Last of Mother's Day

More Mother's Day

Here are some more from Mother's Day.

The Spoils of Motherhood

We had a really nice Mother's Day celebration brunch at the Pond House at Elizabeth Park this year. It was a gorgeous day. We had a big group of us so we got the head table right against the windows. Afterwards we took a walk around the tulips and what will be roses soon. My children even agreed to pose for a couple of pix for me. I've clearly gotten rusty though as my lighting was crazy.

Aren't I the luckiest mother???

Last of the tourny

Here are a few more from the tourny I thought were cute. Mima, Stipa, Auntie Heather, Grandma, Oompa, Uncle Adam and Auntie Lindsay all came to cheer them on. The touny was held at a middle school about 1/2 hour away in their gym. Oompa found a "Hall Pass" on the floor and wanted to make sure everyone know he had his hall pass!

Julia Tournament Pix

Julia chose to compete in forms (see Devin's tourny description) and sparring. Sparring is basically karate type boxing with all the padded gear on. The competition plays out much like what I would imagine "rooster"-fighting to be. It was a little crazy. Super-veiny hockey dads have nothing over some of these parents.

Julia did well enough to get a couple of points off her opponent. Her opponent ended up in 3rd place overall, so her first bout was pretty heavy competition. It's a little surreal to see your kid fighting though, I have to say. It was one of the more exciting events to watch. I spent most of my time trying to figure out the scoring.

Julia, who loves to compete, was totally relaxed about this whole thing. She wanted to try harder than she had to, so she learned all of the first kada (though in her age/belt they really only needed to know half of it). The whole form is something like 31 moves. But she wanted to do it all. She paused a couple of times to think, but did the whole thing! She did really well. I think they called them up in order of placement, and she was like 6th, so that was pretty cool.

Last week in class Ms. Valente decided to do a mini-tourny in class with the first kada. She chose the 3 finalists and the class chose the winner by vote. Julia was one of the 3 finalists. I have to say she had all her moves down and really did an excellent job, I would have voted for her too. Then when the class chose the winner, she got all but about 3 votes. She was ELATED. Good job, Tiny!!

Devin Tournament Pix

Devin signed up for two events at the tourny - weapons and forms. In weapons, you pick a weapon to perform (he chose his favorite nunchuks) and for forms there are these long series of movements called katas (kadas??) that they show. I think we figured out the key to winning the big trophies was precision of movements and loud Kiah's. When you see how many people are watching, it can be a little intimidating, but they did a really nice job. I was especially proud of Devin's self control while he say next to one of his friends at the ring. This friend was chatting away through all the other contestants and really not demonstrating good respect and self control. Devin didn't get sucked it. A sure sign karate is working!!

More from Demo Team

Karate Tournament - Demo Team

The kid had their first karate tournament on Mother's Day weekend. The Connecticut Children's Classic is great b/c it's local and everyone gets a trophy. One part the kids decided to do was to sign up for the Demo team with their school. Each of the Villari's schools creates a "demo" to show to the crowd. There were some VERY long practices for this demo team which required us to spent 3 consecutive Friday nights at karate from 4:30-7:30. But the practice paid off and they did a great job!

Devin got to show off some of his nunchuk skills and Julia was the victor in a "bully" situation (all staged of course). It was a lot of work for them, but they LOVED it. Devin said Fridays were his favorite day b/c we got to "camp out" at karate.

Potato Pagent/Special Person's Day

Every year there is a "Special Person's Day" at school. Typically grandparents are invited to join in the class activities with a breakfast reception etc. This year Devin asked me to be his special person. (Awww...) So, how could I say no?? Well, there was a bit of a twist to the story. His class decided to have a Potato Pagent. They had to take a real potato and dress it up like their special person. You see where this is going?

Well, we made potato Kelly and I think he did a fabulous job. The tear-jerker part was when the kids also had to write a paragraph about their special person and read it aloud to everyone of the day. I'm pleased to report I made it through without being a blubbering mess!!

The last photo is a very cool thing Devin's class did this year as they studied Native Americans. It's called a winter count. What the kids did was brainstorm a few events from each year of their life and then translate it into pictures. Their birth starts in the center, and each thing goes in chronological order out from it. I thought the whole thing was very cool (kind of like an early scrapbook).

Another victim

So I don't grow things very well. I do not have a green thumb. I've killed cacti (not kidding). Last year for Mother's Day Devin gave me a plant and a pleading look that told me in no uncertain terms that it would crush him if I killed it.

No pressure.

So, I have actually managed to keep this plant alive for over a year now, and it's grown. I've now mastered the basic concepts of watering and sunlight. Now, this plant is a succulent, so it still lives on a fair amount of neglect, which is key in my ability to keep it alive.

So, I've gotten a bit bolder with my ever slowly greening thumb. There were some gorgeous hydrangeas at Whole Foods last week and I couldn't resist (my total favorite flowering plant ever). So, this one is a bit more challenging. I need to water it daily. But what's cool about it is that you get almost immediate gratification. If it droops, I water it and it's perked up in less than an hour. For those of you who are being overly judgemental about it's state of being in the photo above should know it perked up shortly after these were taken...

My goal is to plant it in the yard someday, just need to keep it alive long enough to do that...

Art Show

Every year there is an art show at school. Generally an amazing showcase for all this artistic ability that we don't generally come by naturally in my house. But we always have a couple pieces in the show. Here were this year's entries. Julia's is some sort of a groundhog type animal which actually pops off the page. She was really insulted when I didn't know what it was though, so she still hasn't told me (the next in a series of many eyerolls).

Devin's had a very cool repeating pattern in the backround of his still life. If you look closely you can see a piece of one of his classmates, and you'll get an idea of what it "could" look like.

Harumbee Festival

In First Grade at our school you learn all about Africa. All this learning culminates in an evening of song, dance and art called the Harumbee Festival. We had a show in the auditorium with each of the 4 1st grade classes doing an "Anansee" play (about a spider who's a little trickster, from African folklore). There were songs (The Lion Sleeps Tonight sung in French called "Dans le Jungle") and then back to the classrooms for a peek at all the hard work they've been doing.

Julia pleaded with me to bring her "My Twinn" doll named, Julia, to the show. Since I was fiddling with my camera the whole time Neil was left to hold Julia. Well, after lots of shots Neil took about bringing "his" doll to the show, he decided to have a little fun and started having her do the wave and cheer at Julia from her seat. As you can imagine, she was horrified. I wish I'd been able to capture her face when she saw all this unfold from the stage.

Julia and her good little friend ML were talking melons in their play (Julia's on the left in the melon hat). For those of you who went to high school with me, the grandson of our beloved football coach, and son of the current football coach is FR IV playing pattycake with Julia.

Julia was a fabulous tour guide, and we really missed her while she was "in Africa". But we're glad she's back safe and sound! Here she is with her teacher Mrs. Grace.