So, we begin this month's saga with our trip to YangPyoung and an afternoon of bike riding.  Hansung's students were raising funds for a Mission Trip to Nepal on May 16th (yes, they know about the earthquakes!). We rode for 2 hours on the bikes; I had Aidan on the back of my bike for the first hour and Jordan for the second half.  Who knew kiddies on the back of the bike would make pedaling seem like hard work?

The trouble came when Jordan fell asleep near the end of the day. Hansung yelled his name half a dozen times while Jordan smiled sweetly and proceeded to close his eyes.  It was all very cute until Hansung pinched him to wake him up.  Then there was a lot of "Hey, that's not nice Daddy!" with a few more yelps and screams.  Have I mentioned that Jordan spits when he is angry or frustrated?  He spat.  I don't really blame him.  Who wants to be pinched when you are falling asleep on the back of a bike anyway?

The bike riding campaign was successful and Hansung's students have collected quite a bit of money to get them to Nepal this summer.  I'll let you know the full amount next post.

Justin absolutely loved this event and was very competitive with the students despite being half their age.  He kept up with the 'big kids' very well.  

In other family news, our family has a regular Sunday evening prayer service.  This last Sunday was rather entertaining.  There was the regular rounds of thanksgiving for family, friends, fun activities, and then Justin thanked God for food.  "I thank you God for bacon and hot dogs.  It's been a good food day.  I love it when we have bacon for breakfast.  I totally enjoyed the hot-dogs at church! Thank you God for good food!"

We have a "Gary Dean" breakfast about once a month.  In honor of a missionary who put up with my husband's shenanigans over 20 years ago we have renamed the traditional bacon, eggs, and toast breakfast as a "Gary Dean" breakfast.  Thank you Gary Dean.  I'm sure Gary will be pleased to know that this breakfast has encouraged thanksgiving in my son.

This past Sunday was Pentecost Sunday at church.  Two people were baptized and it was awesome to watch.  To celebrate the church held a BBQ after the service and they served hot-dogs.  I thought Justin's eyes were going to bug out of his head when he saw how many hot-dogs were cooked. He was in heaven.  

Aidan has had a few victories over the month.  He did not fall asleep on the back of the bike, but more importantly, he is able to skip rope much better than he did last month.  In April, he was averaging 2-3 skips before his feet got all tangled up in the jump-rope.  Last Saturday, he got to 12 skips before things fell apart. He isn't far off from being able to do it without any problems.  

I guess these cute little boys are not so little anymore.  But, for me, they will always be cute. 

Taekwondo is a thing in my home.  Whenever I am not looking, the boys will be practicing their 'Taekwondo' moves on each other.  There's a lot of 'hiii..yaah' and other interesting noises.  Quite often this results in other sports being practiced, like wrestling, hapkido, and judo, as well as the traditional kicks and punches that boys all over the world are familiar with.

Despite the fact that I have repeated and repeated that they are not allowed to be doing any of these things in the house, it does happen.  It happened twice in the last week with injuries.

Jordan, the baby in our house, the instigator of many of these 'fights' was practicing his moves on Justin, my eldest.  According the explanation given by Justin, Jordan kicked a little too high up, fell off the bed, and that is when he knocked his head and chin (huh?) on the book shelf.  He has one really big bruise on the chin to prove it.  Jordan, when questioned, said that Justin pushed him and that's how he got hurt.  By the way, he says hurt more like 'heurt'.

Jordan was banned from Taekwondo moves. All was fine until Sunday night.  Aidan and Jordan were 'hug fighting' in the bedroom.  This time it was Aidan who fell and clunked his head on the night table.  (I was not in the house to witness this one.  Daddy was in charge!) He managed to split the skin open on his scalp.  Off he and Daddy went to the hospital to get a couple of stitches...  

Aidan got a lot of attention at the daycare for his head injury.  He is so very proud of his injury now.

Which brings me to some of the ridiculous things I have had to say the boys in order to stop punching, fighting, hitting, Taekwondo, hapkido, and judo.  Here are a few that I have said over the last month in no particular order.

"Justin, towels are not weapons!"
"Clothes are not weapons!"
"Pillow are for sleeping. God never intended that as a weapon!"
"No touching.  You are not allowed to touch each other!"  (This always results in hugs 10-20 minutes later.)

On a much lighter note, I have had the pleasure of hearing heartfelt renditions of jingle bells in the rainy of April, sincere apologies that resulted in flowers on my kitchen counter (does it really matter that they were kicked/picked from apartment bushes?), and little boys jazz dancing in the kitchen and in the car (this is fondly referred to as doing the moves).

What more could a mother ask for?  (The answer, of course, is for the Kim family to take a nice, long break from head injuries.)

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will depart from it.  -Proverbs 22:6 NKJV

Lord, please give me strength for the rest of the training...