1st TKD Tournament

This was last weekend at the Park Institute TKD Tournament. The main headquarters is in Rochester, MN but they have a bunch of satellite locations in MN and WI, juts like the location we go to in Frbo. 

Here is Henry with the 2 boards he broke during his board breaking tournament. They compete against same rank or near same rank belts. White and yellow stripe competed against each other in this tournament. He did a really awesome job breaking the boards with a front snap kick and ended up placing 1st in that. He was really proud of that. That was the 2nd event he competed in that day.

Here is Henry waiting to find out how he places. Dr. Chou, who is our 4th Dan Master at our location is the gentleman behind Henry. He wasn't one of the judges for this one, just the announcer (or whatever they call it), but there are 4 other black belts that are the judges.

Here are just some of the individuals lined up waiting to enter the ring to compete. They bring them in different groups, so there are still a lot of other people waiting in another room for their groups time to come out and compete. They had the opportunity to choose to compete in 1-3 events (Form, Board Breaking and Sparring). We haven't purchased the sparring equipment yet but will be soon. He doesn't need it for this rank and testing, but I think once he becomes a yellow belt he will need it and it is part of future testings. 

He got 2nd place in Form. He was doing so good and something distracted him towards the end of his form then he turned the wrong way, which then cost him points. It was the first event he competed in and was VERY nervous. But once he got that one out of the way, he was more mentally prepared for the 2nd one of board breaking.

It was super hard to take a picture fast enough of him kicking and breaking the boards. What you see here in the picture below is after be broke the board and you can kind of see that mans hands are facing closer in because the board was broken and he was no longer holding a straight board.

His next belt test is January 6th, as long as weather and health are cooperative. He is all set for it already because it is the form he was working on for the tournament and he has memorized the things he needs to know for this testing including the Tae Kwon Do Pledge and the Tenets of TKD and what the meaning of his form and belt is. And know his kicks he needs to demonstrate for this test, so now he just waits and goes to class to practice. Sister is super busy with basketball and swimming that TKD took a back seat, but she will be back practicing again in March. Hopefully Henry will test again in March and then he will be 2 belts ahead of sister and she knew that was what would happen. 

He is really enjoying TKD and is super in to it and has his goals set to get his black belt by Junior High, hopefully.

Basketball Season has started

 Basketball actually started last Saturday but because Henry had a Taekwondo tournament he is starting this Saturday. I believe there is 14 second graders doing the program so there must be a couple missing today from their practice. This is a program run through our school and these are all second graders at our school.

This year they got smaller balls for the younger kids to do which I think is wonderful because they are better able to keep control of their ball and shoot it because it isn't too heavy and big for them.

This program is 8 Saturdays between December and mid February. He will be able to get to 6 of the 8 because he has Taekwondo events like the tournament last weekend and in January he will have testing for his next belt and probably will have to leave in the morning during this practice time.

In January he will be doing a different basketball program on Monday and Wednesday nights in a neighboring community. January will be quite busy with sports for him as he will have two nights of basketball and this year there will be a winter soccer program at the Shattuck Dome where they get to play inside and he is quite excited to play in the dome. That will be 8 Tuesdays in January and February, leaving just Thursday for him to do Taekwondo.

Junior Achievment (JA)

I taught a 5-week program in Henry's class this fall called Junior Achievement. It is a financial literacy program and is taught in schools by volunteers. I taught his class in Kindergarten, 1st grade (plus another 1st grade classroom last year) and now 2nd grade this year. The kids seem to enjoy the program and learn a lot from it and Henry enjoys having mom come in to volunteer.

2nd Grade Christmas Concert

So, another concert in the books. Try not to laugh too hard when you watch the first video. He had light shining right in his eyes and he looks like he is having a seizure or something. I was surprised he wasn't in the back row. It definitely did NOT seem to be arranged by height when in the past 2 years when it was a different music teacher.

There were some people with fat heads in the way of my taping. Ugh. So I had to be this close or it would block out half the kids. He is still blinking a lot, but not quite as dramatic as the 1st song.




And then in this last one you can't even see him since they combined 2nd & 3rd grades, so I guess you can just listen to it if you want or not....Whatevs.....

He is a Yellow Stripe!

He passed his first belt test and is now a yellow stripe. He is VERY happy about this and happy not to be a white stripe and moves up higher in rank at class.

He was VERY anxious about testing and missed up one hand movement (had his hand facing in the wrong direction) and had to re-do his form. They told him what he messed up, but he was a puddle (which it didn't help he had a fever the past couple days before that but didn't want to wait another 2 months to test) and pulled himself together and redid his form and did it completely correctly, as well as everything else they had to do and were tested on. He learned his next form already in the very next class, so he is looking forward to testing for his yellow belt in January.

We saw the yellow stripes testing, so he knows what to expect and hopefully this will be a much less anxious experience for him in the future.

On His Way to Becoming a Master

Both Kids are doing their Chonji form for White Belt, this is the 1st belt. The testing was WAYYYYYY more intensive than just this. We had no idea what they were going to have to all do, but they were prepared and both passed and earned their yellow stripe. They were promoted at the next class.

Pictures from 2nd Grade Teacher

Henry is in the back row for this one. Mom went in there to volunteer and read the book "Spookly the Square Pumpkin" to the kids and then lead them in a craft I had planned out. They had fun with this project and Henry was happy to have mom in there volunteering. I went in again on his birthday to read the book "Berenstain Bears: Too Much Birthday" to them as well. In less than 2 weeks, I will be in there on a weekly basis to teach them the Junior Achievement program.

At the first "Elementary School Celebration" of the year, Henry received an award for always leading by example. Each child in each grade (K-6) will get one from their teacher at a monthly elementary school celebration but it's always better if you get one in the earlier months. :)

Fire Safety Week - pictures top & below

Top picture, he is in the back row on the right in the Medford sweatshirt.

Bottom picture, same outfit, in the middle raising his hand.

And finally bus safety week, which happened to be during spirit week which was dress outdoors or cowboy. He dressed as an outdoor explorer and has on his explorer vest, explorer hat and dinosaur t-shirt. He was ready for an expedition. He is 4th from he left.

8th Birthday

 I put these pictures in chronological order so you can see a bit of the progression. The first three photos are taken at his friend birthday party. We had it at the Faribault Community Center and they had a pool party. Because I didn't want to have what boys going back and forth and trying to fit in cake and presents during short breaks I decided we would do cake and then presents before getting in the pool.

 A few of his friends we're not able to make it but these are the friends that were able to.

 The community center pool just got a couple of log rolling logs. They will beginning classes in it and potentially providing it as a club sport of sort. They had asked if because no one else was at the pool at that time which just happened to be a coincidence, our party would like to try out log rolling. My kids have done it at the county fair and think it is fun and this was definitely a memorable experience for the kids.

 The morning of his birthday he got his usual birthday pancakes which both kids get on the morning of their birthday. This time Dad did one big huge cake for him.

We did presents before eating and Cake because we had more time to wait for that to be done. He was very excited to get to new Nerf guns and to new Lego sets. It was not a coincidence that mom and dad and grandma and grandpa both gave Legos and Nerf. Mom knows what he likes. He also got an pineapple pool float which is now inflated and is taller than him. He likes to lay on it while he watches TV. And we did let him open up gifts from his sister early as well as a couple other gifts from us because the gifts from us included Under Armour sandals that he would wear to the pool and his fur lined Crocs that he probably would want to wear to the pool party as well. His other gift from us was a book. Sister gave him a game and a box of Charleston chews.

In the evening Grandma and Grandpa m. Came to visit him for his birthday and also to go to his sisters band concert. We had dinner of homemade mac and cheese, which was his request. grandma made him a cake with marshmallows and chocolate frosting which was also a request of his.

"Frog and Toad" Original Composition

This was from several week ago and I guess I saved it as a Draft, but now you can see it. :)

2nd Missing Tooth

Just pulled out his 2nd tooth. So, a birthday and a visit from the tooth fairy the same night. He has 2 more loose, both of the other front teeth he hasn't lost.

His First Publish Book - "Buddy's Book of Death and Life"

He got this kit as a present from his godmother, Kendra. He has a similar kit yet to complete that is a comic book. He brought the book to school today to show of to his teacher and classmates.

Playing on Hay Bales at the Apple Orchard

Playing "Frog in the Middle"

Playing "Frog in the Middle" on the keyboard, a song he recently learned from his weekly piano lesson

Original Song by H

I don't think I shared this on here yet. Here is a video of Henry singing an original song he created. He did this on his own (when she should have been sleeping). He started doing weekly piano lessons this school year and I will have to share his original composition on the keyboard soon too. I just need to record him playing that.

2nd grade Patriots Day

Sent from his teacher on 9/11, Patriots Day

First Day of 2nd Grade - class picture

His teacher had sent this out to us.

TKD classes

 TKD was actually something H decided he wanted to do and I started getting all the info and shared it with the kids and then sister decided she wanted to do it too.

He also wanted to do some different stuff this year. Fall soccer starts next week and he will do that, when soccer is over he will do TKD 2x a week while sister does it 1x a week, but for now they are both 1x a week.

I plan to have him do basketball in the winter but that is only a few weeks long. In this TKD program the kids can come to ant Tu or The class and we do a punch card.

Not sure how well it will work with them being at the same level and in the same class. We only paid for 10 punches to start, so after 5 classes for each we can decide if they will continue.

Hulahooping

There was a performer at the fair that had a bunch of stuff for the kids to try out and Henry decided to try hooping. He is surprisingly very good at it. I managed to snap some picture of him and just did a short video of him, he can keep it going for a lot longer than what I wanted to record.

Judging and Ribbons

 Here are his 5 participation ribbons. Cloverbud only get participation, but they do get a premium too, which he is excited about. He enjoyed the judging as for Cloverbuds they just ask them to explain their process and don't tell them what to change.

1st Year of 4H Fair Projects

 This is the kids first year in 4-H. We joined in March and things are quite different here in Steele County perhaps even Minnesota than they were in Wisconsin. My understanding is some of the way the projects are is mostly how it has always been.

 The walking stick project is one that he did with his dad in the beginning. They went to a library nearby that was hosting a class that would turn invasive Buckthorn into walking sticks. They were shown how to peel the bark off which I guess feels quite easily. We let it sit out and drive for a while and then he had to sand it and put a spray coat of lacquer on it and then drill a hole and put in his handle.

Then you can see he did a painting of a car and he did to clay projects one of a dog and one of a castle. We had to repair both projects a bit with Crazy Glue because we had let them sit outside on some cardboard to dry after he sprayed lacquer on them to make them shiny and the wind caught it and broke off some pieces then we had to paint over those spots again where the paint had peeled away from the clay. Wii used air-dry clay for this one..

The Tooth Fairy pillow was a little kid that he had to complete and he did a really good job with it. On the backside is a little pocket for him to put his tooth in. Now he just needs to lose some more teeth other than just the one so he can try it out. He does have 3 loose teeth in their butt they are very slow to progress in their wiggling.

Someone is getting glasses....

Today we went to the eye doctor and turns out he needs glasses now too. His sister's prescription changed a bit and they have close to the same prescription. I didn't take any pictures of the glasses she picked out, but I did of Henry. He picked picked out 2 pairs. We went to VisionWorld in Frbo and rt now VW has a promotion that kids 13 & under get 2 pairs for $99 (glasses prices $69.95 & lower, some of those $69.95 glasses are the clearance price). Both of his are the Guess brand. He is very excited and nervous about having glasses. I left the decision completely up to him as to which ones he wanted. I had him pick out 5 pairs and then pick 2 from there. He was very certain these were the 2 he wanted.

Pool Time

Henry and his friend Jared at the pool. Henry learned how to do Flips off the diving board at this visit to the pool. I brought them in the afternoon came home to play and have supper then went back again in the evening. Jared didn't make it for a sleepover and wanted to go home but they had Henry come to their house the next day for a sleepover so Henry was happy to have had a sleepover with a friend this summer.

Took some videos of flips and jumps....

Video 1


Video2



Video 3


Video 4

Videos from the Children's Museum of La Crosse

This is just kind of weird to watch this first one, but we had so much fun playing this this toy at the museum.



This is a video of his very first doing a rock wall with a harness and belay. I didn't record the 2nd time which he did get all the way to the top. He did very well and was super proud of himself for learning how to climb a rock wall this summer.

Little Feet Summer Soccer

Tuesday and Thursday evenings in June & July were spent at the soccer field watching him learn knew skills and play with his team. This was a team that had players all mixed up and didn't have all from one school (like spring soccer, but that was a different park & rec doing that one). He totally lucked out and was on a team with 2 of his buddies that he was in the same classroom with. His friend Jared has actually been in his class the last 2 years and Mason K was just from this year. Unfortunately, both are in different classrooms next year. Actually, all 3 are in 3 different classrooms next year. They are all in basketball together as well. Also, Mason K is doing golf with Henry this summer too (Isabel is too, just a different group).

Their team won the "Watermelon Cup" and got their picture put in the newspaper. That little guy in the yellow shorts (I think his name is Damien) is super fast and a really good ball handler. He really scored quite a bit and really gave their team an advantage. The coach was a good coach and really taught them about dribbling and passing and tried to make sure he was giving them equal playing time.

Memorial Weekend