My boys are considerably older than most here, but still proud. This past Tues - was a "Christmas concert" at school - he is in the "Boys Chorus" - there are several groups. He at first played the Grinch and then they sang a few songs. He's the big one in the middle top row.


Attachment 16299


Attachment 16300

Cool. Where's the youtube link?:D

Lil' Pete had big fun at the Junior Olympics in Charlotte, NC over the weekend. She competed in the Cadet Women's Foil which is the under 17 group. Going in her goal was to win a couple pool bouts and qualify for the direct elimination part of the tournament since she's only 13 and hadn't fenced a national competition before. So instead she came out of the pools @ 4 wins and 2 losses, won her first DE, and snuck into the top third! If this upload ever finshes, you'll get to see her beating a C rated fencer in her pool.

That was so cool to see. Thanks!! Way to go Lil Pete!!

I wish I was allowed to watch video at work.

Awesome! I really like her style. No theatrics, no wasted motion, consistant, confident, commanding, but not foolishly aggressive. Good stuff, thanks for sharing.

Thanks guys! Foolish aggressive was the next bout. ;) She's learning though.

Congrats to Ms Miyagi.

I passed on the congrats. It seems she made a guest appearance in a SoCal kids video. She's knocking his friend out of the tourney. 2:15 in

You can always tell the villains by their blue and black socks.:lol2:

It's not exactly something my son does, but today I'm going to a ceremony at school where he'll be appointed sports captain for the year.

He's very excited about it and it's the role he really wanted to win.

I am very proud that he's worked hard and has achieved this particular goal for himself.

wtg alijr. what sports does he play?

atm it's rugby league and tennis, but he's pretty keen on just about anything. He's a great swimmer too. He also likes basketball and most of the other team sports they play in school. He's pretty good at field events and long distance although not the fastest sprinter.

So you guys have captains across more than one sport?

Each sport team has a captain. That's fairly standard isn't it? But Aden is what we refer to as house captain. The school is divided into two groups who compete against each other throughout the year and at the end, one side wins and one side loses (or comes second if you like to put it that way).

Aden is the head of his half of the school as far as all sporting events go. They have inter-house sports every friday, and also there's swiming and sporting carnivals and usually a cross country run too.

Ah, he's in a Oliver Wood situation.

Who is Oliver Wood?

Harry Potter's team captain.

Essay Competition
 

Our 10yo 5th grader wrote this for an essay competition: How Can Recycling Help Stop Global Warming? (500-750 words)

I thought it was pretty cool, even when I read it as if it was written by someone else's offspring :D So I thought I'd share (Author asked for anonymity due to shyness, so no author name).

Essays become the property of Recycle Ann Arbor when submitted, but it hasn't been submitted yet, so I don't believe my posting it here breaks any rules or laws. Of course, I will ask for it to be removed if they object once it's theirs...



Global warming is caused by excess heat getting trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere. Usually, most of the sun’s rays are reflected off the Earth and back into space. However, in the past few decades, harmful gases have been building up in the atmosphere. These gases act as a shield, preventing the rays from leaving the atmosphere. The heat is bounced back to the surface of the Earth, and as more heat gets trapped, the Earth grows warmer. This is called the Greenhouse Effect, because the gases work like the glass roof in a greenhouse.

The gas that causes the most trouble in the atmosphere is carbon dioxide. One of the main causes of the extra carbon dioxide is the emissions from vehicles. Also high on the list are factories, which produce a lot of carbon dioxide.

Another reason that we have extra carbon dioxide is that many trees are being cut down. Unlike humans, trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. (Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.) With less trees around to absorb it, there is more carbon dioxide than ever.

It’s obvious that if we don’t do something, global warming will get out of hand. It’s also apparent that we can’t stop cutting down trees altogether, because we need paper. We also can’t shut down factories, because we need food and clothes and everything else that factories make. So what do we do? The answer is simple: recycle. By recycling, we can reuse the same raw materials over and over again. Factories will not have to produce so many products, and fewer trees will have to be chopped down.

There are two main ways to recycle. You can reuse an item again for the same purpose, or you can break it up and use the material to make something else. For example, if you have a used piece of paper, you could do two things; you could turn it over and use the other side for something else, or you could put it in the paper-recycling tote to be made into a new piece of paper. By doing either of these options, the piece of paper is recycled, saving trees.

Reusing is better than remanufacturing because it doesn’t use any energy at all, but things aren’t always reusable. The best option of all is to reuse an item until it can’t be reused anymore, and then send it to be remanufactured. Remanufacturing does not contribute nearly as much to global warming as regular manufacturing does. For example, if you recycle aluminum, it will take energy to melt it into a different shape. However, to make something from scratch, the aluminum has to be mined (using energy), transported by trucks to the factory (producing emissions), and then melted down and turned into something new.

To conclude, recycling -reusing and remanufacturing- can help stop global warming by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases that we emit into the atmosphere. However, recycling only has a chance of working to stop global warming if more people do it.

Wow. I was going to say that my 12 year old daughter just started riding a dirt bike, but it pales in comparison to that

She didn't even get a runner up place. Not sure what the judging criteria was...perhaps they just thought it was too good ;) :lol:

It was well written, followed a logical pattern and was well expressed.
All I can assume is that they felt there were better essays re content, ie less about what global warming was and more about how recycling could help.

I'd be interested in seeing the winners though, because that blew me away, especially for a 10 year old. You should see some of the workshop evaluation forms we received in for the same age group!

What part of the activity did you enjoy the least?
The stappling becousse you prik
[next line]
you finnger

I've always found in essay contests like that, they're really looking for sappy, Readers' Digest kind of crap. Like, "Recycling is important because my dad died in Iraq."

I think you mean 9/11

My sister was killed in the WTC on 9/11, while writing an essay about why recycling is important because our dad died in Iraq,

you insensitive bastards.

sorry Flint - no "bold" allowed in essay contests.

FAIL

You gits! My mother was accidentally recycled on 9/11. :cry:

Here are the winning essays if you are truly interested, SG. http://www.recycleannarbor.org/ It's hard to judge stuff like this at this age because they're all so far from "perfect".

I like to think that the fact that I took them to task over one of the rules being US citizenship has nothing to do with the results ;)

Seriously, though, she didn't enter to win, she entered mostly because we both thought it was unfair she was excluded on grounds of nationailty, so they changed the rules to allow her to enter :lol: Also the practice she got helped her score a perfect 25 in her report on Benjamin Franklin last month, and she's already all revised for the Science olympiad pentathlon questions which are based on An Inconvenient Truth. So it's win win. And it's an awesome essay and I'm proud of her. :D

Monster that's rubbish. That essay needs to be recycled.

I don't care if the kid's 10, he uses far too many exclamation marks for a serious essay. His style is too effusive for journalism - what was this - future writers of the National Enquirer Essay Competition? Also he can't tell the difference between to and too. And he spelled aluminium wrong ;)

She was robbed.

:lol: thanks. I mean Thanks! There's a reason! A reason Lol Cats! Have so many exclamation marks !!!!111!11!!

My 6th grader (first year music student) just played a solo on her euphonium(sort of a slightly smaller tuba) and was judged by 3 judges from the Southern California School band and Orchestra Association and was awarded a Superior, the highest rank they can award!!

Very cool binky. Even if that is a make believe instrument. ;)

Ty Griff BTW very cool on the fencing as well- I did that in high school and really liked it

Beautiful Daughter No. 1's in the newspaper!
 

An article on her jewelry business:

http://www.elpasotimes.com/lifestyle...7?source=email

She's been so excited over this! I'm so proud of her!

Cool, she's a busy girl, pretty too. :thumb:

I know. Good picture of her! She quit her job at the daycare, except for substituting, so she should be able to devote her time to this. She has more energy than I ever did!

Extremely cool Cloud!

I like the "real" hearts - although I'd prefer them as a pendant giving me the choice of chain.
But that's only picking the nits off nits because it's such a cool idea.

Well done you and well done her.

I actually don't like the "real" hearts as much. I like the miniature corset necklaces the best; and the ouija board ones.

She said she actually got a nasty email about her "anti-Bush" line. But she's going to discontinue those, anyway.

My boys give me a kiss and tell me they love me, even at school in front of their friends.

I think this is ultra cool and I'm glad they've got the confidence to do so without feeling embarrassed.

ooh, me too! good mom, good boys!

Cloud, your daughter's jewelry is amazing! I am impressed.

Ali, I hope my son continues to do so, also. I feel sad to think one day he will probably grow out of it.

Fiirst Dive Meet of the season



first 3 are Thor, last 8 are Hector and Hebe alternated.

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l2...a/IMG_8259.jpg

Our 21 month old plays drum duets on her own drum set with Papa Flint... its about the coolest thing I've ever seen.

You have a very nice floor.

Ooh! Missed the dive clips til now.
I think of Thor as about 4 (possibly his age when you started posting?)
I guess they do the growing up thing though.

Hebe's backwards dives were beautiful!

Why, thank you. Thor is now 6, and small for his age. people would believe 4 if we said so. Until he opens his mouth. Which is often. That was the first meet of the season, now all 5 are over (on Friday Thor won the 8 and under boys diving!). Championships start on Monday, Carbo-load Spaghetti dinner and head-shaving is tomorrow.

GI Jane thing going, huh?

For sure.

8 and under dive was this afternoon (girls are still going on...) There were 46 boys.... Thor got...................14th -in the points! Top 16 score for their teams and get their names in the paper and get ribbons and everything. They got so high up the results list and his team mate had already been mentioned, I thought they'd missed him out! Seriously! Couldn't believe it. So Proud.

Congratulations to your young waterdogs!

Nice!

I finally had a chance to catch up on this thread, way to go Cellar 'rents, all of you!!

Hebe placed in all her swim events today (5th out of about 100 in breaststroke), Hector did great too, shaving seconds off his personal bests. Newspaper only printed the names of the top 8 divers. boo.

You haz moar pics/vids?

no, they're too fast for that ;). I have some vids from a couple of weeks ago somewhere. Maybe Banana lady has some. Thor's relay team got 16th today. Paper only printed top 8 swimmers, so only Hebe mentioned, but they did do all 16 divers today :rolleyes:

Not to make this a me me me thread :), but here is Lil' Pete at the Keystone games fencing one of her friends a 14 year old from the York area. He has a unique style and a long reach, which gives folks trouble. This is the third period of their bout, they fenced even through two.



edit: She's leaning too far forward which is a really bad habit that we'll have to focus on fixing.

Ferocious!
I don't know enough about fencing to even try to work out who won, but from here it looks like she beat the pants off him.

She did finally get him in the last minute. The previous eight minutes were totally even. He's an awfully nice kid and took the loss with dignity. The next bout went to over-time and Lil' lost by a touch to an older boy who went on to win the over-all and was also gracious in victory. Whether character is built or just revealed this kind of competition lays it on the line.

After further review - His pants remained, but he was certainly stripped of his pride.

New sig line...;)

Not my kid, but somebody's kid. Check the look on everyone's face.

http://www.noob.us/entertainment/ama...-by-ball-girl/