Happy 10th Birthday Parker

Owen's Story

Recently Owen has enjoyed drawing pictures and writing stories about them.

Tangled

When I saw Tangled there was this big girl who I thought was bad, but it was a good girl, but she turned bad. How? Because she had a good spell but a bad guy made her turn into a bad girl. I went with my dad and guess what I got instead of, not Skittles, because I had Skittles there, instead of fruit snacks? But, they didn't have any fruit snacks there. But, I'll tell you what they did have. If you really want to go there, they had M&M's, and Skittles. They had Dots and they had jelly beans and popcorn. Lemonade and Sprite. That's the only days they had. Dad gave me Sprite. He did. That's it. - Rion Stufflebeam

Our Helper

Rion’s been on a quest to earn money. He says it’s to buy a real car, a mini-van, but every time he earns money he seems to spend it on Legos or Star Wars action figures (dolls). He’s been a great helper with laundry and Mike’s even trying to get him to wash the dishes.

Bears-Packers

On the Bears against the Packers, guess who winned? The Packers. And then the Bears tried to come back but they didn’t. I will tell you what the score is. The score was 21-17. Then the Bears can’t go to Superbowl anymore. That was their last chance to. And then, they get to go next year. I was cheering for the Bears. And the Bears, they are a super good team, but the Green Bay Packers were a better team than the other team. Against the Bears, they were better because Jay Cutler got hurt. That’s why they weren’t so good. – Rion Stufflebeam

A cuple of days ago I watched the Bears vs. Green Bay Packers.  James Starks had a touchdown and kicked for the extra point it was good so the Packers took a 7 to 0 lead. So the Packers fumbled on the kickoff 50 40 30 20 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 TOUCHDOWN!! so the  Bears took a 6 7 lead. But the final score was 14 21 done Owen.

Such a big build-up and then they didn’t even want to watch the game. Rion wanted to watch the song (National Anthem) and then we fast forwarded to the end because Owen wanted to see the last few seconds and the final score. – N

January Charity

One of my goals for this year is to reinforce with the kids the importance of giving to others. They love to help others when it’s my money, but we also want them to learn to give. We’ve decided that each month we’ll pick a different group and then find a way to help them. Rion got to go first. He chose to help sick kids in the hospital. Ace was collecting items for CMN, so it worked out great. I read him the list of items that they were requesting, thinking he’d pick the toys, but he wanted to buy toiletries. They also each chose a Christmas present and donated it to the kids. - N

I wanted to help other people and they are sick in the hospital. And, I got them toothbrushes, shampoo, toothpaste, lotion, I got them toys, got them shower soap, I got em playdoh and we got ten of everything, but not ten of everything. We got one of the playdoh. We gave them Lego Star Wars ships. Owen gave them Lego motorcycles. We put them in my mom’s work. Done. – Rion Stufflebeam

Girls!

Owen just turned seven. He's too young. I'm not ready for this! Tonight Owen received his first phone call from a girl, Kylie. His first question for her was, "Why are you calling me?". She responded, "I don't know.". And, that's pretty much how the conversation went. He's not one to converse on the phone. Owen also tells us that there is a girl named Madison who is always chasing him on the playground and who he got in trouble with for talking in class. Maybe he will be our ladies man after all (sometime far, far in the future)!

Martin Luther King Day

I taught my friends that somebody shot Dr. Martin Luther King and after that I taught them how his dream came true. His dream was to get along together. That’s it. The end. – Rion S. 

When Martin Luther King Jr. was a kid, he didn’t think the laws were fair because when he was going to a coffee shop on the door it said “White Only”. When he grew up, he wrote letters to the President saying he wanted the laws to be changed because they were not fair laws. The colored skin people could not go to the same school as the white skinned people. That’s why he wanted to change the laws because he actually had a dream when he grew up and when he was maybe 13, 14, or 15, this lady on a bus sat where the white people sat in the front and she didn’t let the white person who needed to sit there and she got arrested. Arrested means she had to go to jail. So when he was older he had a dream and he said some pretty good words. His dream was that the black people and the white people could go on the same buses, sit by each other on the bus, and go to the same school. And that happened. But when he was 80 somebody shot him because they did not like the rules.

If Dr. Luther King wouldn’t do that, mom, Rion, and me would live in one house and dad would have to live alone. If he had to live alone we would not have a dad. But, about Martin Luther King, he changed the laws and let us and our dad sleep together in the same house because wouldn’t it be a shame if we didn’t get to play with our dad.

On Martin Luther King day I got to stay home with my uncle. Some of you know what his name is. His name is Uncle Nick. He got to stay home with me and also one of his friends, Katie. Katie lives in Chicago and Uncle Nick lives in Peoria. We had fun together. We played a couple of games on the Wii. We also read books together. I didn’t even have work that they gave me. Isn’t that amazing? aMaZiNg? See, it’s in a pattern. Isn’t that spectacular? I can’t say cool because cool is a dead word. Or, I can’t say big or dead because they are dead words. Dead words are words you can’t write anymore because you have to write words like ginormous, spectacular, and other awesome words. And that’s it. Pretty much that’s all we did today. So, see you later (as he waves to the computer). Bye. - Owen
The MLK story is a big hit in our house because there was a gun and death involved. Owen learned about it at school, told Rion, and Rion told his daycare class. After learning about him, Owen was able to apply the story to our mixed-race household. We were very surprised he was able to make the connection. - N

War

At Kindercare we played war and after we played war we separated the cards in the right piles. The Disney World piles were mine and the blue and red ones were in Kyles’ pile. And, who do you think won? Rion. Me, I won. – Rion S.

Ski Lessons

At ski lessons there was a tow rope and my coach needed to help me because I didn’t know how to do it. And that’s why the coach helped me. And there was three coaches. After that part we went skiing and I always forget how to make a pizza. French fries mean go and pizza means stop. And if you do a big pizza, big pizza’s make us stop and little pizza’s make us slow down, and French fries make us go. Done. – Orion Stufflebeam

At ski lessons I fell a lot on this thing where you had to hold on to the rope and then you squeeze a little bit, so it’s in between your hand like your hand’s in a circle shape, and then when you are sitting down, you squeeze it really tight and you go sliding up the hill. I was really good on the last one. On the first one I was skiing down the hill and then I crashed on another person’s ski and then I fell onto the ground and my ski popped off. My leg was almost over my head because I fell really hard. On the second one I fell maybe 3, 4, or 5 times. oN the third one I had myself balanced. I was skiing down it. When I got to one of our teachers I was doing pizza style and then French fry. Pizza and then French fry. And then when I got to the bottom my butt was about to fall but then I did pizza style and it just saved my life for not falling. And, that’s why skiing lessons is spectacular! - Owen

2011 Winter Gala

At our Winter Gala Dylan got to say “Welcome to the Winter Gala”. And then we sung the first song was “Wintertime” and the second one was “Suzy Snowflake” and the third one was “Macarena”, not the margarita. After it I got to eat a cookie and I tried to sneak another one from my mom and dad. – Rion S.

Owen's Combat Dodgeball Party

So, we are first starting out at the first part of this thing. The first part of this thing is that when we got there my brother was chasing me like the girls chase me. The second part is that we start to play my favorite part of the whole birthday party. No one is going to guess what it is. It’s called … combat dodgeball. That’s pretty much the whole part of my birthday party, combat dodgeball. So, we started out with a little bit of rounds. So, it was a good game. This is what you do in combat dodgetball. For example, whenever somebody at my birthday party stands at the black line and starts running towards the balls in the middle of the dodgeball course. When you get a ball you run to the middle, grab the ball, and if somebody’s going to throw it at you block it with the ball or if you need to, catch it and they’ll be out and your whole team will be back in. So, that’s why my team was a really good team. And, another part was where you had to throw the dodgeball but if you got out you couldn’t be part of the game anymore because he didn’t call any more jail breaks. That would be scary. If I got out, I would say, “coach, can you say jailbreak?”. That’s what I would say. And he would say, “no”. OK. My cake looks like a turkey but it’s supposed to be a dodgeball. Do you know what a turkey looks like when you are done cooking it? It looks like a red thing on a plate. My dodgeball looked like a red thing on a plate. And, when I ate it, I said, “Why am I eating a turkey?”, but it really wasn’t a turkey. It was a dodgeball. OK. I got some presents. So the presents are cool. Some people gave me awesome presents. Actually, all of my presents were cool. And, that’s all I want to write about my birthday party. Done. So, I don’t have a family party because dad didn’t get the cabinets on time because we went to Florida and the cabinets weren’t going to be here on time. So, if the cabinets weren’t there on time we would have to wait until a new month or go to Peoria or I could have it when Rion had his. So, we are going to have one together and it’s going to be a huge birthday party because there are going to be two presents for each of us and the cabinets will be in so they can all see our new bathroom. That’s going to look awesome. Dad’s making it right now. Or, maybe he’s not making it right now. Maybe he’s eating my dodgeball, or my turkey cake. I can’t remember what it is. So you guys are awesome! That’s my enormous, long, huge story. - Owen

I got hit by only two balls but Owen got hit more. Owen said he’s not out but he was out. And then after the combat dodgetball we had pizza and my brother’s birthday cake was a dodgeball. Dodgeball. Dodgeball. After the party Owen got presents and he opened them. And then after the party we went home. – Rion S.

2011 New Year's Resolutions

My new year’s resolutions are to swim backwards without using a kickboard or noodle in an enormous, humongous, super awesome pool that’s a hundred feet long and to ride my bike without 3 wheels. I like when you get to ride your bike in the summer. It’s awesome. Done. – Owen

My 2011 resolutions were to learn how to drive a car and to learn how use the TV remote. The car reminds me about driving. The remote me about TV. – Rion S.