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.