Karate Tournament

I know this is way overdue. The Karate tournament was so much fun. CJ went into this of course not sure of exactly what to expect. It was so cute. As soon as they started explaining how things work and showing everyone all the trophy's he was so excited. He said he was going to get himself one of those trophy's. I was so very proud of him, his first medal was a gold medal and he was so excited it almost made me cry. He came running to me screaming look what I got mom, look what I got take a picture of me. The picture I posted of him holding the medal was his very first medal ever. The gold medal! Just looking at those pictures I can still see the pride of accomplishment in his face. It was so cool to see him get so excited that finally he was winning medals not just his sister. CJ was in 5 events that day and won 3 golds and 2 silver medals. We were so very proud of him. Now the great thing with karate tournaments is that everyone always wins. And with that being said you can take the medals you win and trade up for a trophy or trade your small trophy's for larger trophy's. So needless to say when we asked CJ if he would like to trade his medals in for a trophy he was all for that. So we came home with one gold medal and a 3rd place trophy. It was so cute, when we got home of course we had to clean off a shelf for his trophy's (they also got a small participation trophy). As we were cleaning off the shelf he just kept chatting about how we were going to have to get more shelves because he was planning on winning allot more trophy's. I had to kinda chuckle to myself when he was chatting away. To think that almost 5 years ago the doctors were telling us that they didn't know if he would survive or not, to today, he is running around winning trophy's and medals. He definitely is nothing short of a miracle. I am truly blessed. I am so very proud of you CJ and we will put up as many shelves as you need.

Dance Competion # 2

I have been meaning to get this posted all week and just did not make it. Nikki had her 2nd dance competition last weekend and again they all did so awesome. She danced in her small group to the song Cooties (in the blue outfit) and in the large group production the danced to Ease on down the road, in this dance they are dressed as the Wizard of Oz and of course Nikki is a munchkin. The dance is really neat. The little girls won silver for Cooties and for the production they won PLATINUM!!!! You go girls. I was so proud of my little munchkin. The pictures aren't real great I forgot my camera so all I had was my camera phone. We won't have any dance this weekend though. This weekend is dedicated to CJ as he has his first karate tournament. The kids are just growing up so fast. I will post pictures of CJ's tournament hopefully next week. Spring break has been a relief for the kids I think they really needed the break. We even let Nikki sluff on her homework so we will have to get with it this weekend. As for now she is having her best friend sleepover and we are currently in popcorn mode watching Nancy Drew one of her fave movies. It will be interesting to see who makes it to the end of the movie. The girls or me. :)

It will probably be the girls. lol. tata for now.

Still Here

Hi we are all still here and doing well. I have been working around 50 hours a week so I have been to tired to get on the Internet to much. Not much new happening around here. Nikki had her dance competition spring performance last weekend it was so cute. I forgot my camera though so I am waiting on pictures that some of the other moms took. They are so great. James is teaching another financial peace class and is keeping busy with the housework that I am not doing right now. He was attempting the mop the other day and looked very awkward using it so I couldn't help but laugh and let him know that I may have an instruction manual to it somewhere!! :) He didn't think that was very funny. We are having a little trouble with Nikki right now, so now I now understand what people mean when they say ? going on 30 because she is definitely 7 going on 17 and seems to have forgotten that mom and dad are boss. As soon as I ask her to do something she automatically just does whatever she wants to do instead. AHHHH we are about to pull our hair out. I love that girl more than anything but I don't remember anyone warning me that hormones started this early. I had to laugh at her the other day because she wanted to take a radio into the bathroom while she took a bath and I told her no because it wasn't safe so she instantly started crying because "great what was she going to listen to now while she took a bath it is so boring." (This is a new thing, don't have any idea where it came from because I don't listen to a radio in the bathroom) I started laughing and told her she could listen to herself taking a bath. Of course she didn't like my answer. I'm kinda scared to know how the teenage years are going to turn out. Maybe she will get it all out of her system now. lol. :) I love you Nikki. XOXOX. On another note I want to give a shout out to my mom and dad they are retired and live in Nevada and have a little woodworking shop that they love to tinker and build stuff in. In the summer they go to allot of craft fairs to sell their stuff. Anyways I talked my mom into starting a blog so that more people could see their stuff and who know she might even sell something, so if your not doing anything you might stop by and take a look, their blog address is
www.ourlilfretshop.blogspot.com . Well James and I have started walk Kansas so I had better go get my walking in for the day. tata for now.

Nathen James

Here is my new and first great nephew. He is so cute! (Of course i'm not biassed). I can't wait to see and hold him. We are planning a trip to Nevada is August before school starts. It seems so far away I can't wait. He won't be so tiny anymore by then but thats ok. I am excited about being able to see all of my family. The last time I went back home was in 2003. So it is a much needed and anticipated trip.

P.S. Just wanted to say thanks Amy!! :) You'll get there. lol!!

Great Aunt

Well my niece had her baby today. I am officially a great aunt. That seems really strange to say because you think of a great as being old and I'm only in my 30's. Anyways CONGRATULATIONS NENA! And HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU BOTH. I am so happy for you. His name is Nathen James and he was born at 7:01 am on 2/11/09 In Winnemuca, Nevada, he weighed in at a whopping 7lbs 15oz. and was 21 1/2 inches long. I have a picture and will try to post it tomorrow I think I am going to go to bed for now.

P.S. Just wanted to give a shout out to Nate and Amy also. Congratulations on the arrival of Brody.

1st Dance Competition

We had allot of fun at Nikki's dance competion. Lucky for us we did not have to be there until 8am. So I woke up at 5 to get myself ready before I had to get Nikki ready. I think James was more excited about what the day was to bring than Nikki was. He was bouncing off the walls and kept asking her if she was excited and she would say yes then James would comment on how excited he was. It was funny I was laughing at them being silly. The competition was in Olathe so we had to leave home around 7 and of course we naturally barely made it out the door on time. I think next time I better give ourselves more time to get out the door. But then maybe we will be better organized by then. Nikki and all the other girls did an amazing job. I was not able to go to practice the Sunday before and the teacher said she was kinda worried because the girls seemed to be all over the place with thier dance. But she was very surprised at the competion the girls all danced wonderful and even remembered their steps without any prompting from the teacher which gave us extra points from the judges. We are so proud of all of them. The girls did end up placing. I can't remember what they called it though. I will have to find out and post more on that later. After the competion every thing seemed kinda crazy with everyone running around so we just took some of our pictures here at home afterwards. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that the song she danced to was called cooties.

Nikki I want you to know that I think you were amazing and I am so proud of how you danced. It is so much fun to watch you grow in dance every year. Mom, Dad and CJ all love you so much. Keep up the good work. We love you. xoxoxoxo

Green Belt

Congratulations CJ! We are all so very proud of you. Not only did you pass your testing you skipped a belt. You always seem to amaze us.

Yes you heard right. CJ of course started as a white belt. The Sensa (spelling?) had combined the white and yellow belt curriculum together in his classes since they are similar. I was not aware of this so when they passed out belts I was sceptical as to whether he was ready for a green belt. James on the other hand is a parent helper so he knew they were combining the curriculum for both belts but he didn't realize they were going to skip a belt by doing this. We were so excited when they passed the belt over to CJ. It was really cool. Young Champions of America always has a Fall tournament and a Spring Tournament and we skipped the one in the fall due to James thinking that CJ was not ready to do tournaments. But after seeing him perform for us I told him that we were not going to skip the spring tournament if at all possible. He definitely knows his stuff and I guess mom and dad have to step back a little and let him grow up as much as we may hate this. I came to a realization as I was watching him perform for us, that we try to shelter him too much and that he is ready for more than we give him credit for. I am just so proud of his accomplishments.

Nichole...

I realized today that I have been posting allot about Conrad lately so today I am going to give this post to Nikki. She is our emotional child but she also has the largest heart ever. I remember when she first started kindergarten her teacher told us at the first conference that all the parents were wondering who this girl was, because their kids were always going home telling them what a great friend she was. And I am very proud to say she is friends with everyone, even the bullies that she protects others from. Yes, she will stand her ground for anyone. Now in the first grade we get the same praises from her new teacher that she is very thoughtful and considerate of others. It makes me feel all warm inside to know that she sees everyone as equals. On another note she is also teaching mom and dad about recycling. She would recycle everything and we (James and I) are learning to not be so lazy about it. We now recycle our cans and paper. Nikki mentioned the other day that we need to start recycling our plastics also. So now I need to get a tub for plastics. I know that she's right. Along with trying to save the planet she is also involved in many activities which keep dad and I hopping around. Her first love would have to be dance. She dances Hip Hop, Ballet, Tap and Jazz. She about breaks us in shoes alone. lol.:) We tried soccer ( too much running) and pre-T-ball (which was ok) but she liked dance the best. This is her 3rd year of dance and her first year on the competition team. So far she loves it even though it is a little more work. She has practice 2.5 hours on Fridays and 3 hours on Saturdays. She was kinda bummed tonight though because the 5 star production that she was going to be in next weekend got cancelled due to them deciding they were not going to have any groups only solos so now she is going to have to wait till the end of the month. This year she will be going a total of 7 competitions including the nationals in Branson. Most of the time she will be dancing in KC, Overland Park, and Olathe. We are all very excited about this. She is also in Girl Scouts which is every other week and they also do allot of great things with the kids. And last but not least she is taking piano lessons but that recital we are excited to say is only once a year. Zzzzzz. Nichole is a wonderful child and loves to please everyone. We very seldom have to get on to her and if we do it's generally because she loves to eat with her fingers which really grosses me out. I don't think I will ever understand. As you can hopefully tell she is a completely wonderful child and I feel so blessed to have her in our life. Nikki we I hope you know how much your dad and I love you. You are the rays of sunshine that warm our hearts every day. xoxo

No No Words

Well if you haven't figured it out yet our son is quite the pill. Last night as we were getting ready for bed CJ was running around upstairs and I was swapping the laundry out (our laundry is upstairs) when CJ starts rhyming words which I didn't think anything of. The next thing I know he says I twisted the knob (he was talking about the doorknob) and it f "ing" "issed" me off .(geez! wonder where he heard that dad!!). I immediately looked at him and asked what he just said and this is how that went:

Mom: what did you just say?
CJ: nothing
Mom: yes you did. Tell me what you just said
CJ: You didn't hear me.
Mom: Yes I did.
CJ: No you didn't I said it quiet

There was more to this conversation but I never did get him to tell me what he had said so I had to get his dad involved and after a long conversation he finally told his dad through many tears what he had said. It's not that I wanted him to repeat what he had said lord knows the first time was bad enough. I just wanted him to realize how bad those words were and have a conversation with him about that. He did say he was sorry for saying those words and his dad said he was sorry for saying those words to whenever that was. James does not cuss very often so whenever it was that he said it CJ heard and never forgot. It was so sad to hear such big words come out of such a little mouth I was completely shocked and I think CJ was to when he realized that mommy heard him.:) OH the things we don't realize were teaching our kids.
On another note Nikki had picture retakes today since she was sick when they took the pictures the first time. I finally have a scanner so when we get them I will post the pics. She is also going to be going to her first dance competition next Saturday and she is really excited about that.
We are also really glad that school has started back up. Well at least the kids are. I would keep them home forever if I could.
I suppose these are the moments in life that we will laugh and cherish the most as the kids get older. I suppose no ones perfect.
Oh yeah! CJ tested last week in karate for his next belt we will find out next Tuesday if he passed. So stay posted.

Breakfast, Peaches and Dinner

Today was an awesome day. It gave me hope and maybe or hopefully an insight of what is to come for the new year.:) For those of you that don't know CJ was born with CDH and has never eaten by mouth at least nothing that would amount to anything. He lately well I guess for some time (a few months) has been just chewing and spitting, which is really gross at the dinner table but never discouraged. For Christmas we got the kids some chore charts that lists their chores and how much money they earn per chore per day as well as penalties that would reduce their allowance. The kids were really excited about earning money that they could spend however they wanted to spend it. We also included several special family activities that they would be able to choose at the end of the week of their choice if they did not have to use any penalties (movies,games,favorite dinner that they would get to help cook etc...). We also told them that on the last weekend of every month we would take them to Toys R Us to spend their money. Well your probably wondering what this has to do with peaches or even meals! Well one of the chores CJ has is to swallow 3 bites of food a day which is quite a task for him. In doing this he will earn 25cents per day. WOW. It is working he forgets that he only has to take 3 bites and has been taking around 5. Now mind you these are bite sizes of solid foods that you might give a 9 month old baby. They are very very tiny bites but it is so exciting to finally see him swallowing something. Well today he asked me for some peaches so I cut up a slice and he ate the whole thing in about 10 minutes. Then asked for more. So I cut up another slice. And he ate that one also and asked for yet another slice. I couldn't believe it I was so excited I couldn't get to the kitchen fast enough. I asked him if he would like me to cut the pieces a little bigger and he said yes. So I nervously cut them a little larger. I guess the size would be about 1/4 of a dime so still very small. I was so proud of him. And he was so proud of himself for eating it. He ate all those pieces in about a 30 minute period without gaging or spitting. Then to finish off my day he ate 3 kernels of corn and 2 bites of a Penni noodle. YEH!!!!! Oh yeah! at breakfast he also ate 2 kix cereal balls. This is the most he has ever eaten at one time or even in a day or week or even month. He usually would just lick or chew and spit or sometimes he would just start retching at the sight or smell of the food and occasionally sip liquids so this was an absolutely huge huge day for Cj. I am so proud of him. It made me cry to see him working so hard to eat, he wants to so bad. He always asks for food and I make sure he always gets the food he asks for but he has never actually eaten what was given to him.

CJ I can't wait to see where you go next in your life and what challenges you are going to conquer on the way. I am so proud of you. I know that you will be eating soon and we will one day remove the mickey. I will always be here supporting you in whatever way you need. I am so happy that you are never afraid to voice your opinion and tell me what you want I think that at age 4 this is pretty great. Although a very ornery boy you steal my heart every day.xoxo