Ben's Blog

Ben has been asking to learn Karate for a few weeks now, as his friend at School, Austin, also goes, so we signed him up at the local Woolwell centre and last night he had his first lesson from 17:30 to 1830. Kelly went with him, as she had signed him up and knew all the details, and he did very well after a shaky start where he was crying for a bit. We think it was because he was nervous, and afterwards, he said he didn’t like all the people watching. The instructor took him to one side and gave him some one on one tuition, which helped loads! Ben settled down and did very well throughout the hour, so much so, that he got a certificate after the session had ended. It was for doing so well in his first session. As it was a complete surprise to him, and to Kelly, he was thrilled and had a massive smile on his face and apparently ran to the front to get it! 😉 The instructor spoke to Kelly as well about him crying etc and said not to worry, and he just needs to keep going to build his confidence up. He also said that Ben had some really good co-ordination skills already, so we may be looking at the next Karate Kid here!

When he got home he bounded through the front door to show me his certificate, and I got him to show me what he had learnt. So until bedtime, he was Karate’ing his way around the house!

We are very glad that he enjoyed it and wants to go again, but part of the deal to do Karate, was for him to do swimming lessons this year as well, so we will see how he goes with that! 😉

Here is a photo of Ben and his certificate when he got home, and one of the certificate on its own.

1st Karate Certificate

Ben and his 1st Karate Certificate

Today, we went to see Ben get his bronze merit award, as he had reached 10 merits. He had already received all the merit awards he could (40), so the school reset him back to 0, so he could try and get them all again. It hasn’t taken him very long to get to 10 so hopefully he will get enough to get a few more awards before the end of the current school year.

Second Bronze Merit Award

It wasn’t the best Christmas ever as Coby was really ill and Ben and Aaron were ill as well. Saying that, Ben and Aaron enjoyed it all and had lots and lots of presents to open on Christmas morning. It took well into the afternoon to finish opening them all, and they had some really good presents from everyone, and Father Christmas. Unfortunately, due to them not feeling very well, they were both in bed just after 6pm, which was very early for them, especially for Christmas Day.

They both got up just after 7am and dived into their stockings, which were chock a block.  We then all went downstairs and the boys were amazed to see all the presents under the tree.  They wanted to dive in straight away but we managed to get a bit of breakfast first, and then started opening presents.  We were still going by dinner time, and they both had their Christmas Dinner, although Aaron didn’t eat it all as he isn’t found of roast dinners. Ben scoffed all of his though! Aaron preferred dessert! 😉 They both had a good play in the afternoon when all the presents were opened, with their main ones being a remote control robot Dinosaur (for Ben) and a robot Puppy (for Aaron). Aaron also got the ambulance he asked Father Christmas for! They had some more food for tea but has slowed down considerably by this time, and not long after went up to bed, tired out and not feeling very well.

All in all, we did have a nice day, but it was a shame that all the boys were ill and myself and Kelly were completely tired out after being up with Coby all Christmas Eve night.

Thanks to everyone that gave the boys cards and presents!

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Here are the boys (and Kelly!) meeting Father Christmas at Trago in December 2014. Each of them got a little present and told him (apart from Coby) what they wanted for Christmas! Aaron asked for an Ambulance and Ben asked for a remote control Transformer! 😉

For the School nativity play this year, Ben was an Innkeeper . Kelly had to make his outfit by dying some old towels and a sheet in tea (to make them look brown), but it came out really well! As Ben is in Year 1 now, he didn’t have any part to play in the actual story, but instead was singing the songs with the rest of his year group.  He was very good and looked good in his outfit, apart from his teacher managed to get a tuft of his hair to stick out between the towels on his head, which did look a little daft! 😉 It was very busy in the hall and we couldn’t get the best of views unfortunately, but we were able to see Ben pretty well and we managed to take some photos and a video, which you can see below.

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