Zachary's Karate Test

so zachary managed to earn his way to the belt test for karate. he did a great job - he actually stayed quiet the whole 2 hours! unbelievable!

center punch (in korean: choon dan kong kyuck - we do actually have to know the korean terms! they are part of our test!)

i know this picture is fuzzy, but i just thought it was great anyway! this was during the sparring section of testing.

zachary has yet to break a board but since it is a requirement to break the board before passing, he got to break it over the head of our black belt instructor chris! what a tough guy! the picture below shows right after zachary broke the board, and Chris doesn't even look phased! zachary looked at our master belt instructor like he was crazy when he told zachary to break it this way - i wish i had captured that moment on camera!

Griffith Park & Observatory

we took a trip to griffith park, and the kids got to ride the miniature train (kyle is totally into trains and he rode it twice). zachary and jordan also rode the ponies, but the pictures didn't turn out.

anybody hungry for ham...?!

it was a beautiful sunset! it almost looks like we were photoshopped into this background!

this telescope kyle is looking into was actually built by the guy standing in the back behind kevin. there were several of these out on the lawn. pretty cool!

ok, so now everyone is witness to where my children get their bad manners from lol!

Trike-a-thon

kyle's kindergarten class had a trike-a-thon to raise money for the field trips. kyle chose to ride his scooter, and he did 6 laps (they laps are about a quarter mile long). zachary actually ran the first two laps alongside kyle! unfortunately this did not accomplish any drain in energy - what is with that?!

 whew! all done - time for a cool down!

thumbs up dude! he did great!

the whole happy clan!

 

here is my daughter the ham! she will pose all day long for the camera!

 

oh boy she is going to love these when i pull them out for her first boyfriend to see ha ha!

Halloween

so i am very impressed with kevin and his creativity! he actually made these robot costumes all on his own! they were so stinkin' cute and got so much attention at the church halloween night!

zachary insisted on being a ghost - easy enough! however, he couldn't see out the eye holes because the sheet would move around, so i ended up ripping open the sheet to make a big face hole instead, so he spent the rest of the night looking like i dressed him up to be muslim!

kevin went as an astronaut - very "him." the only complaint i have is that this outfit he is in he wore when he was in middle school - why can't i be that skinny still?!

10-18 Jordan's Karate Test

ok, so it took some convincing because jordan's interest in karate seems to be dwindling away, but i made her finish up to the test to get promoted to the next belt. zachary has been having trouble staying quiet in class (a shocker!) so he was put on probation and couldn't test this time with jordan, but he has improved somewhat and will be testing tomorrow (november 15th).

jordan was very insistent on getting pink sparring gear when we ordered it - what a girlie girl!

this was jordan's pouty time - a karate essential with her! call me bias, but i think she looks beautiful even when she is grumpy!

oh happy day! two weeks later she was a happy little camper with a pretty new green belt and promotion certificate! yay!

04-18 Funderland

these pictures are actually from back in april, but i thought they were cute, and that people could see something besides disneyland pics! lol. this place is called funderland. it is a teeny tiny little park for kids in sacramento. they had such a blast! we bought the unlimited wristbands for each kid and stayed for about 5 hours. it was a great way to get out for the day.

i think these kids are a little too giddy about driving - i think i will be scared when they become teenagers! lol

hey how rude!

just in case you are wondering, kevin taught them to put their hands up on the rides at a very young age, so it is apparently a requirement no matter how slow the ride!

isn't he sweet?

peek-a-boo! i see you!

09-26 Water Play

ok, so we have found the best way to stay cool when you live in southern california and it's still over 100 degrees at the end of september! (what is that all about anyway? lol)

i just love any picture that tells a story without any words, where you can see the interaction going on - which is why i love this one so much even though it's a little fuzzy. these boys were just SO into chasing the water shoots and so excited about it!

ok, there are good photographers (i like to think of myself as a somewhat decent one). but then there are those times when you just get so lucky and snap at exactly the right second! no way i could have ever timed this picture to turn out like this if i was trying - i had no way of knowing when the water would shoot up! i LOVE it!

09-05 Kyle's 5th Birthday

well, another milestone has occurred (seems like there's always one happening when you have 3 kids!) kyle's 5th birthday was on september 5th.


first he had to "help make" the cake!

kevin did a nice job on the finished product - a train. kyle asked for a train last year, too. guess he really likes them!





kyle has been begging for a scooter for months now, so he was very happy to open this present! (and test it out!)

this kid made out like a bandit! he got thomas the train movies, a butterfly habitat (i'm excited to get that going!), a remote control truck, clothes, a spinning monster truck arena (should i keep going?!)

yay more crayons! kyle yelled out: there's 64 - that's so many! (he loves coloring)

but the big hit of the party was the remote control race track - something about those little cars going round and round amuses children for lengthy periods of time.