Homemade Mixed Martial Arts

I had a really busy day yesterday so I really needed the kids to get their jobs done fast. Positive incentives always work the best for this kind of thing so I had them make a list of possible fun things we could do after their jobs were done. Having a wrestling competition won out but I didn't think that would be enough incentive to get things done fast. I realized we needed trophies! There's my incentive! The person who got all their jobs done first got to make the first place trophy, which had to be the biggest. The second one done got to do the second place trophy and that had to be medium sized and the third one to finish got to do the third place and that had to be the smallest. They thought that was pretty cool and they did their jobs in record time. It was awesome! Jillian finished first, then Logan, then Jorja; no surprises there. They worked for the rest of the afternoon on their trophies, especially Logan, who covered his trophy with cut up pieces of cardboard.

We ended up not having enough time for the wrestling competition yesterday so we made good on the promise tonight. It was a blast and the kids really had fun. We did it UFC-style with three rounds of 30 seconds starting off with "Let's get it on!" or "Let's wrestle!" All the kids had to fight each other and then, because Logan was winning, it was the girls against Logan. He is surprisingly strong for such a little guy. The fact that he's not afraid to punch really hard doesn't hurt either. We made sure nobody got really hurt; if they started to hurt then they just tapped out -- except Jorja who would start to cry and have me hold her.

Then the kids wanted to see Brad and I wrestle. We had to go four rounds instead of three and we had to start on our knees. I'm no match for Brad because he's better trained than I am but I can hold my own for a while.

Logan won the competition, Jillian second, and Jorja third. However, Logan was upset because he really wanted the trophy he made for second place. Jillian quickly traded and all was well again.

Then we got to watch the movie, Water Horse, before going to bed. What a fun night!