Getting big

At Zion Canyon

At Cosco with mom

At Costco with me

Defiance

Annette has been encouraging Joshua to actually be a little more defiant.  Joshua said today to her, "I'm trying to defy you, but your iron will is so strong."

First TD

Joshua made his first game time TD yesterday!  He was so pumped up afterwards.  He broke his route to find a seam in the zone coverage and caught the ball off a tipped pass in the end zone.  His coach said it was a "man" play.  :)

Happy 11th birthday Joshua

Joshua,
You are a huge football fan now. Partially from your playing Madden NFL on the iPad, but also cause you just love reading the history of NFL.  You asked for a 49er tailgate party, even though the Niners suck right now.  And voila:

Grateful for this guy

He will wake up in the morning and pack a lunch for both himself and Samuel.

And help his brother study for tests.

Lamby

Woke up this morning with Joshua next to me with Lamby, his bedtime friend for 8 yrs.
Then when Samuel woke up, he asked Joshua to come give him a hug.
Times of sweetness still with the boys

Homework king

Was sort of amazed at how hard Joshua can work when he sets his mind to it.
I mentioned to him that he needed to finish his homework, fold the laundry and clean his room if he wanted any screen time.
He then proceeded to independently finish is Chinese homework (none of which I understand), his English project, the laundry, and cleaned his bedroom.

Pretty amazing.  I am sometimes frustrated with his lack of social awareness (I know, not his fault), or his lacking physical/dietary versatility, but hope I can just chill and appreciate the awesome person he is.

Vasquez rocks

Have been wanting to take the boys out to the Vasquez rocks and finally made it out there this weekend.  Spectacular.  Beautiful morning with cool sunny weather in October.  The boys kept saying, "This is awesome!"  "We should take our friends here!"  "I didn't think we could make it up here!"--after summiting one of the tallest peaks.

Nice note from Joshua

Joshua made our bed this morning and left us a lovely note and candy to boot. Love this little boy and his kind heart.

Finding a needle in a haystack

The boys will still spend hours if not days looking through their ENTIRE lego collection bin by bin for a certain lego piece they need for a creation. Both Annette and I admire their perseverance.

Sleeping

Sometime before 6am in the mornings, the boys always manage to sneak into our bed.

Before bedtime last night, Joshua was full of facts and questions he wanted to share with us:
"Mom, do you know what dark matter is?"
"I want to be a scientist or an engineer!"

Piano lessons

At first Joshua wasn't excited about the idea of piano lessons, but he was all smiles after his first lesson. It was like love at first sight.

It  inspired us to find a piano on Craigslist to bring home.
Now the boys go to the piano after dinner and play duets, learn each other's songs, enjoy teaching each other, and say to me and Annette, "Let us entertain you!"
Brilliant, I love it.

Reading Tear

Joshua is on a reading tear. Finished book one of the Chronicles of Narnia this morning. Annette bought this set for her children even before she was married.

Christmas cards assembly line

My little elves

I like Samuel's multiple labels on fingers technique.

4 days before Christmas, the boys help us with sending out our Christmas cards for the year.

Pennies going extinct

Conversation this morning:
J:  Dad, pennies are going to be extinct!
R:  Oh, really, why do you think so? (thinking he might be thinking of inflation and how it'll be hard to buy anything for a penny)
J:  Because there are so many souvenir penny crushers!  All the pennies are going to be wiped out!
Child logic.  I love it.

Halloween decorations

Minecraft guide

Joshua has been researching on the Web how to create things in the world of minecraft and taking these notes.

A fun California summer

Bookworm

Beijing's smog out this week coincided with Joshua becoming a bookworm.  It's really nice to see. I was beginning to be afraid he was turning into a video game addict.  He is really into the Jedi Quest books I brought to Beijing.  When we first arrived last August, it seemed like the reading was either too hard or boring for him.  Somehow, over the past 6 months of studying Chinese, he's improved his English reading skills as well.

Joshua doesn't like writing though, so I've started teaching him how to type via an app.  He seems to love it. Hopefully, that will stimulate him to write more. 

Mom gets very excited

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