Judo

Jacob started judo at the end of August.  So far he is really enjoying it, and also liking that he gets to hang out with his friends twice a week.  Sensei Alvarez is a friend from our ward and great with the kids.  Last week his judo club did a demonstration at the middle school and Jacob is so excited for when he will get to participate in those.  That's a long way off though since he needs to get both his yellow and orange belts first.  I'm happy he's found something that he enjoys and gets to hang out with good kids.  

 

 

 

 

 

Lego Kidsfest 2012

This year the boys saved up their money and bought tickets to Lego Kidsfest that was visiting here in Austin.  It is basically a Lego Heaven that travels all over the country and visits cities for a weekend.  There were billions of legos everywhere for building anything imaginable, and the boys loved every minute of it.  We took so many pictures, but here are a few of my favorites.

 

 Here is Jacob just before trying to bury himself in legos.  This was the largest mountain of legos I've ever seen, you can only see a small part of it here.

 The boys' favorite section was Lego Ninjago.  They spent a lot of time there building and battling.

 They attended a session of "Lego Master Builders Academy."  At the end they got to build a spacecraft and show it to the Master Builder.

 

 

 

 

 I was the lego hunter, finding specific pieces that the boys needed for whatever they were building.

 The "Gallery Wall" - Zach's is the orange & blue design right above Jacob's head and Jacob's is the letter "J"

 They had these glass cases everywhere and Jacob could've spent hours looking at every single detail.

 It was nice for me to have my friend Erin there to chat with when the boys were occupied, and also to separate when the boys wanted to do different things.

 This is a huge floor map of the U.S.  Zach built a lego building to put inside Alaska.

 This was an awesome event for the boys and something I know they will save up for in future years.  Hopefully it comes back to Austin!

Back to School 2012

August 27, 2012

 Connor - Kindergarten

*Loves snakes, maps, space and memorizing facts about anything and everything

*Taught himself to read by age 4 so that he could learn about anything and everything

*Wants to be a chemist when he grows up

*Favorite thing about first day of school - "RECESS!!!"

*Teacher is Mrs. Burgess

 

Savannah - 2nd Grade

*Loves to draw/paint/color, play "school", be a second Mommy to Landon, get her fingernails painted

*Has quite an opinion now on what she wears and how her hair is fixed

*Not sure what she wants to be when she grows up - it changes often (right now probably a teacher)

*Favorite thing about first day of school - "learning about graphs"

*Teacher is Mrs. Bond

Zachary - 4th Grade

*Loves to do pencil drawings, Minecraft on the computer, collect coins, and legos

*Wants to be an artist or marine biologist when he grows up

*Wouldn't tell me about his favorite thing from the first day, but it seemed to go fine

*Teachers are Mrs. Platte and Mrs. Williamson

 

Jacob - 6th Grade

*Loves reading fantasy, playing on his new Kindle Fire, learning judo and legos (of course)

*Was a little nervous about starting middle school, but loved it after the first day

*Is learning to play the viola in orchestra this year

*Started Judo this month and is LOVING it so far, he also has lots of friends from the ward there

*Wants to be an engineer when he grows up (specifically a lego designer)

*Favorite thing from the first day of middle school - "Orchestra"

*Schedule this year - World Cultures, Language Arts, Science, Gym, Accelerated Math, Choir, Orchestra

 Connor at his table on the first day of school.  He was so excited to finally be starting school and talks non-stop when he gets home each day to tell me every little detail.  He knows which table every single child sits at, what they want to be when they grow up, and lots of other fun facts about his class.

 All the kids have great teachers this year.  Connor has Jacob's reading teacher from kindergarten.  Savannah has Jacob's 2nd Grade teacher, and Zach has Jacob's 1st Grade teacher (who moved up to 4th a few years ago).  I was so glad to go to Parent Night at the middle school as well, and get to see more for myself what the differences are in middle school.  Jacob is handling it all great and becoming very independent.

Day Camp - Round 2

We had round two of Day Camp during August.  Jacob did a great job leading the boys this time since he knew more what to expect.  We changed things up some from the previous week and it worked much better.  We also had a couple of the same boys, so it was nice for them to do some different activities.  Jacob took over a lot of the responsibility and I was really proud of him.

On "Sports Day" we had a rotation of different things for them to do.  Jacob was the bowling pin machine for almost an hour, setting the pins back up non-stop.

 

 Zach's best friend participated during this week, so we let him participate for the most part also.

 There many hours spent doing legos, beyblade battles and such.

 

 

 My absolute favorite thing was on sports day.  Since it was too hot to do exercise outside we modified for indoor sports.  They did stretching and talked about getting into shape for sports.  Watching all those boys doing sit-ups, push-ups, and jumping jacks was hilarious.

 Sneak attack during the marshmallow war...

One week after camp was over Jacob got his Kindle Fire in the mail.  It was a very happy day.

Summer Fun

Jacob & Dallin went to a Round Rock Express game, just the two of them.  We learned last summer that Zach does not enjoy going to sporting events, so that will probably become something that Jacob & Dallin can do together.

 

 We didn't get to swim much this summer.  Landon was sick for almost 3 full weeks of the summer, we went on vacation, and had day camp at our house for 2 weeks.  For most of the summer Landon hated going in the pool, so that made it extra difficult.  I figured out that it was because of the life jacket and floaties that he didn't enjoy it.  I bought him a Puddle Jumper life jacket and he loves being in the pool now.  It is much less bulky, and he can swim on his own.  Next summer we'll get to the pool much more.

We did go once as a family though, when some friends invited us over for a BBQ.

 Connor made sure that everyone there watch him do his backstroke.

 

 

 

 This is for the kids to remember.  Jacob talked me into buying a $1 Phineas & Ferb jello mold.  We ate a lot of Jello Jigglers this summer.

 Jacob got to be on the Boy Scout end of an Arrow of Light ceremony, welcoming one of his friends to 11-year-old scouts.

Towards the end of June Dallin came back with the kids from the creek with a water bottle full of tadpoles.  They were super tiny, but grew really fast.  The kids liked watching them grow legs before we released them in the lake when we went on vacation.

The Sound of Music

At the beginning of August Dallin and I went on a date to the summer musical in Zilker Park.  They do this every summer for free, and it runs for a few weeks.  This year they did "The Sound of Music," which is my favorite musical of all time.  I had been once before to see "The Music Man" and was very impressed at how professional it is.

 Dallin and I didn't get there early enough for a good seat up front, but I actually liked where we ended up.  We were up above the crowd and had a place to put our feet below us.  There was a little bit of tree branch blocking our view, but it wasn't a big deal.  I think we'll make it a date every summer.