Juma's performance at school

Every year, Juma's school has International Day. Each class learns about a different country and performs a song or skit about it. This year, his class had Turkey. The whole class performs a skit about Hoja, a character from trickster-style folk tales. Juma doesn't have a speaking part, but he is one of the characters who show up for lunch at Hoja's house.

birthday party

We invited friends over on Juma's birthday Wednesday for a Bakugan-themed party. (Good thing he let me know if plenty of time that he wanted Bakugan, because party items are not in stores yet; I had to order everything online, including the edible cake picture.)




I had the lucky fortune of having access to the great reception hall downstairs from our apartment, so the kids had a gigantic room to run around in, make noise, hide, and just be kids.

The video below contains some highlights of the party, including Juma opening presents from Justin, me, G'ma and G'pa Beckham, and G'ma and G'pa Wilson. If you think you hear Justin's voice in there, you do. He was on video chat while Juma opened the special present from him.

Also, you catch a couple glimpses of my mom--she flew all the way out here to visit during Juma's birthday. I just took her back to the airport this morning. We had a great time with her here, but I think she was missing Dad enough that it was time to go home.



And here is the birthday boy himself. Seven years old, four feet tall, and as great a kid as a mommy could want. I love you, Juma!

baseball

Juma's baseball season is almost over; he has only one more game that we could make it to (but it's at 7:45 at night! What six-year-old can play that late?!?!).

This is a highly abbreviated video from Juma's first game of the season--he made two runs. Justin is pitching to him on the first hit. Juma is wearing jeans, orange shirt, and is number 12.




And these are some shots from one of his practices (just about the only practice we made it out to--this working and being a single parent thing is tough!).

Waiting for a catch:




Pretending to pitch, while playing center field:




Practicing hard:




Getting bored in the outfield, giving himself a manicure:

field trip

I went along with Juma's class on a field trip to the local newspaper offices. His teacher wanted to make sure the kids got a chance to see how newspapers are made (since the new media seem to pushing good old fashioned newspapers out of the market).



I took the movie for Justin's sake, really, but if you're up for it, take a look. Don't worry, it's only some highlights, not the whole tour.

kid movies

We took Juma to two movies recently, Madagascar 2 and Bolt. They were both cute, funny, and had nice stories.

By far, our favorite part of Bolt, by unanimous vote, was the hamster, Rhino.



Check out the extended clip on yahoo to see him in all his AWESOMENESS.

Charlie bit me!

This video was just too funny to pass up. Kids are hilarious.

new videos up

We posted two new videos of Juma. One is of Juma dancing the night away, and the other of Juma playing with some hot wheels cars, sound effects and all.

Enjoy!

videos

I put up a few more videos of your favorite grandson/nephew/cousin/little dude. Click here to see him in a fountain and shaking some maracas to the beat--well, sort of to the beat. (Sarah filmed these ones.)

two more videos

I put up a couple more videos of Juma from last week. Click here to see them.

a few videos

I'll be putting up video clips from time to time. Most of them will be of Juma because, let's face it, we're not as cute. Click here for the first few.

terror on wheels

Click here or click on the picture above to see a video of Juma's new skill.

(warning: large file, ~2 mb. If it doesn't work, click here to download Quicktime for free.)