Karate Kid...Again.

Gage was invited to attend karate class with his friend.
He hasn't been active in karate in over a year.
He was very excited to put his uniform back on, and show me that he remembers all kinds of cool-karate-moves.

...and then he got silly. Of course.

He's grown so much. His little karate pants were high-waters.
He saw his old teacher there, and really enjoyed going. Or so he said.

:)

Our Little Yellow Belt!

December brought something else into the Casa de Lainey-Paney, thanks to some VERY hard work by our little guy, Gage.
You guessed it from the title: A YELLOW BELT!

Pics from Gage's testing & Gage getting his new belt after remembering a form that has about 23 different steps to it {...but hey, who's bragging about their kid? Certainly not MOI!}....







Way to go, sweetie. Mommy & Daddy are SOOOOOOO proud of you!
YOU did that. Not me. Not Daddy. Not anybody else. YOU did that.

The Karate Kid ....is a trophy winner!

We returned from our Colorado trip on a Wednesday night.
On the following Saturday, Gage had his 1st ever karate/taekwondo tournament.

I am super excited to say that our little guy won 2 First Place trophies.
Wooohoooo!
One trophy was for "forms" and the other for "weapon of choice".

For anyone who knows how incredibly shy my child is in real-life, then you can appreciate what an amazing accomplishment this is for him. He got up in front of a room FULL of people, and went through his moves. He did it with the teacher by his side, but the fact that he actually got out there on the mat, without Mommy & Daddy, while he had all those eyes on him----OMG, I am so proud!











He was so happy. His first trophies ever.


So then what did we do?
We celebrated, of course.
...at Chuck E. Cheese's.

And, our kiddo was feeling QUITE out of his normal personality, and even got close to Chuck E. Cheese himself!
How braaaaaaave!


We had pizza, and played games, and we got to celebrate the day with Memaw & Poppa. Memaw saw him compete earlier in the day, and then they both met us up at Chuck E. Cheese's to celebrate... There is no doubt that this child is loved!



We had a blast & won LOTs of tickets.


Man....just ONE TICKET shy of 500.
Lucky for us---they rounded up.

Tiger Belt!!!!

Let me start by saying that I am not the best karate mom. I thought Gage was getting his yellow belt today. Ummmm...I was wrong.
He was getting his Tiger belt today which is apparently an orange belt with a tiger patch on it, and whatever.
I'm excited for him, but being the piss-poor mom that I am, I built the kid up about yellow because....well, that's the one that I thought came next!

Well....so, I tried to have a "yellow" theme for the day, so Gage picked out these shoes for me to wear:

{Yes, I know that they are gold, not yellow. Yes, I know that today was about HIM testing for his belt, not me. But, if you know my child, then you will know that (1) he chose these shoes for me at the store, and (2) shoes are important to him. Whether they are my shoes, or his shoes, or your shoes---he knows if our whole family is wearing flip-flops at the same time...he knows what he likes & doesn't like in a good shoe, mmmmkay? And the shoes he chose for me were glittery gold. I obliged. They're fun.}

We had fun with Ranger this morning....



Gage got to go swimming at Memaw's while I had to go to the dentist.
My dentist experience will be perhaps a post of it's own on a different day.

After the dentist, I retrieved Gage from his grandparents' home...and we went to "The Depot" (Home Depot) where we got a few plants to replace the extremely thirsty (read: brown & dead) plants in the pots on my back patio where the sprinkler heads don't reach & I can't remember to water them as I should.
Anyway...the new ones are lovely.
And no, I didn't even take them out of their plastic pots...I just left them in the black plastic pots they came in & set the whole freakin' thing in the ceramic pots already out there on the patio. After all, I don't know how long they'll be staying (read: surviving) and this really makes moving them (to the trash can when they're dead) easier. Am I right???

What came next?
Oh, then I busted my hiney cleaning house...except doing the dishes because I just didn't have it in me to unload the dish washer. {I just HATE unloading the dishwasher...} But, I did sweep & mop and dust and clean the whole patio, and made beds, and did lots of other stuff. Makes up for not doing the dishes in my book.

And then----karate time! Where Gage earned his Tiger Belt. {...and it's got a yellow stripe down the middle...so see, there's SOME yellow on it!}





And how have I ended this day?
I've eaten a bowl of mac & cheese for dinner (there's protein in there somewhere, right?), had 3 oreos for dessert, and now I've completed a few blog posts.
My house is not spotless, but that's okay.
My child is in bed wearing miss-matched dinosaur pajamas & looking at his dinosaur encyclopedia. The dog is asleep on my shoes, and Hubby is ironing.

Sadly, I must return to work tomorrow.
Oh, how I'd rather stay home!

Monday Funday!

For a change, I didn't work this past Monday. Rather, I worked Tuesday instead.
So, Monday was full of fun!

Gage started out with skateboarding (on this random little hand-me-down but where on earth did it come from-skateboard)...



Flower appreciation...


And there was swimming...and I do mean SWIMMING. (Yes, he's starting to be able to really swim...under water! He's not confident in his own abilities, and he really can't go very far yet, so he only swims in the shallow where he can can just stand up when he feels like he needs a sense of control...)




In the above photos---please notice the Iron Man temporary tattoos that Gage is now in love with. Oh, lucky us.

There was also karate that day, where he got the coveted FIRST spot in line-up. (Line up: all the "Tiny Tigers" line up on the edge of the mat in preparation for class to start. When it's time, they bow onto the mat & run down the mat to their spot. If you're first in line-up, then you get the spot closest to where a lot of the parents sit. Gage LOVES being first in line-up....now. When he first started, he would not haven even dared to be 1st in the line-up!)


After karate, Gage helped in the kitchen. That ended up making the whole "cooking" thing take longer, but whatever. He LOVED helping, and I loved the time together.





Truly, it was a great day!

June 30th: Hello Orange Belt.

Gage tested on June 30th, and he tested out of his white belt.
Yaaaaaay, Gage!
You earned your orange belt, and we're so proud of you!







Yes, this is the same little boy who would not even get on the mat by himself when we started all this a few months ago. And now? Well, he still has bouts of shyness when we're there...but lately he's been LOUD during class, and just surprising us all with his participation and skills. This activity has been so good for him!