Savannah's Spring Dance Performance 2011

She has just completed her 3rd year of dance with the company Just For Kix here in Dilworth!  The pictures didn't turn out so great, not that they EVER do in a gym - but for some reason the director thought it would be fun to do the entire show with just a couple of spotlights....hmmm....I couldn't even fix the red-eye with my editing program!  Grrrrr....oh well!

 Kicking line :)

 Ta-DAAA!!

 They were able to dance with surf boards as well!  Just think...BEACH BOYS!

 THEN...the coaches painted white shirts for the girls so they could wear these cute outfits (above) for their "Itsy-Bitsy, Teeny-Weeny, Yellow PolkaDot Bikini" routine!  It was SO CUTE....we didn't even get to see the finished product before their show :)

 Such a poser....wonder where she gets THAT from!!  HAHAHAHAHAA!!

 My little dancer-girl!  She is growing up SO FAST!!

Savannah's Yellow Belt Test

Following in her brother's footsteps, here we have Sweet-Pea testing for her Yellow Belt - it is the 3rd belt in the colored series.  She has been practicing VERY hard and is excited, but a little nervous as well!

For those who follow this blog, you've seen NUMEROUS pics of TKD testing between the 3 kids, so please bear with me, I'm going to go through the sections of her test:

Combination Kicks: she has to know numbers 1-6 and each number has 3-4 different kicks in the series (24 kicks in certain order total)

Basic One Steps: another series of moves, in order....she is responsible for knowing sections 1-5 (again, 4-5 moves in each series)

Pattern: this is a series of movements, usually @ 20 that are done in a specific pattern (a-ha!) - she is also required to know the pattern name - her current belt it is named: Pal Gwe Il Chang (Korean)

Board Break: she needs to do a running side kick (in the air), jumping over one person and break the board (hope her legs are long enough!!)

Oh!  Her current belt color is Orange and it signifies "Becoming a Recognized Student" - If she were to advance to Yellow, that signifies "Warmth, from which a plant sprouts and takes root as the foundation is laid"

 Sliding Side Kick

 Axe Kick - the foot needs to come up above the head and then the force of the kick is concentrated on the way down.

 Here she is giving an elbow punch to the neck....ahhh....a mother feels good when she knows her daughter can punch a guy in the neck!  HAHAHAHAHAA!

Here, Master Chris is testing the board

by knocking her on the head with it.  Her response is "Thank You Sir"....no, I'm not kidding!

Savannah did struggle with the board break....she was VERY concerned about landing on the poor soul who volunteered to lay there!  She innately kept jumping off the wrong foot!  Since she is 6, she got a number of tries, but did not pass this night.  The good news is that she gets to try JUST THE BOARD BREAK PORTION of the test at our next class!!  I told Master Chris to have Aiden be the one to lay there, I'm sure she would be less worried about landing on him!  HAHAHHA!! 

The good news is that she DID (eventually...it took 3 classes, but she got there....Master Chris calls that PERSERVERENCE!) pass and is currently a Yellow Belt!  YAY SAVANNAH!  We love you and are VERY PROUD!!



Red Senior Belt Testing

April 19th, 2011

This is a very exciting day for Parker Steven!  He is testing for his Red Senior belt - it's quite an elaborate test too!  There are additional sections to the test (5 total) and those that are observing him are VERY pickey about what will "pass" and what will not!

 He has to memorize a series of punches for this section (above) - it usually entails 6-10 moves and there are about 5 of them to get through. 

 Moving on to kicks....same concept as above - multiple moves in each series and between 4-6 of the series!

 For this particular test, he had to do TWO board breaks (usually there is just one) - he did one with his hand, called the "hammer fist" and then a roundouse (above) with his toes!  He broke BOTH of them on the FIRST TRY!!  YAY!!

As you can see, he PASSED!!  WAY TO GO PARKER!  I am SO PROUD OF YOU!!  He started Tae-Kwan-Do at age 8 - we go twice a week (on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and RARELY take a month off....although, during the summer activities we do sometimes take 1 or 2 months off because of how busy we get!  Your dedication and PERSERVERENCE have DEFINATELY paid off!!

NEXT STEP: BLACK BELT, BABY!!  How many 11 year olds can say that!?  WHOO!!



Meet Bella Blu!

MARCH,2011

We added a new family member to the Juntunen clan!  This adorable little lady above is Bella Blu, she is part Lhasa Apso and part Bichon and she is SO SOFT and FLUFFY!  We went to the pet store in one of the local malls....we were lookin' through the glass and the kids and I were just drawn to her!  So, we took her home!  Hahahaha...no, we really don't know anything about an "in house" dog, but we're learnin! 

It was about 8:30 when we got home, and right away she had a favorite blanket and stuffed animal ~ thanks, Aiden for offering her your things!  I got out the camera and she posed PERFECTLY for the picture!  Guess we knew then FOR SURE she was PERFECT for our family!!

Parker's 1st Communion Gift

It is SO HARD to find a "neat" Communion gift for a boy...believe me, I looked and LOOKED.  I finally decided on this (above).  I wanted Parker to have something that represented his Christianity AND marked this special day in his life...not to mention let him know how proud we were of him.  I thought this was "neat" for a few reasons: 1) Yes, I know it is a "necklace"; however, the style of the chain and the dog tag seemed to make it more masculine, 2) You can see the cross...I found some really cute chains that had sports on them, but they did not represent FAITH in any way!  3) I had it engraved - the front of the dog tag says, "The Lord's Angels Watch Over and Guide You In All Your Ways", the back of the dog tag says "Parker Steven Juntunen - 1st Communion - 4.17.2011" and on the back of the cross are his initials "PSJ", after all....we chose that name special for him, it's important where it came from and I'm so glad he doesn't "hate" it!  We may have gotten to name him, but the Lord is the one who gave him to us and I get teary-eyed thinking about how grown up he is....how special he is....and how much I love and adore this first born son of mine!  The Lord will bless you Parker....I'm just blessed to have you! 

Parker's 1st Communion

APRIL 17th, 2011

This marks a HUGE MILESTONE for Parker ~ he received his FIRST COMMUNION!! We had three weeks of family classes and the 5th graders even got to learn how to make the communion bread! Parker was excited and very proud...and we were SO PROUD of him as well!!

The 5th graders were asked to kneel at the alter and their entire families, "those that support them in their faith" were welcome to come up for a special blessing where we all put our hands on him while saying the blessing. We had a rather large crowd up there!

Parker and Pastor Mark
Receiving the Bread for the first time!! SO EXCITED...Parker just kept SMILING the entire time! It was neat because two families were called up at a time for the 5th graders to recieve communion, I believe this really made them feel special - then the rest of the congegation received theirs.

And now the wine...after we got back to our seats, he told us it's "not really that bad"! Hahahaha....this could come back to bite me in the butt when he gets older, huh!? ~wink!

Parker was mostly concerned about NOT throwing up - he did a WONDERFUL job!

With the Grandparents

Proud Family!

After the service, we had a lunch at our house ~ we are so very blessed that the family we have in the area is so supportive and wonderful to us! Thanks to all the grand and great-grandparents and the entire Nelson clan for supporting Parker in this journey!!

Parker just loves these little girls....

Chad's Golfing Trip to Arizona

FEBRUARY, 2011

I know this is out of order, but Chad got to go on a really fun trip with two of his childhood friends and their dad and I wanted to share some of the pics they took! These guys are the ones Chad goes fishing with every summer and hunting with in the fall. Tom (the dad), bought a house in Arizona and invited the boys out for 5 days of golfing!! Needless to say, Chad had a BLAST....

This is the life, isn't it?

Isn't it PRETTY!? And WARM!!
This is a HUGE house that was for sale...Chad took a pic of it with his phone and sent it to me with the caption, "Look honey, I found our retirement home!"...not in my lifetime, I'm afraid! HA!

He even got to go to his first NASCAR event! We don't even watch it on TV, but Chad said it was "pretty cool" being there....he's a man of many words that hubby of mine.

Chad and his childhood friend Matt C.

Nice swing, honey!

Cute Little Girls

Sugar and Spice and

Everything Nice...

That's

What Little Girls Are Made Of!!

These little beauties are my cousins' girls! I wanted to "show them off" a bit...aren't they DARLING!?

Baby Taylor...she is growing more and more every day! Don't you just wanna kiss those cheeks!?
Little Miss Avery! She has the most BEAUTIFUL blue eyes and darling little curls at the back of her head! She is very quiet and wouldn't smile for me right away! Luckily, she warmed up and LOOK at how adorable she is!!

I couldn't help it, I had to include this pic because I think it's SO CUTE!!

Bowling Awards

APRIL, 2011

We went to the annual bowling awards banquet and LOOK what Parker brought home!!

* 5th Place for the Jr./ Adult Halloween tournament he participated in with Grandma Pam

*CHAMPIONS in the All City Tournamnent for Doubles with Nicholas! (and a patch)

*6th Place in Regionals for Doubles with Nocholas and...

* 2nd Place in Regionals for Singles!!

This is pretty cool... :) Parker, you're amazing AND talented!! We are SO BLESSED to have you as our son!

Kindergarten Tie-Dying!

MARCH 31st, 2011

HOW FUN! Since my new work schedule frees up my work-week days, I got to volunteer to help out in Savannah's class while they did tie-dying! They have been learning about fabric, and today they tie-dyed shirts, smeared pieces of fabric with permanent marker, mud, washable markers and really old relish, then they washed them with soap and a little scrubber to see which items would come out of the fabric! They even got to SEW - now THAT'S a brave teacher!!

Large tubs of color! They got to choose
blue, orange and purple - of course they
ALL wanted all of the colors!!

Here Miss Savannah shows us her shirt that has just been colored! Can't WAIT to see how it turnes out - GOOD JOB HONEY!
Savannah and Mommy - what a FUN morning!!

State Bowling Tournament - Dickinson, ND

MARCH 26-27th, 2011

Parker and his buddy (and next door neighbor), Nicholas have been on a bowling league together for the past 3 or 4 years (can't exactly remember!!) - they are both quite talented and have a lot of fun!

This is our second year participating in the ND State Youth Bowling Tournament and it was held in Dickinson, ND which is about 5 hours away from where we live! So, we got the kids out of school early on Friday and headed out for a weekend of fun. The boys did a GREAT JOB and even though they were competing against each other during the singles games, they are very supportive of one another! Had to take a picture of the screen - this is Parker's BIGGEST GAME EVER!! A 220!! It was SO MUCH FUN watching him! He was so excited, the whole room was excited for him as well!
Also had to get a picture with one of Parker's biggest supporters, Grandma Pam! She came with us and is the lady that got Parker and Nicholas bowling in the first place! Her and Emmett bring the boys EVERY SATURDAY morning to the lanes, and yes, she has been doing this for 3-4 years - what a super grandma!!

Look how handsome my little bowler is! My neighbor Tracy and I ordered the boys these matching, "official", retro - bowling shirts! The boys look and feel "professional" in them and I love that they have their names on them!

Couldn't use the flash on the camera while they were bowling - Parker has a nice approach and his ball even curves!

This one turned out to be a S-T-R-I-K-E!! WHOO-HOO!! Over all, it was a GREAT weekend! The tournament goes for 4 weekends and we participated during the first weekend so we will have to WAIT (oh no!) to find out the end results!!

WAY TO GO PARKER AND NICHOLAS! WE ARE VERY PROUD OF YOU!!

MARCH 25th, 2011

Here we are at the water park in our hotel in Dickinson. I mean, these kids were out there AS SOON AS we brought all the stuff into the room! It's a good thing the pool was fun, because our room was the size of a SHOEBOX so sitting in there with nothing to do would have made us all nuts!!

Here's Mr. Aiden relaxing on a whale!! He is so funny..."I'm just chillin', mom"!
Savannah had a blast on these floating disks and the rope! It did cut up her hands a bit....good thing they are completely calloused from the monkey-bars at school!!

Parker spent most of his time on the water slide and in the hot tub!!