And all the sudden we find ourselves planning for high school with an eye toward college. This guy has shot up over the last year. We have had to replace his fencing uniform twice! This summer he went from push-mowing the front yard to doing that plus trimming and blowing the debris. We returned home from a week away and he put away a bunch of stuff WITHOUT ME ASKING! What new world is THIS that I am living in? I enjoy making him laugh and he loves doing the same. He is quite the practical joker with a a sweet spirit. Needless to say, I think he's pretty great. I am one proud mama and look forward with some dismay to all the changes and adventures ahead. Happy Birthday Jonah!
Jonah installed new feet on my computer today for my Mother's Day gift!
A couple of weeks ago, I told him about how for two years I have had these new plastic feet for my 10 year old laptop computer and have been too intimidated to install them myself as it required the computer to be slightly disassembled. I suggested he may need some help from Daddy, but that this was the gift I wanted for Mother's Day. Well, Daddy didn't need to help at all!
Over the last year Jonah has gotten braces (and dealt with all the maintenance and appointments that go with them) and glasses as well as learning how to use contact lenses. He has experienced the glories and struggles of competition both in fencing and First LEGO League, learned how to be a team player in our family and in First LEGO League, started mowing the lawn for a bump in allowance and, just this week, cared for and entertained children much younger than him at church functions. When today rolled around, he had all the confidence in the world to take my laptop apart and replace the plastic doohickies so my desk won't get scratched up. It was awesome!
He has been growing and maturing a lot the last year in many different areas. This has made me a bit nostalgic at times, but, especially today, I'm really appreciating his newfound confidence and maturity. Happy Mother's Day to me!
Jonah competed in his first fencing tournament this past month. It was a local, unsanctioned affair but was still hard on the nerves for all of us. Jonah contracted a cold the week before and missed practice the whole week prior. My momma-bear side hated knowing the odds were against him performing well and that he would likely have a negative first experience with competing. Having never witnessed a tournament before let alone been a participant, there were a few things about the process which added a layer of bewilderment atop the frustration of not feeling well. He left with a combined sense of confusion, fatigue and disappointment. Afterwards, we chalked the whole thing up to a good learning experience over lunch and dessert at Culver's as a celebration of making it through his first fencing tournament.
The next day, he went to practice at my behest despite not feeling up to it. It turned out not to be a great idea. He became exhausted before practice was even over, and the next day awoke with a terrible cough that hung on longer than expected.
As a result, I have come to the realization that we both have some things to learn that simply can't be taught except by experience. He has to learn how to lose, and by this I mean lose well, with grace and without taking it as utter defeat, while I have to learn how to judge when he is genuinely spent and not just uncommitted.
There are other tournaments on the calendar in the coming weeks. Of course, I hope he does well, but more importantly I want us to enjoy the journey keeping in mind that sometimes the greatest victories do not come through winning.
Jonah during a preliminary fencing bout (Photo by Jason Davis)
My oldest turned 12 this month. It is hard to believe that I will soon have a teenager in the house!
Jonah has matured a lot this year in many ways. This momma is very proud of the young man he is fast becoming. May God continue to lead him and us, his parents, as he approaches adulthood. May God make his path straight, his faith strong and his future sure.
Jonah has taken up fencing this year. He is enjoying it and improving quickly. We are thankful to have found a sport that he is truly interested in and also challenges him, as well as the new friends God has brought to us through the sport.
He got braces this summer which has added to his mature look.
At this point, his upper body strength exceeds mine, so he was a big help prepping his room for painting over the summer.
On a recent hike in the notoriously steep Tallulah Gorge, he stayed ahead of the rest of our group the entire time. Here he stopped to wait on us. All that physical conditioning from fencing is paying off.
He may be maturing but he is still a bit of a clown at heart, who enjoys a good laugh and likes to entertain others.
I'm so thankful that God made me his mom. He may be my oldest and he may not be a baby, but I still can't help but call him that from time to time. Afterall, there was a time when he was my baby.
On our recent tour of southern Utah, we ventured out to Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry. Our son really wanted to visit Dinosaur National Monument in the northeast of the state but it was just too far away from our other stops. So, when I saw "dinosaur quarry" marked on a road map and that it only required a short detour on our way to Salt Lake City, I thought it would make a decent substitute.
Allosaurus skeleton
It turns out that the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry has been a treasure trove of Jurassic aged dinosaur bones for scientists across the globe. Inside the visitor center are cast molds of dinosaur bones actually found at the site most of them carnivores with the majority being Allosaurus. The fossils found at this site have been sent to museums and universities around the world.
Trail and terrain at Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry
Jonah and I hiked a portion of the trail on the property. The first stop on the trail pointed out a sauropod rib in the cliff which was pretty cool. But Jonah desired to find a dinosaur fossil himself, so I encouraged him to look in places where water would flow during a rain.
Fossilized Sauropod rib along trail at Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry
Lo and behold he found a contender. I took a picture and we placed the rock back where we found it. When I showed the picture to the staff member he confirmed that it was a fossil and even said that we may be the first visitors to actually find a true fossilized bone and suggested that it was likely a small rib bone of a young Allosaurus! As far as I'm concerned our mission was accomplished.
Possible small rib of an Allosaurus found at Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry
Before leaving home yesterday, I asked my 10 year old son to read two chapters in the book he is currently reading and to do one Mastery Challenge on Kahn Academy Math on the IPad. (If you haven't discovered Kahn Academy yet, I highly recommend it regardless of how you choose to educate your child.) Typically I give a timeframe of 30 minutes for Kahn Academy, but since my daughter and I were going out for errands I thought I'd go easy on him. Mastery Tasks as the term implies are selected questions assigned by the program that represent the level of the student and are offered as a means of determining skill mastery. Unfortunately, the Mastery Tasks don't always show up on the students dashboard on the Kahn Academy IPad Application. (From my experience, it does consistently appear on the laptop version.)
Therefore, while Elisabeth and I were at Target, I received my first email from Jonah ever. He didn't bother typing anything other than the subject line as there was no need: "There's no mastery tasks😕"
I have to admit, that I was amused and proud.
Happy 10th Birthday to my darling boy! Upon his birth, I was thrust into a greater understanding of the depths, heights, and width of unfathomable love. He has shown me what true joy looks like. His creativity is inspiring. His sensitivity warms my heart. I am so proud of the young man he is becoming. Here is to my fun-loving, sweet-spirited first-born. I thank God for him.
My 8-year old just lost his first premolar. He pulled it out himself not wanting to lose it in his sandwich.
According to various on-line eruptions charts, those transitional teeth between incisors and molars are usually lost around age 10. He has been consistently early in losing and getting teeth. It looks as if this trend will continue.
He says, "It feels weird."
When I asked him if he wanted money now or if he wanted to put the tooth under his pillow, he still wanted to act out the Tooth Fairy bit. So cute!
I make no claims of being a great crafty DIY person. So when my son said he wanted a Minecraft themed birthday party I did what most American moms would do I googled "minecraft party decorations." I was shocked that there was hardly anything available for purchase in the category. So I turned to pinterest for other options.
Given that our setting was a picnic shelter at a park, our decor options were limited to tabletops and a pinata.
After looking at pictures of other pinatas, Jonah came up with a conceptualization of one with a Steve face on one side and an Enderman on the other. His got his dad to putting it together according to his vision (a CEO in the making I guess).
I took this idea for grass dirt blocks from pinterest, but used the cocoa crispies instead of rice crispies to make it look more like dirt. They were a huge hit with the extended family.
And did I buy or make that gorgeous cake shown at the top of this post? Nope. I bought some stickers from an online party store that aren't Minecraft per se but are mining related - the kids stuck them to popsicle sticks for inserting into cupcakes and voila you have cupcake toppers (and yes, they were store bought cupcakes).
We also used strawberry and licorice flavored twizzlers to make some Minecraft TNT. This is a common minecraft party food and can be packaged numerous ways.
We did purchase a Minecraft Papercraft Animal Mobs Set to assemble and use as table decorations. They doubled as party favors for our few child guests. Jonah added a couple of his action figures to the tabletop display as well.
In the end, Jonah was very happy with his Minecraft birthday and I didn't overly stress or overspend on cake and decor. Success!
We are officially living in a traditional house now and there is an orange tree in the backyard. Jonah has talked about having an orange juice factory ever since he found out about that tree. I bought him a juicer to see how he would do. It's always good to practice your production methods after all, and, as a bonus I had a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice with breakfast this morning. At the moment, he is seriously considering selling orange juice to the neighbors. I love my imaginative little entrepreneur.
This kid can take anything and make a toy or costume out of it. This is what happens when we get an Amazon delivery- he cuts and pastes the packaging into "armor." He says that he is supposed to be like a storm trooper.
My first born turned seven this week. Happy Birthday to my sweet, charming, comedic little man who loves joking around, playing with Lego, drawing and above all his sister.
Yesterday Jonah read his second book. Green Eggs and Ham was always
my favorite Dr. Suess book. Jonah seemed to really enjoy the rhyming
and repetition - it makes for a great confidence builder. I thoroughly
enjoyed watching him take the book out of my lap and read page after
page all by himself!
