the new hole in his mouth. For two weeks, he has had a hard time eating, and his tooth was bugging him. However, this is Eli. He wasn't going to touch it, and he certainly wasn't going to let anyone else do it either. He was determined to let the root dissolve and have to tooth fall out on it's own. Luckily, he had a run-in with Aunt Jennifer on Sunday night.

houseplans.com

While Noah spent the entire week on the couch with the flu, I sat in front of the computer looking at plans for my future house. Why?? Because dreaming seemed liked more fun than cleaning. Noah must have been paying attention because now that he is finally mobile, I found him drawing his own house plans today.Here's what he has so far (he wants to add a school tomorrow): at least 7 floors, 2 oval hot tubs, a puzzle piece shaped pool, a TV room full of TVs each with their own headset, 2 master bedrooms (one with bunk beds), I'm not sure how many other bedrooms or bathrooms, a game room filled with arcade games, every playstation ever made, an Xbox, a Wii, a ping pong table, I don't remember what else, and an exercise room. I'm sure I'm missing a few things, but I thought this was the cutest!! There's more on the other side. I think we'll need an elevator.

yay!!

blue stripe... up next, orange belt testing and board breaking

fun weekend

Saturday: Joel took the boys to Target for DS games and to an afternoon movie. Craig, Jen and kiddos came over for game night and a sleepover.

Sunday: Grandma Connie and Grandpa Steve came up to watch Eli and Katelynn play basketball.

Eli is still in "sleepover mode".

Mister Noah

Here are some action pics of Mister Noah (everyone is called Mister xxxx except Master Chris) at tonight's tae-kwan-do practice.

Warming up with the splits (top middle left under the blue thing)

Flawlessly executing a jumping front kick

He has four stripes on his white belt and one stripe left to go for before he can do his orange belt test (which includes breaking a board). Pretty good for just a couple of months and starting out scared to talk to anyone!!

Noah with Master Chris and his favorite blackbelt team leader, Mister Matt (blond hair)

Here he is practicing his last stripe challenge, which is "pattern"--he has to memorize a series of 20 movements or steps and get them correct for his blue stripe.

We are sure proud of him!

best thing I've seen today

second graders roller skating

best thing I've heard today

"When I grow up, I would not like to be the janitor of a school." -Noah

sad day

Mom: "Noah, what book should I read tonight?"

Noah: "Um, I'll just read this one by myself."

Are we having a party?

Nope, this is just how our entry looks lately. Yep, we do have TWO coat closets (although you can't open them because all of the shoes are in the way). Oh, and we also have a mudroom. I swear this house was clean 2 days ago.

We finally got some snow.

I don't know if we needed 5.2 inches, but yesterday was a great day to play in the snow!

Somewhere fun Friday

Noah had been asking for a hot dog for days, so we had a lunch date at A&W.
Then, we all gathered at Grandma and Grandpa's to celebrate Grandpa Steve's birthday.

You Stay Classy, San Diego...

For Uncle Rich...your nephew is an aspiring Ed Wilson...filmed with Noah's new spyglasses that record video...