The Will to Win

Josiah drew a picture for the family as his Valentine's Day gift to us.  He had asked each of us our favorite superhero and then drew them as a family.  Todd picked The Thing, I picked Ironman, Caroline's was Lock Jaw, Josiah Deadpool, and Henry Spiderman.  

That same day, Caroline went to jiu-jitsu and earned her second stripe.  She's a tough competitor and almost always gives her opponents a hard fight.  

That's Caroline in the foreground with her back on the mat. 

They mistakenly gave her the stripe several weeks ago, so the picture with her instructor was from then.  The other picture was the day the stripe was earned.  

The next day, they had a Double Under battle at jiu-jitsu.  It started off with 31 kids.  They were paired up and whoever won the round would go to a separate area.  Then they did more rounds where the winners fought each other and those winners went to a separate area.  After several rounds, it finally came down to Henry and another kid.  Henry was already really tired because his rounds were long and tough.  The battle was Double Under - it meant that you had to get both of your arms under your opponent's arms and hold them there for 3 seconds.  Sort of like you're hugging their torso (squeezing, more likely).  Unfortunately for Henry, the final round was with a much shorter kid.  There was an advantage to being shorter in this case.  Henry gave it his all, but the other kid got him in the end.  Jiu-Jitsu has really made the kids very strong.  

And then there was the Science Fair.  Josiah got his board ready and practiced his presentation several times at home.  It sounded good to me, so off we went to CC with a lot of stuff in tow!  He set up his area and posed for good measure.  

The judging went on while all the other classes were in session so we wouldn't be a distraction to the judges.  Josiah had two judges come evaluate him.  He said they were really hard and asked him a lot of questions.  He knew one of the judges and was a little scared of her knowing her propensity to ask hard questions.  Later, though, she found me and said Josiah did a really good job with his presentation and that she liked his project a lot.  It was very creative like him.  She mentioned that he didn't seem nervous at all, either.  Josiah does speak well in front of others.  That should serve him well for life!  I wish I had that at his age.  I wish I had that now!  I almost missed the award ceremony, but thankfully had gone into the sanctuary just in time to see Josiah's friend Bobby win first place.  Second place was presented.  Then there was a tie for 3rd place.  Both students had earned 86 points.  They announced the first name.  A girl from a different CC campus.  Then they announced Josiah Cockrell, Bristlebots!  Wow!  What a sweet surprise!  Josiah was ecstatic.  I can't help but wonder if it was Josiah's Variables that put him over the edge to the winner's circle.  

Because of his win, he asked to celebrate with some Whataburger.  We did this weekend.

The younger kids learned about Michelangelo at CC.  They were able to paint their own frescos.  Most chose to use watercolors on the wet plaster, but Caroline chose pastels.  They had complete freedom to paint whatever they wanted.  They turned out really nice.  We still have to add a layer of glue to the top to seal in the colors, especially the pastels.  It should give them a shiny finish, too.

This weekend has been an adventure in using past Christmas and birthday gifts.  At Christmas, we were gifted money for a fancy food company.  We had a hard time choosing between sweet or savory.  We went back and forth so often that we failed to make an order for weeks.  It finally came down to the decision that we did not want to ruin any fancy savory dishes that we would have to cook ourselves, so we ended up choosing a sweet treat we would never make in a hundred years.  A Piecaken.  There was a pecan pie on the bottom, followed by a pumpkin pie in the middle, with a spice cake up top and a bit of apple pie filling to round it all out.  I have to say the reviews have been mixed among us, but something we all agreed on was that the spice cake was the best!   

Caroline pulled out some old gifts that she had never completed, too.  She spent some time on Saturday painting by number.  

She also loved on her dog.  She loves hugging him.  He's a good dog.  

We have quite the week coming up.  Another birthday celebration is in the works.  All the kids are excited to get President's Day and Henry's birthday off.  We only have to do school two days this week.  (Technically, three, but they never count CC days.)