Peace Builder Pledging

Last Monday, I received a letter from Ryan's school stating that he would be leading the "Peace builder Pledge" in a front of the school on Wednesday. So, we had practiced for the last two days before the speech. He practiced at home, speech and in his mainstream classes. Everything was all set to go!

Boy, my mind was racing with excitement for Ryan. Can you image how far he has come within one year? You bet, I was so proud of him for memorizing the "Peace Builder Pledge" without looking at the paper perfectly.

I am a Peace Builder.
I pledge to praise people,
To give up put downs
To seek wise people
To notice and speak up about
hurts I have caused.
To right wrongs.
To help others.

I will build peace at home, at school,

and in my community each day.

On the very day he was about to give the pledge in a front of 800 students, I had my camera ready to show it off. In the office, just shortly before he was to go out in front of his audience tears began to roll down his face. His mainstream teacher, Ms. Harting and I thought that if one of us stood next to him it would help with his confidence to speak. He only stood up until it was his turn to lead. He spoke softy into the microphone, "No, I don't want do this"to the principal. Dr. Parson was kindly handed the microphone to the boy who was standing next to me. Still, he was confident to tell the principal on how he had felt.

I felt like we put so much work into today for him to back down was a disappointment, but at least, he stood it up in a front of 800 students. Perhaps in the future, his self-confidence will change for better.

What's Better Than Ice Cream?

It's getting a professional school picture of my son, Dylan. A picture of him is more precious than having a bowl of delicious ice cream.

Dylan got the picture early in March. The professional capture him smiling and the background beautifully.

His brother, unfortunately, was ill on school picture day. Hopefully, the Life Touch Inc. will have a heart to let me bring Ryan for a make-up picture. I have a faith with a professional photographer that they will capture him beautifully, too.

Am I correct having a picture of Dylan (eventually Ryan) is far more better than eating your favorite ice cream?

Needs a Name

Have you ever name your own car? I sure did when I had my old red Chevy car. I named her "Scarlett" because it was red. Also, it was because I was the only ones who owned the car.

Since my husband and I traded our old, poor green van to a brand new silver van, Town and Country Touring. He and I own this new car together. However, I am the ones who drive this van frequently to work and home daily.

I was going to name something like "Shiny Lady" but it can not be an obvious gender.

Lady Lancelot (both are equal female and male?)
Phantom
Silent Stranger

At this moment, my brain is foggy and couldn't come up with a brilliant idea. In order to sympathsize me, I desperately need your brilliant ideas for our new van's name.

Miss??

Do you remember when you first learn to use "Miss, Mr. Mrs" appropriately when you write your name? I don't actually remember when I finally learned to use "Miss. Laura." But I believe it was sometimes when I was in a second grade writing a letter to my tooth fairy.

But today's society, many schools expect children to learn at younger age in writing, reading and so forth. I have witnessed both of my sons learned at an early age including knowing their full names. Dylan had learned to spell his entire name when he was in pre-school. Ryan just learned to write his full name when he was in Kindergarten.

However, who ever thought about teaching the young kids to write such as "Miss, Mr. or Mrs.?" Dylan already knows the difference, except for Ryan who is confused to know the difference between these three formal signature names.

With my knowledge, he spoke his name out loud before writing his name out on a paper. When I saw what he had written, I thought it was too cute to share it with you.

I immediately knew why he was confused . It was because his mainstream Language Art teacher is not married. He probably assumed everyone is "Miss." In fact, I had tried to explain it to him. He firmly declared it to me, "Mom, you are wrong!" So, I wrote a small note to his teacher because I know he would listen to her better than me. Let's hope he eventually will learn the correct way of using the formal signature instead of using "Miss."

New Ownerships

Believe it or not, David and I are proud to announce that we are the new ownerships of our BRAND NEW Chrysler Town and Country Touring Van for trading our old Mini Van, 1999. That was nearly ten years difference! It was a really long, dreading and agonizing decision whether to buy a brand new or a second hand car due to financially involvement.

Actually, we had hoped to afford to buy both cars for me and my husband. Getting two new cars were IMPOSSIBLE especially at today's economy. Without being able to afford getting two new cars, David always thought of me and the kids first before him due to our safety. Isn't that sweet of him for having a soft part of him getting me a new car instead for himself? Initially, he had hoped to get Dodge Journey 2008 from his dad's company. Perhaps next time will give him a rewarding gift.

After we finally purchased a brand new van, it was quite way past our sons' bedtime. They were immediately knocked out once they were on their own bed. Even with a few hours of sleep, I had lot of pondering to do something special for David such as getting him a new car. He deserves the best, too. Can you help me? (Winks)

Within a few hours of sleep, the boys were amazing for being good sportsmanships with me by getting out of bed at an early dawn, getting dressed, eating breakfast and arriving school on time. Even better, they did NOT give their teachers or us any problem during the day.

By the time, we got home from school/work. We decided to explore more further in our van. During our investigation, the boys decided to goof themselves off: enjoyed being in vain. Not only trying to be cool, David and I did our experiment by turning the CD music (for the boys) and DVD/TV shows. They were enthusiastic to be able to watch their own shows while driving on a short and long road.
It also included navigators and screen savers. We were pretty amazed to learn that there were more features than we had thought while we were focusing our important part of the features: DVD movies and automatically doors.

The best part of getting the van is that we don't have to use our power by opening the doors or windows. Everything is automatically. Aren't we being spoiled ??

Isn't our baby grand?

Game Boy

A few months ago, we bought Game Boys Advanced SP for our two sons. My husband thought it would be great for the boys developing their skills: in theory. I assumed it would be impossible for the boys to be good at the game because I never did well in logic!

They had proven me 100 percent wrong. I was pretty amazed to see how fast they had learned to play the game without reading the instruction. (Pretty typical of men, huh? They got the traits from their dad.) Even though, I only allowed them to play for a short period of time, and use other skills wisely.

Dylan especially likes to play with any teenage games such as: That's So Raven and Kim Impossible. After he played a couple of times, he requested for a new game called, "Cory in the House" Game Boys Advanced. I must admit that I had a doubt that any store would have "Cory in the House" Game Boy. I definitely was wrong while I was browsing through by Internet. How would he know what kind of the game they had out there? He must have listened to one of his friends at school talking about the Game Boy.

Dylan was not the only ones who likes to play with the Game Boy. His younger brother also likes to play Game Boy. But he prefers to play other kind of games such as Super Mario Advance and Sonic the Hedgehog. I have seen him laughing while playing with the Game Boy. I especially know he would be surprised to see when we get him a Game Boy of "Hot Wheels" for his upcoming 6th birthday. He is the kind of a person who likes to see anything that goes fast.

The system is more than just a game. It helped to entertain themselves or kill their boredom on a road. It does capture them into a climax when they were striving for a target, or jumping on the ladder while focusing on their own game.

Rules

While I was in the kitchen, Dylan caught his brother, Ryan chewing Dylan's erasers. I then told Ryan that "eating eraser is not good for you." He ran toward to his dad because he had hoped he would get away from the problem.

I then walked to the office where Ryan and his dad were in the same room. Ryan signed toward me, "I'm angry at you! " Of course, I signed it back to him without using my voice, "You know what you did was wrong."

He declared to make his own three rules in a front of me. The rules of what he said the whole thing in verbally were:

"The Number One Rule is Don't tell me what to do."
"The Number Two rule is to take a deep breathe."
"The Number Three rule is to back off."

He then marched it out of the office in an angry mood. Oh boy, I will have a lot more to deal with him and his older brother, Dylan who created their own self-determinate personality.