Super Star

Caleb is our super star this month - so fun to celebrate all of his successes!  Last week he reached his first big milestone in scouts, earning his wolf badge and 4 arrow points.  He was excited!  This Wednesday he will officially be a bear scout, with all new things to work on.  Scouting is perfect for his little personality that likes to check-off completed things, plus he gets to do fun stuff.   Awesome!  Here he is acting like a wolf for a skit...

And getting his awards - lovely photo of the rest of us:

 

And when we got home, it was snowing, yay! So we had to play for just a few minutes.

Then this week, we went to his school to watch him test for his yellow belt and he did great!  He loves karate and has been really good about not using his moves on hi sisters (although he has taught them some moves, which is fine with me.)  And McKinley got right into the action, hollering "ay-yah!" after the students in the class.  That earned a few chuckles.

I had to take pictures on my phone because I forgot the camera, and currently my really fancy pay-as-you-go-phone will only send one, so if I can get it to work I will add a few more photos, but here is the one I can get:

He is stoked because this week he is taking a weapons class with escrima sticks. (I know!  What are those?!)  Apparently they are Filipino fighting sticks.  They look like this:

I also think for a price you can buy your own set, but I'm 99% sure we will pass on that.  If it comes right down to it, maybe he can buy a $3 piece of bamboo at Lowe's and Kip can cut it in half for him, but the minute a real person gets whacked with the things, they are history.

He is ALSO planning to participate in a tournament that his school is hosting in March, which should really be an adventure.  Should be cool stuff to watch and I can walk around singing Karate Kid songs under my breath (or out loud), so win-win. :)

And last, but most definitely not least, he had his 9th birthday today.  He had a party on Friday with all of his little friends from church and the neighborhood and we had lots of good ninja fun.  I was glad it was only for an hour and a half, though, because I had way too much boy-punching-kicking-burping-farting going on.  I told him next year maybe he can choose 2 or three friends and have something a little smaller.  Here are (most of) the boys after I corralled them to the table to make and color origami throwing stars (shurikens?).  One boy cried but we got it straightened out.  Funny that he cried with the origami and not when they were all beating the snot out of each other...

 And the cake!  Thank you, pinterest, for the idea.  Caleb was disappointed that it wasn't the goldninja, but gold frosting is hard to come by, and I thought he wanted the green one.  All was well when his friends thought it was cool, then he was all on-board. :)  I would also like to point out the awesome action going on to the right with boys trying to fight (again) because it looks like he has two arms.  Haha! 

 Make a wish!

 

And I could not grab the camera while he was opening presents because moms were collecting their kids, so I made him stand there in the middle of the gifts with the last boy there.  Happy birthday, buddy!

He is doing great with homeschooling and will be taking the Iowa Test of Basic Skills next month through his Monday program.  Technically since I am a licensed teacher, he does not have to take it per homeschool law, but I think it is a good skill for him to learn about test-taking and it will be interesting for me at least to see where he sits among his peers.  We've done some practice tests, and talked about how timed tests work and such, so hopefully it will go well.

He is still a total Lego fan, we are slowing amassing a giant collection that I will pawn off on him when he is an adult and on his own. :)  He likes basketball, football, soccer, swimming, playing video games, karate, ninjago (lego), being outside, and playing with Ella (but not the younger two so much-they just break his stuff).  He has buddies all over the street and they are always going back and forth between each others' houses and trying to get the most video gaming time in - if one mom says they are finished, they head to a different house.  Sneaky. :)  He likes music and dancing and does really well with piano lessons - another year or two and I'm sure he will pass me.   He is a little self conscious about being shorter than most of the boys his age, but it does not slow him down at all.  He says and does funny things and we love having him around!  Love you Caleb!