Grandma and Papa G visit!

Grandma and Papa G came to stay with us on the 28th and left the 2nd.  The kids were bursting with excitement!  We thoroughly enjoyed their visit.  We spent a lot of time playing Diablo with Papa and they snuggled with Grandma (mostly Carson).  We played board games, chatted and watched movies.  It was a very mellow, enjoyable few days.  

Grandma and Papa brought a new game for us to try "telestrations".  Apparently they played it at a ward Family home evening and thought it was great.  So we got to try it.  We LOVED it.  The kids wanted to play again and again and again.  There were several times Dillon got laughing so hard he literally couldn't sit still!     Someone was usually sitting aside to help Carson if he needed help spelling a word or didn't know what something was.  He mostly played on his own though.

Grandma snuggles include the ipad.  (Carson was irritated that I was taking their picture)

Tuesday we decided to head up to the snow.  The place where we had sledded before was completely bare!  We actually thought we weren't going to find any to play in at all!  After driving quite a ways further up the road we finally found a little side road, covered in compact snow to play on.  It ended up being great for sledding because it was smooth and slick and actually flattened out way down around the corner!  While we were up there we took a couple pictures of the kiddos.  

Grandma and Papa left this morning.  The kids were really bummed out.  Kayda had to go spend a few minutes alone to settle down.  They absolutely loved the time and look forward to when we see them again. 

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!