I'm so Mean

I'm making Andrew eat a small carrot right now and you would think I was making him eat a spider or something.......... He STILL will NOT eat veggies.... GRRRRRRRRRRRR

I'm posting this for memory... If I put it anywhere else I will likely forget where I put it.

Ten Precepts of Karate

Karate did not develop from Buddhism or Confucianism. In the past the Shorin-ryu school and the Shorei-ryu school were brought to Okinawa from China. Both of these schools have strong points, which I will now mention before there are too many changes:

1. Karate is not merely practiced for your own benefit; it can be used to protect one's family or master. It is not intended to be used against a single assailant but instead as a way of avoiding a fight should one be confronted by a villain or ruffian.
2. The purpose of karate is to make the muscles and bones hard as rock and to use the hands and legs as spears. If children were to begin training in Tang Te while in elementary school, then they will be well suited for military service. Remember the words attributed to the Duke of Wellington after he defeated Napoleon: "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton."
3. Karate cannot be quickly learned. Like a slow moving bull, it eventually travels a thousand miles. If one trains diligently every day, then in three or four years one will come to understand karate. Those who train in this fashion will discover karate.
4. In karate, training of the hands and feet are important, so one must be thoroughly trained on the makiwara. In order to do this, drop your shoulders, open your lungs, take hold of your strength, grip the floor with your feet, and sink your energy into your lower abdomen. Practice using each arm one to two hundred times each day.
5. When one practices the stances of Tang Te, be sure to keep your back straight, lower your shoulders, put strength in your legs, stand firmly, and drop your energy into your lower abdomen.
6. Practice each of the techniques of karate repeatedly, the use of which is passed by word of mouth. Learn the explanations well, and decide when and in what manner to apply them when needed. Enter, counter, release is the rule of releasing hand (torite).
7. You must decide if karate is for your health or to aid your duty.
8. When you train, do so as if on the battlefield. Your eyes should glare, shoulders drop, and body harden. You should always train with intensity and spirit, and in this way you will naturally be ready.
9. One must not overtrain; this will cause you to lose the energy in your lower abdomen and will be harmful to your body. Your face and eyes will turn red. Train wisely.
10. In the past, masters of karate have enjoyed long lives. Karate aids in developing the bones and muscles. It helps the digestion as well as the circulation. If karate should be introduced beginning in the elementary schools, then we will produce many men each capable of defeating ten assailants. I further believe this can be done by having all students at the Okinawa Teachers' College practice karate. In this way, after graduation, they can teach at the elementary schools at which they have been taught. I believe this will be a great benefit to our nation and our military. It is my hope you will seriously consider my suggestion.

Anko Itosu, October 1908

2012 Recap

Here is goes in a nutshell.

R.I.P Yenci..
Yenci was my nephew of 27 yrs who very unfortunately lost his life while celebrating Canada Day at Grand Bend beach. He was not a strong swimmer and got caught in a undertow. He was a single dad to almost 3 yr old Akadia. Akadia was his life, he was an amazing father. All around fantastic person. There truly is nothing bad I could say about him. He will be greatly missed by EVERYONE who had the fortune to know him. I love him so much.

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R.I.P Isis
Isis my only 3yr old cat passed away in early January. She was very healthy up until the day she died. I woke up one morning and she was breathing funny so I took her to see the vet right away. We were there only for about half an hr and she passed. She died of congenital heart failure. The vet said there is no way of knowing before hand to have prevented it. She was a rescued kitty that came into our lives when she was only 1 yrs old. She was a very shy girl but I'm so happy that she was able to spend the end of her life surrounded by people who really loved her.

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Karate.
Andrew earned his yellow belt sometime in Dec 2011 but did not receive it until the new year. He was doing fairly well but as of Sept I decided to take him out of it because I was not please with the way his Sensei was treating him. So I have been doing some research and think I have found a dojo that will work better for him. I will have to update about that because he won't be starting until early Jan.

Homeschooling is going fairly well. He's still somewhat weak on his reading so we've been putting extra time with that. Right now he's reading the Nancy Drew series.

He still loves Scooby Doo but is more into gaming these days... Anything Mario he's in. He has also been play Super Sonic and as of late LOVES playing Mind Craft.

We have a new member in the family in the beginning of the year shortly after we lost our Isis. (I refuse to have a catless home). He is a rescued kitty, found almost have frozen by the lake. An online friend tipped me on him and ever since I saw him I knew he was ours forever!
Introducing George O'Ryan Hendricks ..

The craziest cat alive!


 Well obviously it's been a more packed year then all of this but those were the main parts... Hopefully I will be better in the new year with keeping more up to date posts....

So long 2012.

Merry Christmas 2012... I think this says it all about his Christmas.

Spring Has Srung

And many other joys!

I love spring. I love all the different shades of green. I love the smell. I love the colors. I love the sounds. I can't get enough of it.

Andrew is now 8 yrs old. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? This is going way too fast. Right now as I type this he is playing so happily in the back ground. I'm going to miss hearing this in just a few short yrs. Why does childhood go so fast? It's not fair.

He went to the Dr's last week for his yearly checkup. He's now 3"11 and weighs 49Ibs. Still on the small side. But Christina was like that so I'm not too worried. The Dr did mention that his distant vision has decreased since he was checked last year, but not so much that he would recommend getting glasses for him, he just wants to keep an eye on it. He is going to recommend him for a referral to the Toronto's Sick Kids for an assessment for ADD/HD. Again, that won't be surprising to find out that he does have it because both Don and I have ADD, and Christina had ADD/HD. But the good thing is the program at that hospital is highly recommended for that.

His karate is going ok, he got his belt taken away for one week because he refused to listen to the Sensei . He has made friends with a little guy, Tosha, he's a sweetheart. He's 5 yrs old, and is also at the dojo quite a bit.

I will be starting to watch his friend Anika (I now consider her like a niece to me) every other weekend while her mom Christine works. This shall be fun :) They fight like brother and sister. Pray for me :P

That's about it for now. I will try and post pics in a bit.

Guess Who Can Ride a Bike?

Without trainers on?

Some Recent Pics

Ok, what's with the weather this week? Just 2 days ago it was minus 15 Celsius and today it was plus 15 Celsius, what a yoyo winter this has been.
And since it was so nice out today I decided to take Andrew to the park for the first time this year. :)

Cold

Now it's cold. And it's been forever since I've last posted. Sorry about that.

Andrew received his yellow belt in Karate in Dec. He's in grade 2, still homeschooled. He has problems with his reading skills, not so much that he cannot do it but he doesn't LIKE doing it. His math skill are on par, he seems to have a great grasp of it thus far.
Since I last posted, he have lost 2 very loved fur babies, Reggie died on Nov 11.11, he was 15.5 yrs old. He had a tumor and was loosing a lot of weight. So I had him laid to rest.
Isis died on Jan 9.12, . She was only 3yrs old. The vet said it was likely congenital heart failure. It happened so fast, one day she was healthy, the next day she was gone :(
I miss both of them very much. There will always be an empty feeling in my heart where they once occupied. Same goes with Tabatha and Stinky Binky do.
On Jan 15th, a young cat was found almost dead and half frozen at the bluffs. I lot of ppl that no longer want their cats just dump them off there. (nature area of the city). Thank god 2 boaters were out early in the morning and noticed him lying on the side of the road at the curb. When they lifted him up they thought for sure he was gone, but then he moved ever so slightly. The rest is history. Long story short, he is now ours and living comfortably in his forever home. We are all totally smitten with him. He is also a cat with numerous names at the moment. So far it is Scooby Sir George-Newton-Sherlock-Jeffery-Gumba the first. Don't ask!
Andrew's still into Mario Brothers BIG time. He likes to make walk-throughs. And well any Mario he's happy.
He's also quite the little inventor. He's always inventing monsters and new Mario games that he wants to sell to nintendo. lol. Gotta love him.
Well I'm not one for many words. I will try and keep up more with this blog. Sorry.

Hot

Today is HOT. 120 f with the humidx...

His First Demonstration

Andrew did his first karate demonstration on Sunday at the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission)... He even chose to do a kata all by himself *sniff*..

Happy Days

With the warm weather comes great play. FINALLY the temperature is starting to climb. And so, Andrew is the happiest kid on the block. I LOVE LOVE LOVE going outside with him. He still has soooo much curiosity with the world, it really makes me appreciate the old things in a new way. Thank you Andrew Siddhartha <3 I love you soooo much.























We met up with Alexander and went to Highpark for an afternoon. They get along soooo well, I love seeing the two interacting. While we were there we went on a hike on a trail. There we saw lots of trees that were fallen, half fallen, partly fallen by beavers. So we decided to take a closer look at them and to see if we could see any turtles in the lake. At that point Andrew looked down and noticed the ants, TONS of ants. It was rather creepy. I swear to god that you couldn't see the ground through them all. ICK. So of course he starts panicking (I would have too if it weren't for me trying to be the strong mom and teach him to remain calm in these situations - har har). In the mince of his panic Alexander helped his poor little bro out and carried him out and swiped his pant legs for him to make sure there were none on him. Then we headed to the Japanese apple blossom trees that were in full flower. They were so beautiful.

Dandelion

Andrew LOVES them. He thinks they are the most beautiful flower out there. He has never been told that they are weeds that everyone hates, I don't think I will ever tell him different. He see's beauty, I have to agree with him.

7 Yr Checkup

So, that time of year again where the boy goes to the Dr. He now weighs 45lbs, and 3'10. He has 20/20 vision. Besides being on the light side he is healthy (YAY). He also got his CBC drawn, not too happy when they stuck the needle in but he did great in my opinion, he didn't even cry.

It's Heaven to be 7

And that's what Sir Andrew turned today at exactly 4:33pm this afternoon.
It makes me sad that he's already almost half way to been an adult. Childhood is going way too fast. Everyday he brings fresh awe into our lives. I don't know how we ever did it without him in our lives. Thank you Andrew for bringing such joy to our lives. You truly are an amazing person. You're so compassionate. You're so creative. You're so loving. Last night before he went to bed we were all sitting on the couch and I lit some candles, he wanted to blow them out and make a wish for the last day of being six, he closed his eyes, and thought a moment and blew the candles out and looked at them and said, "I wish for the memory to last forever".... Not I want this, or that, nooo, the moment to last. Incredible if you ask me. He's going to have a pool party on Saturday with his friends. He's so excited about it too.

Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY my little Siddhartha. Mommy and Daddy love you very much.

First Grading

Andrew had his first karate grading last weekend (April i6th).. It went ok. He was more focused on staring at us watching him then the actual grading. (Must remember, unlike most kids his age that are in school and have preformed in plays and choirs etc, this is his FIRST time EVER doing any performance for us let along all the other ppl that came to see him and the other kids parents as well.) It was a full house. Actually he was the only kid there that kept being told by Sensei to focus, not only once either. He was also the only one that needed to go to the washroom half way thru. But besides that he did well. I asked his Sensei the next class afterwards about it and he said it was very normal for him to act that way for the first grading. Phew. His Nannie, Grandpa, Great Aunt Lydia, big brother Alexander and our friend Mike were also there the see him. Afterwards we all went to this REALLY GOOD East Indian restaurant and let me tell you they made the BEST curry chicken dinner I have EVER tasted.

Now for the pics.

Stuff and Such Randomness

Is randomness even a word?

My personal computer with all "my" editing programs has been malfunctioned for about a month now.. Trying to fit time in to get it done, does anyone out there have any? So I have been stuck using a crappy laptop that has nothing on it. And a VERY annoying thing where whenever I put my hands on the mouse sensor thingy it puts my cursor somewhere else. And the letter L sometimes works, after a lot of pounding on it. /vent.

Stuff

Again, not a whole lot to report on our doings. I am getting so sick of this cold, snowy, rainy, grey weather, this year it seems to be lasting FOREVER. I don't remember the last sunny day we had. So of course because of it we have been indoors wayyyy toooo many dayz.

OUCH

When I was homeschooling Andrew on Wednesday I was bending over to reach something and the chair that I was sitting on slipped from under me landing me on the floor right onto my baby finger. I knew right away I messed it up. So off to the clinic we went, x-ray showed that I had 2 dislocated joints and a fracture. My Dr wouldn't touch it, so off to the ER we went. When we arrived they took me in right away. Looked at my x-ray, came in and told me that they were going to have to freeze my hand and relocate the bones, and I have 2 small fractures. For some reason I was VERY calm throughout the whole ordeal even when she came in the room with the 6 - 8 in syringe and NO I'm not kidding, wish i would have taken a picture of that. By the way i am having a really hard time typing this, i have to stop and take a break frequently. Ok where was i? Oh ya, so she froze my hand and then she pulled at my finger, yuck. She took another xray and it still wasn't in its proper place so she had to do it again. That one did the trick, so they splinted it up and sent me home. Now I have to wait until next Wed to see how its healing. Wish me luck.

Arggg

I'm getting really lazy with this blog lately. (Sorry future Andrew, I will try and be better at keeping up to date)...

Ok, What have you been up to?

Word. Mario.

End of blog entry.///

Ok, just kidding, but really that's basically all you think of lately. Mario, Lugie (forgive my spelling), Princess Peach and Bowser. You sleep, breath and live for it. HELP.... It has gotten to the point where I had to limit your play time on them because you would be on it 24/7. The other day when you were playing you pleaded with me "MOMMY, PLEASE just let me save Princess Peach so that I can get on with my life". lol Good grief.

When you're not playing the game you're watching walkthroughs online. And if your not doing that then you are playing with the characters we bought you for Christmas and pretend you are in the video game and role playing the game with them.

Homeschooling is going well. Although you would much rather play then learn, so I have to come up with a way to make it more interesting for you so that you can enjoy learning rather then have it being a chore.

You are in your 5th week of Karate, that is going well too. You're learning how to count in Japanese and say other works as well. You seem to be really enjoying it.

Your favorite shows are still Scooby Doo. And some new ones as well. They are, Garfield, and The Winx Club, everything you get into you REALLY get into, like obsess into. You can watch them endlessly and still laugh.

Favorite food is still french fries. Mini pizza, chicken with chalet sauce or katchup. You are the fussiest eater on the planet.

Favorite color is still pink. What I like about you is that you DON'T care what other kids say about it either. It's what you like and that's it.

Health wise you are good. You've had a couple of head colds this winter but nothing major. You have yet to be put on any antibiotics in your life. YAY Andrew. Although I do pump you with vitamins because of your fussiness.

You're a great person to be around. Ya, like i'm not going to say that! haha. But seriously, you really are. I think that part of the reason is, is you're not picking up habits from peers. You love to be goofy.

All and all, you're just one small big FANTASTIC dude.

The Ick, Weeze Have It.

Again.

Karate Kid

Isn't he just sooooo adorable?

First Time Tobogganing

My dad bought Andrew his first sled for Christmas so we brought him to a little hill in our court yard and he had a BLAST. The first time he came down he got off the sled and started squealing with pure joy in his heart. He kept repeating WOW, oh WOW, this is awesome, I don't ever want to grow up. It was priceless. We even managed to get Don down the hill a couple of times. :)

I'm Pathetic

Or just too busy to post. Or too lazy. Or something. No excuses.

I will post later today on what has been going on in Andrewdoms world. Right now i have to take him to karate. :)

HAPPY NEWYEAR 2011

Oh god, another year. It's going way too fast. Soon Andrew will be all grown up and out of the house. I'm not looking forward to that. I wish there were more months to a yr, more days in a month, more hrs in a day, more seconds in a min. The new year is supposed to be a time of new hope, challenges, love, money, health, yada yada. But to me it's just a sad reminder that Andrew is getting older and soon he'll not want to celebrate it with mom and dad but with his friends.

Ok, i'm jumping a bit, but because I have been lucky enough to have a second chance with having another child i KNOW how FASTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT childhood flies, so there.

This past month has been a really busy one. And painful. That's why I haven't been posting at all. For one, my breast have been too sore from the surgery to sit for too long in front of the computer. 2. Christmas. Enough said.

whoops

Ack, just came on here and realized that i didn't have any entries in Nov... I will have to say that's because of my surgery that i had on the 16th. First getting ready for it and the healing. I'm still in much pain so this is all i'm going to write for today. Except to say Happy 26th Birthday Christina and Happy Birthday Nanny.

I'll be back soon. I get my stitches taken out tomorrow so maybe that will help with the pain.

Remembrance Day at the Zoo

Nothing too much has been going on here on the home front. Basically just doing his homeschooling everyday. Andrew's really learning a lot of new words now. Thanks to phonics. He is enjoying his new book Geronimo Stilten being read to him every night. He's still into watching Scooby, now he also likes to watch Garfield and The Winx Club.

Thurs was Remembrance Day so we went to a Veterns ceremony at Toronto Zoo. Another mom that also homeschools and has 3 young boys picked us up at my place. After the ceremony we went and looks at some of the animals. Andrew REALLY wanted to see the giraffes the most but of course I forgot tcharge my camera battery the night before and by the time we got to them the camera was dead. It was a nice day.

Change

I had to go back to a dark background... It's more me.

Happy Halloween.

BRRRRRRRR it was soooo cold out there tonight.... Like REALLY ccccold. We even had our first snow fall of the year in Toronto today, albeit not much, but still it did come, marking the first snow fall of 2010.

Again we went out with Sue, Gerry, Ethan, Christine and Anika. Ethan was a little vampire and Anika was Hannah Montana, Andrew a ghost. The kids had a blast, i think 6/7 yr old is the magic number for tot'ing. They didn't seem to mind the cold one bit.

Unfortunately our camera is really starting to deteriate at a really fast rate and most of the pictures that i took came out really blurry looking :(

This is the family, i'm trying to look really scary but I only made my self look like i don't have lips - whoops.










They LOVE each other so much.


The goods... And at the rate he's going, I estimate he will be done with them in about 30secs flat...

Sneak Preview

Wordless Wednesday

{Watching out for daddy to come home}

And He Grew and He Grew

Into a GIANT.

Wordless Wednesday