cha cha cha--hi yah!!

ok--so i wish i had at least one of the many photos taken of isaac's karate birthday. but as i sat down to download them, I noticed the computer wasn't reading our smartcard. I took it out to have a closer look and noticed the end was mangled and dented. Mallory (as I found out after shaking it out of her) had removed the card, chewed on it, and replaced it in the computer. needless to say, she is grounded for life. that cute little twit shall never be allowed out of the house--ever again! in fact, she's locked in the basement as i write--i may tape record her wailing and post them just so you all know i'm serious!! i'm always amazed that other when other people's kids do something extremely naughty, they think it's so cute, grab the camera, and scrapbook the event. my kids have never done anything that falls in the naughty but cute because i'm a small child category. everything is just plain naughty and boy, it ticks me right off.
i've hammered that one enough and i must move on-- so back to isaac's party--we had it settled a few weeks ago that he wanted a pirate party so we, i mean i, was trying to figure out what to do with 10 little boys that related to pirates and the day we really needed to sit down and do invitations, isaac informed me that he wanted a karate party instead. is he in karate, you ask? no. has he ever asked to be in karate? no. but a karate party it is. we have a family in our ward who does tie-quwon-dough (that one's for you, jared) and they came and taught the boys kicks and punches and all sorts of stances and self-defence stuff. they were all in seventh heaven--a party where all you do is kick and punch and yell hi-yah!! matt and i giggled through the whole thing. watching these boys and their faces as they did their thing was quite comical. i had made the kids karate head bands and my token asian friend painted us a happy birthday flag in chinese. i made a terrible looking cake (so ugly we had to cut it and put it on separate plates before anyone came to try to camouflage it the best we could--why do i even try) and ended with the boys karate chopping chinese lanterns filled with candy (my easy homemade attempt at a pinata). that was it, but enough that isaac has talked of it non-stop since.
i can't believe he's six and heading into first grade. he looks so big (which i would show you if i had a recent picture!!!!) and on saturday he rode the eight miles around the reservoir by our house for the first time (on his little dirt bike with no gears, mind you). we were so proud. if you would have told us in may (when he really started riding) that he'd be doing the reservoir loop by july we would have laughed--but he did it (that proof has been destroyed by mallory's teeth as well) and a whole new world of biking has been opened up for us. hooray!! we've been waiting for this day for years.