Christmas

As usual, we spent Christmas Eve up at Grandma and Papa H's house with the extended family.  We cut it kind of short this year because it started snowing and I was worried about getting back down the hill to head home.  People around here freak out when they're driving in the snow.  We made it back home no problem thank goodness.  

Christmas morning, as always, the kids aren't allowed downstairs until we're all up and ready to go down.  Daddy likes to have the video camera ready for when they come in to see what Santa gave them.  This year they got tablets.  As you can see they were all excited.  They were spoiled by everyone, so thank you for their gifts!  

 We got a white Christmas!  It snowed through the night and we ended up with several inches for the kids to play in!  Kayda sat this one out but the boys had a blast.

Grandma and Papa H swung by later in the afternoon to exchange gifts and visit for a while.  I forgot to get a picture of them with the kids... again.  I feel like I forget every year! 

It was a fantastic Christmas season, we are very blessed.

As a side mini-story.  The boys got trick scooters from Grandma and Papa G.  So once the snow melted we went to the skate park in town.  They were nervous and didn't do much because it was still wet and slick.  I decided I'd give it a go.  It did not go well.  I went down a tiny ramp at at the bottom ended up swinging backwards, the scooter shot out from under me and I landed on my butt in the middle of a puddle.  I'll leave the tricks to them now!  The kids got a kick out of it, we all did, and we laughed about it most the way home.

Kayda's Volleyball

This was Kayda's second season playing volleyball.  I got to be her coach again which was fantastic.  Without the least bit of bias, she was the best player on the team.  She worked really hard and could serve more consistently and had much more control over her passes than the other girls.  She also has sets.... BEAUTIFUL sets.  The team was grades 3-5 which was a bummer because having the newbies on the team kept me from moving my second round players as far as I would've liked.  She and Kennedi ended up being my go to girls to play besides my third graders who needed the extra help.  She is able to serve consistently over hand (a bullet by the way) back to about 20ft, then she switches to underhand.  We'll keep working on that next year.  She was frequently my girl that would step in to "save the day" when another player couldn't get there.  She had a blast and is really excited to play again.  Next year she'll be the young one in the age bracket, 6th-8th.  We'll get to move into more of the three hits and such as the girls learn more control, we're all pretty excited. 

 This is her go to face for underhand serve.  Every single picture Daddy took of her serving underhand ends up in this pose.  Cracks me up!

 Beautiful, simply beautiful!

 See!  There is is again!

 The mom that takes these pictures has the kids get into quite the poses.  She does a good job and I'm grateful she was willing to do it.  Left to right back row: Kayda, Ariana, Jordan, Ghianna, Madi May, RaeLee.  Front: Payton, Madi, Kennedi.  Many of the girls it was our second year together.  Though next year a few of them will be in the league below which is a bummer.

 After the last game we went to Dairy Queen for blizzards with the team.

 Jordan, Kayda and Ariana

Kayda, Ariana and Payton.

Dillon's Bear

With how active Dillon is with sports he doesn't actually get to attend scouts much.  So he and I worked really hard, especially during the summer, to get all of the requirements met.  He had a pretty good attitude about it.  I'd give him a list of things he needed to do and he'd pick the one he wanted to work on that day.  He was really excited to earn this badge.  He was a little flustered, he was asked to share what he'd learned but he did many of them months ago so he wasn't sure what to say!

Pictures

Grandma G wanted updated pictures for Christmas, which was really good because I'm terrible about taking nice pictures of the kids.  So we headed out to the river to take some pictures.  While I took a ton, and there are others I like, these are my favorites and the ones I edited. 

I have some beautiful children!

Kayda's 11th birthday

11 years with this amazing girl!  She is such a blessing.  She is crazy smart, compassionate, and always ready to help.  I couldn't imagine what life would be like without this girl.  She loves volleyball, swimming, hiking, math, reading, and science.  She hates social studies, doesn't like watching basketball in the slightest, loves animals and likes to boss people around.  Sometimes it's "leading" and other times she is straight up telling you the way it's going to be.  Pretty much everything in that list is evidence that she is my daughter.  

 She's in leadership at school, the teacher in charge and the counselor love her.  Of course, all her teachers love her so that's no surprise.  One of the things she does for leadership is to read to a class before school. So Monday - Thursday (Friday is her "day off") she goes into a kindergarten class and reads to them for the ten minutes before class officially starts.  All of the kids put their stuff away and immediately go to listen to her.  We went out to eat and one of the kiddos was there.  She looks at Kayda and says "Hey you're that girl that reads to us" and gave her a hug.  For a while they called her "underwear girl" because the first books she brought were some of the pictures books we think are so funny.  "Dinosaurs Love Underpants", "Pirates Love Underpants" "Aliens Love Dinopants" and "Monsters Love Underpants".  

Her class at school only has homework if they don't finish something at school, which means Kayda never has homework.  She is known by her class as the "smartest girl in class" but none of them say it in a bad way.  She doesn't rub it in and is always willing to help.  There is a boy in her grade, I don't think he's in her class, but she can't stand him.  She tells me it's because he's smart but is always bragging about it, "This class doesn't challenge me", "I'm so bored" and so on.  It drives her nuts.  

For her birthday we went to dinner with Grandma and Papa H, as always.  On a different weekend she was able to have Ella come spend the night.  I always offer for her to invite someone else, but Ella is pretty much her favorite. 

Dillon's soccer and banquet

This kid is awesome!  He didn't get many opportunities to do much other than play goal keeper because he was, by far, the best on the team.  He really wanted to try his hand at forward and he worked really hard to do it.  He got to play it a couple of times and showed huge improvements each time.  He is very naturally a defensive player but he was determined to figure out how to be offensive too.  That being said, I absolutely LOVE watching this kid play goalie.  He has a certain stance, he puts his legs shoulder width, bends his knees and hunches in with his arms curled, almost like a muscle pose, and he gets this look of determination.  He bounces around in the goal box cheering his team on, often kicking as if he's right there with his team and he blocks.  We had a really hard time getting Dillon to understand just how much he does for his team as keeper.  So we counted.  In one game he made over 15 blocks, 2 got past him.  The coach and the parents are always amazed, he manages to make blocks that boggle our minds.  If you get this kid set up with a couple of good defenders and you're set.  He really wants to score a goal, which I completely understand.  We're trying to get him to understand that making one goal is less important than blocking MANY goals.  Most of the games were really CJ and Dillon.  Dillon blocked goals, CJ made goals.  The other players were there and participated... a few made a couple of goals during the season... but in my mind CJ and Dillon were the deciding factors.   

With Coach Austin

Go Cheetahs!

I have some videos of his blocks.  Daddy was usually reffing and I didn't think to video, so this is just in one game.  I'm really sad because the shortest video is one of his good blocks, the kid was pretty far away so I had stopped recording and started again quickly when I realized where the ball was going.  You can see his throws a couple of times too.  It always took the other team by surprise when the ball would go sailing past the half way mark.

Here's the best one.  He had several like it thought the season.

These obviously aren't Dillon but this is how Carson spent a lot of Dillon's games.  He was pretty much always with Ty.  A lot of the times he was off running around but I got a kick out of it when they'd squeeze in together.

Kayda's braces are off!!!

Kayda's braces were estimated to take 16 to 18 months to fix her overbite.  18 months came and went, 2 years came and went.  Kayda kept getting more and more discouraged.  To try to help her we made a pact, when we found out they were going to come off we would keep it a secret and surprise everyone.  

Her October appointment came and they had me schedule the appointment for the moulds for the retainer, two weeks later they would come off.  Kayda was watching a movie and didn't hear.  I was nervous that they would change the plan, so I didn't tell her.  Two days before the retainer appointment she was having a REALLY hard day; so I told her that she was on the last step.  

Fortunately for her they didn't change plans and they had a new 3D scanner!  She didn't have to do the nasty tasting moulds!

After the moulds were taken she told me every night how many days were left until they came off.  I removed the appointment from the calendar so Daddy wouldn't get suspicious.  Her appointment was in the morning so we dropped off the boys and headed up.  

2 years and 4 months later, they're off!

Look at that grin!  She was practically vibrating!

She stayed home for the rest of the day so her family could be the first ones to see her new look!  Dillon and Carson took a while.  She giggled for a while until they figured it out.  When Daddy got home she grinned and stared at him until he noticed! 

She has to wear top and bottom retainers, day and night, for a few months.  She had a fun lisp for a few days while she adjusted to the retainers.

That night we had corn on the cob!  She also got to munch on the candy she's been saving (Starbursts and Skittles).  The next day she got to eat an apple without cutting it!  She was so excited!