Homeschooling addition

Well, I haven't updated in awhile, but I wanted to let everyone know that we have officially told EmmaLee that she will be homeschooling starting in January.  We thought she'd completely freak out and by hysterical and need all of Thanksgiving break to get used to the idea. But she surprised us and said, "okay". She said that she knew she'd be homeschooled eventually she just didn't think it'd be so soon. 

We went on a really cool field trip a couple of weeks ago, so I'll post pictures soon. I've been busy updating my mom's blog instead of my own.

Halloween and Other Stuff

On Friday, October 30th Lucy class baked bread. It was a ton of fun and the kids really enjoyed it. The bread was pretty good too.

Well, better late than never on the Halloween post!  EmmaLee and Lucy both dressed up as a Texans Cheerleader. EmmaLee went to my mom and stepdad's house to Trick or Treat with a friend.  Lucy and I went to the Go Fish concert. It was a ton of fun and we went Trick or Treating after the concert.  Danny and Daniel went to Grant and Collin's house.

My blog is having trouble uploading pictures, so I'll do the rest in a separate post.

Renaissance Festival

Daniel has done hardly any work this week because we've been goofing off.  On Wednesday we went to the Texas Renaissance Festival. I pulled EmmaLee out of school and we went to the Renaissance Festival with Cari, Brandon, DeAnna, Grant, Collin and our friends Valerie, Robbie and Morgan.

We had a really great time. The kids watched a jousting match, rode an elephant, went through a giant maze and spent tons of $$. Oh, and EmmaLee had her hair braided. It looked so beautiful. Even the next day it looked good.

Here are the pictures.

 

 

Busy Weekend

Well, this has been quite a busy weekend for us. Saturday we got up early and went to the kids TaeKwon-Do Tournament that started at 9:30. Daniel has to judge or keep time or score for the first half. He has to wait til the end to compete.  EmmaLee competed after about an hour and a half. Oh and did i mention we took Lucy with us???? She was actually very well behaved, but started hitting the wall at lunch time. Luckily Granddaddy (a.k.a. Kim) showed up and took her back to their house for a nap.  EmmaLee got a silver medal in patterns, she messed up on her last try and lost the gold because of it.  Then she competed in a team pattern and won the silver in that as well.  Daniel didn't place in any of his events, but he tried hard and that's what matters to us.

On Sunday, Danny went to the Texans game, but left early and came home so we could take Daniel and his cousins, Grant and Collin, to the Star Wars In Concert. It was a symphony playing the Star Wars music with a narrator telling a story and they showed clips from the movies in the background. It was worth the overpriced tickets and we had a lot of fun. The performance was amazing.

Here are pictures below of all our fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are more pictures on Facebook if you want to see them.

I need your help!

As most of you know, my mom has been hurting for about 6 months now. It all started with an injury to her neck that never got better only worse. So, she had a cervical steroid shot to help it heal, but it didn't. It actually made her vitamin D levels plummet to about 0 (normal is between 50-80).  After several stays in the hospital, we finally figure out that that was the problem, only it wasn't. After getting off of the steroids, and having vitamin D pumped into her body, she should be feeling better, but she isn't. She worse. Which brings us back to her neck. One doctor wants to replace 4 vertebra and one doesn't think she needs any surgery. 

After 6 months of this, you can imagine that she's discouraged. This is where you come in.  If you have been praying or are willing to start praying for my mom, I would like you to send her a card and tell her so. I would love for you to get your church or sunday school to be praying for her and have everyone that is praying for her to send her a card.  I will post her address at the end of this blog.

My mom's mental state is great. She's not depressed or anything like that, she just wants a doctor to find out what's wrong and fix it.

Here is what we would like for you to pray about:

1. that God would open the doors to the right doctor
2. give us the right diagnosis
3. that the doctor would prescribe the right treatment
4. that God would give my mom her health back
5. and that God wouldn't make her wait too much longer. She's very weary.

So, here is my mom's address:

Kim & Anne Quinn
19615 Crossbranch
Houston, TX 77094

(Kim is my step-dad, he's Australian for those of you who don't know him, that's why he has a girls name! LOL)

Here are some pictures of them. If you click on the photos, they will enlarge.

 

 Mom in October 2008

 

Mom and Kim in the Cayman Islands this summer. She got the cervical injection the week before we left and a few days later the problems really started happening. She didn't feel well on this trip.

Another Cayman Islands photo

October 2009 with EmmaLee and Lucy for her birthday.

(in this photo you can see how tired she is by looking at her eyes)

Please post a comment and let me know if you will be sending her a card and PLEASE, if you know my parents don't tell them I'm doing this. I would just like for them to be bombarded with cards and notes of encouragement and prayer.

Thanks for your help!

Pumpkins, TKD and the Gameroom

We got up this morning and went to the Pumpkin Patch. Lucy has been DYING to for about 2 weeks. Poor thing, now she has to wait even longer to carve the pumpkin! She'll live. Here are the photos I managed to take.
Lucy wouldn't sit still very long.

In case you didn't recognize him...This is my 12 year old stud.
I love both of these pictures.
He NEVER lets me take his picture so I was really happy to get two good ones.
Which one do you like?

This child is getting to big for her britches!

My little petite child now wears a size bigger than her age.

This is a first in her short lifetime.

This one is just plain crazy! Ya gotta love her though.

After the pumpkin patch we came home and got ready for EmmaLee's belt testing. She was testing for Blue Belt. The belt before this was half way to Black Belt. She will test for Black Tab in August 2010 and Black Belt in March 2011.

She did really good on her break. Mr. Howard did the board breaking a little different this time. He had them spar someone and try and break the board while sparring. It was a really good way to teach them how to use sparring and why it's important to be able to do both at virtually the same time. She did great as you can see.

I love the look on Mr. Coleman's face...I also would probably look like that too!

Miss Flores giving her her new belt!

EmmaLee and Mr. Webre!

EmmaLee with her new belt on!

Mom and Kim came to EmmaLee's belt testing and took Lucy home with them. We seized the opportunity to clean up the game room. We threw away one bag of trash and had one-two bags of stuff to give away. The kids did a great job of helping us and we even rearranged the furniture.

The girls stuff. They have a bigger area because they now share toys and play together.

Still the girls stuff!

Daniel and EmmaLee attempting to hide from being in the picture.
Remind me how old they are again? Do you even see Daniel? Hello!!!!!!!!!!

So this is how we spent our day today. We did pause and eat dinner and catch up on the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoons. Then headed back up stairs to finish off the game room. The kids didn't go to bed till 9:30pm. We had fun with them today!

Hope y'all had a great Saturday!

Long Time No Blog

Well, it's been several months since I last blogged. A lot has happened. School ended, summer came and went and school started again. Not that you don't already know all that, it's October already! Where did 2009 go anyway?

We had a great summer vacation and I did not want school to start, but it did and there wasn't anything I could do to stop it unfortunately. We drove to my dad's in Virginia and had a really good visit with them and we stopped some place new this year on the way home. We visited Ruby Falls and oh, I can't think of the name of it now. But Ruby Falls was awesome. I'm not uploading pictures cause they are all on Facebook, so go look at them there.

EmmaLee is in 4th grade and Daniel is in 6th. Both are doing really well too.

Lucy has calmed down a lot. She doesn't get into things as much as she used too. She attends preschool 3 days a week and loves it. She is also in gymnastics and takes swimming lessons. She continues to amaze us with the things she says. She sounds like an adult most of the time. She is a very interesting child. I wonder what she'll grow up to be? Any thoughts?

EmmaLee is testing for her blue belt in TaeKwon-Do this coming Saturday. She's only 4 more belt ranks before getting her black belt. Possibly in the spring of 2011, maybe sooner. I'm not sure. She really likes it and we like that she can defend herself against someone trying to hurt her.

Well, that's all for now. I'll try and be more diligent about blogging.

Medalists!

Daniel and EmmaLee competed in a TKD tournament over the weekend. It was EmmaLee's first competition and they both did great. It was a LONG day for us. Check in was at 8:30 and it started at 9am. The blackbelts went first with patterns. The adult men and women went first so that they could judge the younger ones. So Daniel went fairly early. Then he got to judge the colored belts for their patterns and sparring. He LOVED it. It was a learning experience for him, but he really did great. Then they started with white belts (beginners) and moved up to red belts (advanced, right before black belts). EmmaLee is a green belt, so she was smack dab in the middle of all of them. She won a bronze in patterns. Then she got to spar and got punched in the face 3 times. She didn't cry though til it was all over. She got a good uppercut to the jaw, which she says is still hurting. She won the bronze in sparring too. Then we waited for a LONG time til all the colored belts were finished and then they started black belt sparring. Of course, the adult men/women went first again. Daniel didn't finish until 4pm! Most tournaments are like that so I guess we'll have get used to it. My mom and Kim had Lucy so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Daniel got a bronze in patterns and sparring. They both had to do a break off in board breaking and EmmaLee won hers to get the silver and Daniel lost his to get the silver.

We are so proud of both of them. Pictures below.

Robbie Webre, Alex Dillion and Daniel -
they all train together and were the only boys in their age group.

Daniel doing his pattern. He blanked out on his pattern and forgot part of it,
otherwise I think he would have gotten the silver. Oh well, there's always next time.

Patterns Medalists - Alex got the gold, Robbie got the silver, Daniel got the bronze.

Now the fun part, getting to be a judge. Several people were upset because children were
judging adults, but to be fair, these kids have earned the right to be judges. They know the patterns and where the mistakes are and can tell which one did a better job.

EmmaLee doing her pattern.

EmmaLee getting her bronze medal in patterns. I don't know the other girls.

Mr. Howard instructing the boys on how to judge fairly.

EmmaLee sparring.

Daniel judging the sparring.

Sharing the bronze in sparring.

Breaking with a knife hand. We were impressed that he did that!

Breaking two yellow boards on the first try (you only get one try).

Someone stood in front of me when EmmaLee did her knife hand, which she did break. But this is the break off, this is one yellow board. She and the other girl, broke the knife hand, but not the kick, so they had to do it again and neither of them broke it. So they did it one more time, and EmmaLee broke it. I think I was more excited than she was!

Getting her silver medal in breaking.

Daniel and Robbie sparring. Robbie won.

Bronze in sparring. Yes that's a girl that got the gold! She was tough and
Robbie and Daniel didn't want to hurt her!

Robbie and Daniel had to do a break off and Daniel tried to break 4 yellow boards, but didn't. Robbie then only had to break 1 to win and he did easily.