A Busy Saturday!

 We had a busy day today! First off was Relay for Life - a 24 hour walkathon to raise money for the American Cancer Society. I wasn't brave enough to do the overnight part with Carter (since Steve is away), but we spent a good part of our day with our friends walking the track.

I was super proud of Carter. He walked the track a total of 22 times! About 5 and a half miles! Pretty good for a 5year old! We also walked a ton of other places the rest of the day, so I actually think he might have done closer to 6miles..or maybe more!

Here's my sweet boy at the beginning of the day!

Walking...and dancing (video below!)

Rest time!

Towards the end of the day - still running!

Finishing up his 5th mile!

The track at Capuchino High - people have tents for the overnight part.

Mid-afternoon we took a little break and headed over to Dia de los Ninos - Day of the Child. It's a literacy event for kids. If they participate in at least 5 activities they get a free book.

Here's Carter doing a few activities...

With his free book he chose!

This post wouldn't let me add videos...but see the posts below for a few videos from the Relay today!

Carter and I also took part in an impromtu Zumba class while at the Relay. He LOVED it! Here he is rocking out to an especially hard song!

Carter spent about 50% off his laps RUNNING full speed around the track. We are going to have to sign up that boy for track when he gets to high school. He's FAST! The other 50% he spent doing this - dancing to the music while walking. I can't believe he had so much energy all day. You can't hear the music well in the video, but it had a good dance beat to it, and he knows how to shake his booty! I wish I would have caught him strutting around to "I'm Sexy and I know it". It was hilarious!

A trip to the Zoo

On Wednesday, Carter's class took a field trip to the Zoo. They were pretty excited...and it was hard to keep track of them! I am happy to say though we all survived and we all made it back in one piece!

Here's 3 of the monkeys who were in my group. Carter, Jacob, and Nathan.

Carter and his best friend in class - Thomas

Looking at the giraffe skull and bones on display. I thought it was cute they were holding hands

Carter the giraffe!

Jacob's little sister joined us too!

Almost as tall as the Daddy gorilla!

Carter and a few of his girlfriends. He's very popular with the ladies! ;) Elisa and Ainsley

Carter, Jacob, Elisa, and Ainsley

All sweaty and ready to go back on the school bus!

It was a fun day!!

A fun day!

Today, April 14th, Carter broke his first board at karate. We enrolled him in a special club at the studio for kids who have a sincere interest in going on to get their black belts. There are about 20 kids that belong to the club. Once a month they have a special "Black Belt Club" meeting and get to do some things with the Master that they don't usually learn in class until a much higher level.

Carter LOVES going! It's pretty fun to watch too.

Yesterday they started with a staff and learned offensive and defensive moves with them. Cool - and nervewracking - to see your kid with a big long giant stick swinging it around next to other kids! LOL. They all did well though. After that they practiced their reverse jab punches. You could tell from their faces they thought practicing that was a little dull....until the boards came out!

Each of them had three tries to break the board. A lot of them were older and had tried before, so I didn't really expect Carter to do it on the first try. He got it on the second punch though. I was pretty impressed - especially since some of the older/more experienced kids couldn't do it.

Here's the video of him trying. I was sad for Steve he didn't get to see it (he was sick at home), so I quickly grabbed the camera. You can tell how surprised and how proud he was of himself! He must have punched it right on correctly too - he didn't hurt his hand at all!

He got to keep his board, so we're putting it away with his old belts so he'll be able to remember! He wrote his name and the date on it too!

More layouts...

Here's a few more layouts I've done this week. Another case of really weird weather and crappy photos. I'll retake and share soon...but in the meantime here's a sneak peek!

It's about time...

There is only about 6 weeks until the end of the school year, and I have a huge pile of photos to scrapbook from Carter's kindergarten year. However, while sorting through that pile, it came to my attention that I also have a giant pile of photos from his preschool year. Yikes! I am behind!

So, I decided to put together this little mini of photos from his preschool graduation last June.

I didn't take pics of all the inner pages, but here's a peek of how it looks.

I like how it turned out. I kept it simple and cute with a lot of room for the photos.

The front cover:

One of the inner pages...love those pics!

and the back cover:

The weather has been so weird here lately, it's SO hard to get good photos of my work. Generally I like to scan my layouts for the best result. Hard to do with a minibook though.

Layout

Another Layout! I made this one from scraps from the mini-album (below!)

New Minibook!

I've been working hard on this new mini album by Teresa Collins. I loooooove this paper line. Yellow and blues are my favorite scrapping color combo!

The actual book has 20 pages, but here are just a few to share...

I filled it with my favorite family photos.

This is the cover

New Layout

My Dad and Carter last fall. I think this is the last photo of the two of them (a nice photo anyways)

before he died...

I'm thinkin about framing it for Carter's room!

Easter Morning!

We had a pretty chill Easter day. Saturday we had a ton of people over for dinner and celebrated by having a great time. We got up and Carter had an Easter Basket from the bunny and some eggs to find!

Finding eggs...he moved to fast to get any good photos! LOL

The biggest hit - an Angry Birds game he's been lusting after since before Christmas!

We had a yummy brunch and then headed down to San Mateo and walked along the Bay Trail followed by some playtime at the park. It was just a nice day to be together! :)

Kicks!

Carter at his karate test. We were extra proud of him since he's one of the youngest in the class...and he had to go first. That means he had to know everything - no cheating by watching someone else do it first.

He did great!

I'm sad I didn't video him doing his forms. he did a great job and his teacher even commented that he was one of the best - even better than a lot of the older kids. He was really focused!

Orange Belt!

My sweet little guy has been working very hard on his karate. He goes 2-3X a week and takes it pretty seriously. He was soooo excited to train for his orange belt (3rd belt). We're pretty proud of him - he's been going for about 6 months and trying so hard!

Preparing for the test...

Getting ready to receive his new belt...

Getting his new belt...

You can tell he's proud! He moved so fast some of the photos aren't focused.

The class with their new belts!

Easter Preparations!

Carter and I managed to do very little and yet a whole lot over our Spring break week. Lots of playdates, trips to the park - it finally stopped raining! - and just hanging out having fun. It was a great week!

One day we colored eggs for Easter.

This is a totally unrelated photo...but I had to share! Can you believe this cat???!

Around SF!

It's been rainy here for weeks, so last weekend when it was finally nice and sunny we decided we needed to get outdoors. We headed down to the Embarcadero to walk around and enjoy the sunshine.

Carter checking out the fire boat...

Cupid's Arrow...

The Bay Bridge...

My boys!

Soooo cute! He was eating gelato!