Chapter 39: Omedeto Gozaimasu

Happy, Happy Birthday Zacky dear,
Happy Days will come to you all year.
If I wish then it would be,
A Happy, Happy Birthday to you from Me!!!

******ISN'T IT GREAT TO BE EIGHT*********




(sadly this is when my camera's battery died so I had my sister Taci take the rest of the pictures, but I wasn't able to get those pics. But to explain his cake he wanted a karate cake and since he just earned his white belt (see chap. 38) I decided to make his cake look like his Gi (his karate uniform) with his white belt, it was the first time I had used fondant and I was really excited how it turned out as well as seeing how happy Zacky was about his cake.)

Chapter 38: Onegai Shimasu

His eyes are taking in his surroundings, his pulse is beating faster and faster and his thoughts are only on one thing "I'm going to do it, this is it, today is my day." Sensei enters the room and all falls quiet, respect is permeating from his eyes as he looks and spots Senseis' black belt, one day, he thinks to himself, one day.

Sensei looks over the group and asks the initiates to kneel on the mat and start their Seiza Meditation. Kneeling he closes his eyes and begins to feel the rise and fall of his chest, in, out, in, out. Sensei rises and again all eyes are on him, the Karate 12th Kyu Review had now begun.

Zachary has been in Karate now for almost a year and the time came when his instructor (Sensei) felt he could review for his white belt. He was very excited and very nervous at the same time, he had been working so hard and had been talking about earning his white belt for some time. The review itself was nearly heartstopping for me, when someone who is teaching you child says "Now remember parents your child may be hit or bumped or bruised" you tend to be on guard. Zachary did an outstanding job in defending himself and it at times seemed like I was a part of a video game, I would try to duck the punch or move to the left, move to the right or jump out of the way, and the last part of the review when Sensei really comes after them and makes them "fight" (for lack of a better term) I really, really had a hard time just sitting in my seat and watching, but he did it, he showed off all the things he has learned in this past year and he really proved that he deserved his white belt. What a day for him to treasure!!!!

Chapter 37: HUH?!?!?!?!?

So this morning I can hear Lainee in her room, she is tossing and turning and sighing, so I go say "Lainee, what is the matter?" to which she replies while sighing "I just can't sleep anymore!" So I tell her "then just get up, it is morning anyway." "OHHHHH!!! good, I didn't know that!" I just kind of look at her thinking, how in the world could she not know that it is morning, it is already bright in her room!

HUH?!?!?!?!?

Then after the kids have gone to school and I am folding some laundry on my bed, she is in the bathroom, and she soon is telling me how she needs more TP, she shows me how much she has and I tell her that, that amount should be plenty, she doesn't need anymore than that. So she starts to argue her case and I finally give in (after a few minutes) and go to get her some more TP and as I am putting it on the roll holder she looks up at me and says (completely seriously I might add) "WOW! Mom, how did you know I needed some more TP?" I thought she was trying to tease me so I said "Moms just know these things, it is like a super power." and to which she says "That is sooooo cool." So after she washes her hands, she comes out with this completely amazed look on her face and she says "Mom, I still cannot believe that you knew I needed some toilet paper."

HUH?!?!?!?!?!?

Well, at least if she ends up at Knollwood, she will be with family :)

Chapter 36: Things that go BUMP in the night!!

I loved, loved that Halloween fell on a Sat. this year, it just seemed to be such a relaxing and fun day. Scott and Bradley headed off for a day of Rabbit Hunting and the rest of us just hung out (well, someone had to make sure her room got cleaned or she would miss out on Trick-or-treating, bet you can't guess who!) We danced to the tunes of monster mash, Adams Family, and thriller, while we got the house and all the candy ready for the ghouls that were coming tonight!!! We also watched some halloween shows to get in the right frame of mind for "Fright Night".

As the day was winding down the kids were getting antsy, "Is it time yet?, how much longer?, can I just put on my costume?" this is what I was beginning to hear, to which I would respond, "not yet, 3 hours, and let's wait a little longer!" Zachary had been waiting for a couple of weeks to carve his pumpkin (sad, but true, he is the only one who got a pumpkin this year) so rather than wait for Scott I decided to take on the task myself, as you can see from the picture above he decided on a non-traditional jack-o-latern, but what can we say other than it is so Zachary!!!

Finally the time came to don the costumes, take pictures, find our bags, eat our dinner of "Terrifying Twice Baked Mummies", and then set off to have a spooky good time Trick-or-Treating.





Hope you all had a Frightenly Fun Halloween!!!!
Love, Pink Lady, Lady Bug, Karate Kid and Hunter (and thanks to our cousin Katie aka Asian Princess, for coming with us!)

Chapter 35: Eleven

So I am only 1 mo. and 10 days late in this post, but for those who really know me I pretty much count this as "right on time: ;)

So my little man has turned 11 and although this number was not as hard to swallow as 10 (for me anyway) it still means that he is growing up and starting to be able to do "man" things like, graduate from hunter safety and take a week off from school to go hunting with his dad,
while all of this in and of itself is reason enough to party, Bradley's B-day fell on the Mon. before the hunt, so we loaded up the kids and went to the mountains. . We invited both sets of Grandparents up to have dutch-oven dinner with us and then to celebrate Bradley turning 11. Grandma Merkley made his cake it was Red Devil's Food cake with van. frosting and cinnamon sprinkles, oh yeah it was yummy After Bradley had opened his presents, his Brother and Sisters had an extra special treat for just him!!!!!!



(this pretty much made their day!!!!!)

***HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU - BRADLEY***

Chapter 34: PMDD

Hello......My Name is Melanie and I have PMDD (Past Midnight Defecit Disorder)

Okay so it is now 1:18 am and I am still awake, not just slightly but wide awake, I got my computer out because as I was lying here contemplating how utterly sad I was that I was not asleep, I got the giggles. I started thinking of how my mind would not shut up and how I could literally be thinking about how much milk we have in the fridge to one minute later my mind had evolved and somehow I was now trying to come up with an easier method of helping Kennadee with her math homework. So I may regret this in the morning but hey, if I have to stay up and be miserable, someone may as well get some amusement out of it!!!!!!

1:24 a.m. - I kind of feel like I need to turn on a camera, this feels like a Blair Witch moment. Reminds me that Lainee and I saw a blanket that had the Wicked Witch of the West's face on it from the Wizard of Oz and she totally wanted it, Yeah right, and besides that she was totally not wicked DUN No one mourns the Wicked.

1:36 a.m. - Do you know how hard it is to type in the dark, here is my text without the use of backspace - oh crap Scott just rolled around, ssssssjjjhhhhhhh, giggle, giggle I serioudlsy do now wait that work d sou see I can't do it I promise I am not drounk atlthought it may seem like it.

1:39 - I think my experiment may have gone seriously wrong because now I am even more awake and I am pretty sure Scott is mad at me, which makes me want to laugh even more, it reminds me of the time my sisters and I would sneak and play phase 10 at night and just put a towel at the bottom of the door so our parents would think we were asleep with the "lights off" if they looked downstairs. Huh - I wonder if I could put all 10 phases in order right now, 2 sets of three, 1 set of = Ha just kidding, but that did remind me that I most likely have 5 sets of dirty laundry to catch up on and 2 sets of dishes to wash in the morning. *sigh*

1:54 - Why isn't someone here to sing me to sleep - AHHHHHH - I could just imagine Donny Osmond (did you know he is on Dancing with the Stars) singing to me, for some reason I have "Joseph" in my head, Thanks Kari!!!!

1:56 - ALERT, ALERT, Okay so Scott is really tossing and turning so now I am starting to feel a little guilty, I really don't know what is the matter after all isn't the constant click, click, clicking of a Laptop soothing - no, huh?????

Fast Forward to this morning - Okay people so for all of you who have been razzing me about updating my blog "THIS" is what you get, enjoy!!!!!

Chapter 33: Dance

During the summer Lainee was begging me to go to dance, so I told her that once school started we would sign her up with the same studio as Kennadee. Last week was actually her first class but I forgot to take my camera and she ended up not being in that class anyway so it didn't matter. One of the teachers came up to me and after seeing Lainee dance last week and said that she thought Lainee was already ready to be on the competetive team and asked if I wanted to just start her out there instead of waiting a year, so the biggest benefit to having her on the competition team was that she would go to dance right before Kennadee did on Wed. so that would cut out a day of driving across town for me seeing that Kennadee has dance on Mon. and Wed. and Lainee would have had to go on Tues. if not on competetive, so I moved her and if you are wondering what my feelings on competitions are I would just like to refer you to Chapter 4 in the "King Kronicles" and now I have 2. Double the hair, double the make-up, double the cost and double the trouble, but you know what for all my complaining I really do love to see the girls perform and to have fun with the stunts they get to do, so I will just grin and bear it. Lainee was a little hesitant to start this day but once they got into the dance itself it was like no one else was in the room and she just wanted to please her teacher and dance, dance, dance. I love listening to the teachers give the instructions of what to do it sounds a little like this "A ten Hut" girls "slap" teahcers "ready position, POSE, and bounce, bounce, bounce, I'm so cool, whatever, pose, jump one, two, shoulders, what?, stars and wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. I get a kick out of watching all these little 4 and 5 year olds responding to these commands on cue. After they dance for a while it is time to tumble and this is one of Lainee's favorite things to do, she is so proud of herself when she does a summersault all on her own and she is really trying to be able to do a cartwheel by herself, but her favorite is the back flip which she does with the help of her teacher, hence the pictures, she can't wait to be able to do all of it by herself with out anybody's help. But when you ask Lainee what her most favorite part of dance is she will most likely say "the gum you get when we are all done!!" well what can you expect she is only 4 after all!!!