Taekwondo

In an effort to help Andrew gain some self-confidence, we signed him up for Taekwondo.

I was a little nervous that he would refuse to participate, but he’s done just the opposite.  He wants to go every single day…but we only pay for once a week.  So sometimes that’s a problem.

But  love the studio that we picked.  They are perfect for our goals and needs and work really well with kids.

Next week he’ll graduate to a new belt color, and he’s really, really excited!

Hopefully I’ll get some better pictures next week…these are just from my phone.

Funny story though: Every week they talk about a life skill and how or how not to use violence.  Last week Master Null asked all the kids to name someone you should NOT kick.

Andrew’s response?

Grandma.

I’m glad we are learning not to kick our grandmas.

I’m still laughing about it!

A year of respect

At the end of last year I decided our family needed a theme for 2011…you know, something to work on all year and improve ourselves and our family life.  One day I was reading the Parenting magazine and read an article on respect and how most kids these days don’t have any.  At that minute I knew that should be our theme.  And so we started A Year of Respect.  This article was also influential in helping me formulate the theme: http://familyvolley.blogspot.com/2011/01/r-e-s-p-e-c-t-do-your-kids-have-it.html 

In January we had a family home evening were we brainstormed what it means to be respectful.  Here are something's we thought of:

• having good manners (desperately need to work on this one here :)
• being nice
• no hitting
• respecting our belongings
• no yelling
• respecting God
• no interrupting
• being patient
• being a good listener
• obeying our mom and dad
• respecting ourselves
• respecting those who are different

So every month we take one of these things and really work on it.  January was Respecting God and this month has been being nice…which is so generic, but that’s what the kids wanted!

It’s been great and I think it’s really helping.

This month we also introduced “Respectiballs.”  These little fluffy balls go into the jar when they are caught being respectful.  When the jar is full, we will go do something fun as a family.

Hooray for respect!! 

Handyman

 

Boy! has my man been handy lately!

Check out some of his latest projects!

Oak cabinets above the washer and dryer to replace the ugly and unfuctional (is that a word?) wire shelf.

 

Next on the list was to replace our kitchen faucet.

Nice!

Lastly he hung up two more hanging shelves in our garage.

There’s no way we would be able to park both cars in the garage without these babies!

V-day 2011

We had an awesome love day.

What’s better than pink heart pancakes for breakfast?

 

After school we ran over to Darrin’s work and “heart attacked” his car.  The boys loved being sneaky!  We taped valentine’s to the windows and filled it up with balloons. 

I think he was surprised!

The kids and I then rushed to take Andrew to Taekwondo (which is a post for another day),

and when we got home at 6pm we found a nice Valentine’s dinner waiting for us.

Darrin had come home early from work and made it.

It was awesome.

Not having to worry about dinner was the best v-day present ever.

After a FHE lesson on l-o-v-e, we had fondue for dessert.  YUM!

Darrin and I ended the night by playing his new favorite game.

Agricola.

And if you can look close you can see our new couches!  Yay!

(That, too, is a post for another day.)

Thanks babe for a great day!

Love you now more than ever