Merry Christmas!

This year winter break didn't start until the 22nd, which really made everything feel weird.  We spent up to Christmas feeling like it wasn't Christmas!  As usual we had Christmas Eve dinner with Grandma and Papa H and Daddy's brothers' families.  The kids love going up there to see their cousins.  We made sugar cookies and gingerbread houses and of course exchanged gifts. 

Erector sets with Auntie Kina!  (Kayda was already done).  Our kids are huge Lego fans, she decided to mix it up and give them these sets . They thoroughly enjoyed the nuts and bolts!

Sugar cookies!

New jammies and slippers on Christmas Eve.

First Christmas after painting and replacing the floors!  It looks so pretty!

Santa brought the kiddos an Xbox one.  It was set up in the family room.  They walked up, saw the controllers and seemed confused for a minute.  Then Kayda announced it and dragged the boys upstairs to look.  They came back kind of confused until they thought to look in the family room.  They were super excited.

 We tried our hand at making gingerbread houses from scratch with a kit from Aunt Kirsten and family.  I definitely have room to grow!

I'm not generally one to announce gifts, or put a lot of pictures up with gifts but want to extend a thank you to everyone.  We had a fantastic Christmas!

Kayda's Volleyball Season

For the third year in a row I got to be Kayda's volleyball coach.  She LOVES this game.  We had four girls together for all three years, one of the others was on our team two years ago.  Kayda is the best on the team, followed closely by Kennedi who has been with her all three years.  Unfortunately, the way the games were working out she didn't get to do much overhand serving.  Though it is something she was developing; during practices she was making overhand serves from the back line... she was just a lot more consistent underhand and that's what we needed.

In practices we worked on setting up plays and hitting.  There were only a few girls that could handle it though so we didn't get to use it in the game much.  Kayda still managed to get a couple hits in on her last game; she was SO excited!  She has absolutely beautiful sets and even got complimented by one of the refs for them.  He made a point to tell me after the game that "You've got a setter on your hands."  Apparently his daughter sets for her high school team and he was very impressed with Kayda.  We had another frustrating season due to the rules and the other coaches' inability to follow them.  My girls knew what they were, never had to be reminded by the ref and did their best to make legal plays.  So when they're playing and losing, not because of any fault on their part, but because the other team is doing all kinds of things they shouldn't (and the ref isn't calling it) the kids ended up really discouraged.  Kayda did a great job helping them focus back in and always made positive comments.  She spent a lot of time in our "huddle" giving little motivational speeches, she was actually pretty good at it!   At this rate she won't need me to say anything during her games next year. 

Valerie, Arelly, Kennedi, Kayda, Elizabether, Ariana, Peyton.  (Kennedi, Ari and Peyton have been with us all three years).

We ended the season with 5 losses and 3 wins.  One of the games the ref had ended the game, said we won and then restarted the game because she hadn't made us win by two... the girls were confused and we ended up losing.  They were pretty good about it though.  We ended the season with a sleep over, it was only possible because we had seven girls instead of ten.  They stayed up late watching movies and had a fantastic time.  Kayda actually got a little teary when the last girl went home.  She had a wonderful time this season and wasn't ready for it to end.  

Kayda's Twelfth birthday!

I can't believe this girl is twelve. She is growing like a weed.  I keep having to buy her new pants because she'll wake up one morning and her pants will barely reach her ankles.  Fortunately she's not growing around so I don't have to buy her new shirts as often!  She has taken more and more to making teasing jokes, tries really hard to be a good big sister (Carson doesn't make it easy for her), loves volleyball and swimming, likes to draw and do crafts and is OBSESSED with reading.  She is crazy smart and ends up reading and doing puzzles at school because she gets through her work so quickly.  Her favorite genre is fantasy.  I don't know how many people have had to say this to their child but when she was arguing about doing something the other day I had to say "Do I have to take your book away?"  It's a great problem to have.  Her best friends are Adrienne and Miracle but she's got other people she considers close.  She loves middle school and having different teachers and classes.  She is very rarely nervous about anything, the only two times I've even heard about it were right before she ran for ASB president (she didn't get it) and yesterday, when she said she was embarrassed to wear the Christmas sweater she chose.  Other than that she just doesn't seem to care what other people think.  I tease her about her hair (she brushes it and it fluffs up like a big poof ball) she just laughs and says she loves her hair and doesn't care if it's frizzy.  

Anyway, we had dinner with Grandma and Papa H and then went home to blow out candles and open presents.  We have pretty relaxed birthdays for the kids, fortunately they don't seem to mind not having parties.  We're definitely looking forward to seeing what her next year will bring!

Carson's Soccer Season

One post for the entire season!  Carson started out being played as a defender a lot.  He and his friend Ty made an outstanding defensive team.  Our team desperately needed more offensive players, and with his playing last year, Daddy was able to get him moved to midfield.  He took to the position really well.  He was aggressive and worked his tail off.  This boy can RUN.  He goes and goes and goes, often keeping up with boys older than him.  His team only won one game, tied two and lost seven.  The rest were losses.  Most of that was because they didn't have enough kids for an under 8 team so they ALL got played up to under 9.  Carson and Ty played up on purpose, the others did not and you could tell.  Carson was a good solid player and almost always got himself just exactly where he needed to be.  He really improved his ball control, started to recognize where the ball needed to be and passed it there.  He only had one goal but he was normally the one setting other kids up. He took complete control of his side line.  It was a frustrating season to watch because our kids were so tiny compared to the other teams, there would be a good 12 inch height difference for most of the games.  I'm really looking forward to next year when he will be playing his age group again.  We just really wanted him to have seven on the field and he really needed it to keep advancing as a player.

Daddy, Eric, Hunter, Liam, Ty, Carson, Tucker, Coach Austin

Jackson, Alex, Wyatt, Blake, Carson, Eli

Dillon's Soccer Season

I decided this year that it was best to wait and post it all together.  So here are some pictures from the fall soccer season for Dillon.  Most of his team carried over from last year, it was fun for the kids to know each other already.  Daddy took over coaching this team this year and Coach Austin did the younger team.  Dillon got to spend a lot more time playing midfield this year.  He wanted out of the goalie box, which broke my heart a little bit.  The other goalie stepped up his game some but you could still see a definite skill difference between him and Dillon.  Goalie is just a natural position for his and he outshines most of the goalies we've seen.  He was able to make 4 goals this season.  One of which was the only goal of the entire game, for either team.  Many people commented about his natural leading ability.  He tends to set the tone for the rest of the team, helps everyone play better, he lead the team but helping everyone get into the right positions and generally guided play.  Goal box or not, this kiddo is a rock star.  In my personal, biased, opinion he was the most valuable player.  You put him anywhere on the field and he could do the job and do it WELL.  Soccer has become my absolute favorite sport to watch.  We actually had pretty good weather, only a couple rainy ones and a couple windy ones.  Generally it was decent out.  There were a LOT of really fun games to watch this year.  I love having my group of moms to sit and cheer with!  We've been together long enough that we'll often yell the same thing, at the same time.  As much fun as we have doing it, it doesn't do any good, Dillon said he doesn't even hear us! His team had 5 wins and 5 losses this year.  The were often played against the older age group.  They had 3 wins and 2 loss against the other under 11 teams.  2 wins and 3 losses against the under 12 teams.  They placed 6th out of 11 teams. 

 Coach Austin, Daddy, Coach Houser
Landon, Brandon, Jude, Zach, Carter, Dayton, Angel, Issac, Aiden
Dillon, Leelan, Logan, Timmy, Aiden, Anthony
He had one more on his team, Quincy, that didn't show up in time for pictures before the game.

 This kid has NO fear as goalie.  He'll dive on top of the ball no matter how close the offensive player is to it.  He makes me nervous a lot of the time but I LOVE it!

Halloween!

Another great Halloween!  The kids all got to wear their costumes to school, which they love. The boys had their annual walkathon, I wasn't able to be there this year but they reported back. 19 laps for Carson, 21 for Dillon!  Since Dillon is in leadership he was out for every single class so he could sign off laps.  He had a great time doing it! 

The boys went star wars themed this year. Carson was Darth Vader.

Kayda was a Gryffindor house student.  She said she was "accidentally Hermione" since she's got her curly hair.  Dillon was a storm trooper.

It was pretty fun having all those pumpkins lit up!

Sooooo much candy.  Unfortunately, by the time they got back, most the trick-or-treating was done so we couldn't foist the unwanted candy off on other kids. 

It was fun watching them get ready to go trick-or-treating.  They got their costumes on then pulled out the wagon.  They loaded it with umbrellas and gloves, put in pillow cases for when their bags got too full... And then started bugging Daddy to head out the door.  They werewe're practic vibrating with excitement. 

I'm subbing for one teacher for a couple of weeks, I had 7 or 8 of those students come by.  Their reactions cracked me up!  One girl in particular starts going "I know where my sub lives!" She very enthusiastically explained (shouted) "That's Ms. H" to another girl.  The recipient just looked at her and said "I can see that".  You could tell they spend a lot of time together just based on the one interaction.

Parent-teacher conferences

We are always excited when this event comes up!  We are fortunate to have three AMAZING kids.  We bounced around from conference to conference and loved it.

Carson:
He is making huge strides in his reading so far.  Math is his strongest subject.  He gets wiggly in class but all he needs is a gentle reminder and he'll go right back to doing what he should be.  He works hard to meet expectations on all the activities in class.  He is friendly with all the kids and is kind. 

Dillon:
 The teacher was a little confused with his reading scores in his testing.  Some of them are really high and others are low. There is an inconsistency.  We figured out that it ties back to the same thing.  If he is asked to show text evidence he does really well.  When he isn't asked to provide that he kind of cruises through without a lot of thought.  It's not a matter of ability, it's a matter of effort.  Anyway.  He is a great leader and example in his class.  The teacher knows she can rely on him to demonstrate good behavior and helps with some of the kids that don't get along well with others.  His ability to be a subtle, guiding person that people naturally look to is "a gift".  Math and science are particularly strong subjects for him. 

Kayda:
With the online grades updated every week we didn't really NEED to go to her conferences. We know she's doing well.  We enjoy talking to the teachers though, and she enjoys hearing what they have to say.  All six of them had nothing but praise.  She's always doing what she should be, she finishes everything early and helps her peers whenever they need it.  Her character strong (leadership) class ends next week, the teacher is really disappointed that she won't have Kayda again next quarter.  That particular class is part of a rotation to introduce kids to different electives.  The choice was the rotation or year long band. 

It is always a good day when we get to do conferences for our kids.  Someday they may not want us to.  For now we'll enjoy it. 

Nighttime corn maze and pumpkin carving!

This year we just didn't have time to do the pumpkin patch so we improvised.   We went and got our $1 pumpkins per usual... Then we went back two days later to try out a night time corn maze.  The kids LOVED it.  They're getting old enough now that they're interested in spooky things . They've been watching a few Halloween themed movies, not horror movies, but Halloween movies.  Kayda and Dillon even expressed an interest in trying a haunted house, I think we'll wait one more year for that though.

We ended up turning off our flashlights and doing most of the maze without any lights! 

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 What we didn't know was that they gave us a free pumpkin if we found all the stations in the maze... So we got our 8 pumpkins that we bought (2/kid plus mine and Daddy's) and then 5 more from the maze.... 13 pumpkins.  One ended up being a little rotten so we tossed it.  I expected the kids to get bored or need a lot of help.  I was wrong. I drew the faces on for the boys.  I cut the tops for two of Carson's and scraped one for each of the boys... That was it.  Everything else they did on their own.  Happily!  They probably would've done even more!

 Our porch is a little full. We'll have to move some down into the sidewalk on Halloween!

 Left to right: Kayda, Dillon, Dillon, Kayda, Carson

Left to tight: Dillon, Kayda, Daddy, Carson, Dillon, Mommy

I'm excited for next year when we'll get to do even more adventurous new activities!