Letterboxing - 2nd & 3rd Plants

While Brian went to lunch and the NHL All-Star game today (lucky!!!), the boys and I planted two more letterboxes.  We added two more stamps to our "ACC Series" - Clemson and Duke.

We returned to Smith Park but hid both of these boxes a little closer to the parking lot this time.  We hid the first one close to the Ravenwood mansion in a rock wall.  (http://www.atlasquest.com/showinfo.html?boxId=264965)

The second one was about 0.3 miles up a trail under a large boulder.  (http://www.atlasquest.com/showinfo.html?boxId=264963)

Carter had tons of energy but I think Rylan was still recovering from all our hiking yesterday.  They still seemed to enjoy the search for good hiding spots.  Plus the weather was amazing - upper 60s and breezy.

Now I need to do some more carves so we can plant some more!

Indoor Soccer

Carter is playing indoor soccer this winter and Brian is coaching his team.  He is playing with the Williamson County Parks & Rec and they play at the Crockett Indoor Arena (which is less than 10 minutes from our house).  The field there is huge so the kids play 5v5 plus a goalie.  Carter's age group is 7 and 8 year olds so this was the first year he was old enough to play.  Carter's friends from school and his outdoor team, twins Charlie & Whit, wanted to play with us so their dad is the assistant coach.  After starting the team off with three 7-year-olds, Brian drafted the rest of the team in December.  He was at a bit of a disadvantage with starting his picks in the 4th round (and having the first three kids being young) so we aren't the best team.  But we have a nice group of kids.  There are five teams total in the league - 2 are really strong with a lot of kids from a select program and 3 (including Carter's team) are a bit more average.

All the teams got to have two 40-minute practices before games started this week.  That wasn't much time for Brian to team the kids how to play indoor (some haven't even played outdoor since they were little)!  Games are two 18-minute halves with subbing on the fly (there are 10 kids total on each team).

Carter before his first game ...

Kicking off with Charlie ...

Carter's team did well.  They lost something like 20-0, but they were playing the BEST team in the league (at least half the kids on that team play on a select team together and are still practicing a few times a week - not sure how they pulled that off with the draft!).

Here's a short video (I didn't get to film much with having to chase after Grayson the entire game - he is wearing me out!!!).

Carter's a little tentative still but got much better the second half.  He's scared to death to play goalie and had 2 quick goals scored on him when he played just a few minutes at the end of the game to replace a hurt player.  He still had fun and his team is playing a much more equal team tomorrow.  Hopefully our kids score a few!

Rock Climbing

Carter is finally over his fear of climbing up high on the wall.  Maybe it's time to finally take him to a climbing gym!!!

Geocaching

Owl's Hill Nature Sanctuary in Brentwood had a free family geocaching day yesterday.  The sanctuary is only open to the public about once a month, though they do offer things like private tours and field trips.  The area is about 160 acres and has lots of trails weaving through the property.  The trails aren't used much and aren't marked well so they are a little hard to find and follow.

We have never been geocaching before.  It's similar to letterboxing which we do somewhat often.  Instead of following a list of clues to find the letterbox, you use GPS coordinates to locate the geocache.

When we arrived at Owl's Hill, we received a trail map and a list of eight coordinates.

I should have downloaded a GPS/geocaching app to one of our phones beforehand but didn't even think of it.  It took us about 30 minutes just to find a descent app and the sanctuary was only open to us for 2 hours.  Luckily all the boys were super patient.

We had to stay on the trails so once we put in the coordinates of a geocache in our phone, we had to figure out what trails would put us close to the cache.  We had been wandering a little as we figured out the best app so it took us a little bit to figure out where we were on the mess of trails.  Eventually we did and found the first cache inside this tree!

Inside a cache is a logbook and trinkets.  You are supposed to take a trinket and leave one of your own.  For letterboxing, there is a stamp in the box that you stamp in your book (and you put your stamp in the logbook).  The boys seem to enjoy following directions to a letterbox more than GPS coordinates to a cache, but the definitely like the trinkets more than the stamps!

Notice that Rylan's pants are rolled up - he didn't do so well on a stream crossing :)

Grayson did AMAZING!!!  Besides the weight on my back, you would have never noticed him.  He never made a peep for the 2 hours (and he was awake the entire time!).  He really loves being outside.

The big boys did awesome too!  We hiked a lot and did a lot of hills.  Rylan was getting pretty tired but he didn't complain (much) and kept going.

We found a total of 5 of the caches.  If we had downloaded our app beforehand, I'm sure we would have been able to do all 8.  But the boys were also getting tired so we were totally happy with the 5.

I think we've found a new hobby!!!

$100

Now Rylan just needs to find $100 :)

Rylan also brought this home from school today.  Carter's not the only artist in our family!

Penguin Day

Rylan had Penguin Day at school today.  His class has been studying penguins for a few days and today the kids were supposed to dress in black and white.  Rylan and I decided to get crafty and made a penguin hat out of a toboggan and felt.  What a cute penguin!!! :)

Snowman

The snow finally cooperated with the boys yesterday and they made a snowman.  Thanks again Uncle Dale for the awesome homemade snowman decorating kit!!!

Best Bed Head Ever!!!

And it stayed like this for a few hours!!!

Three Stooges

Gray copies everything his brothers do.  I try to remind the big boys of this all the time because they have already taught Gray how to do all sorts of things, like wrestle.

The other day they were trying to get Gray to show his belly ...

Here is what they were doing today ...

Little Helper

Gray LOVES to help empty the dishwasher.  As soon as he notices me doing it, he runs over to take each item out and either hand it to me or put it where it belongs in the kitchen.  It's a little scary how well he knows where some things go!!!

It's only a matter of time before something is broken!!!

2nd Snow Day

The boys had off from school again today.  But this time we got some real snow.  We got about 3" at our house but Nashville got closer to 8".  The rain took longer to change over to snow by us.

I took this picture a few hours before the snow stopped - we got about 1/2" more.

Everything was covered in pretty white snow :)

I bundled everyone up, including Grayson, and took them to the hill where we sled in our neighborhood.

Initially Gray was really curious about the snow.  But I put him down and after a step or two he fell over and put his face in the snow.  And he was done.  (It didn't help that the snow was blowing hard at us too.)

He mildly recovered as he watched the big boys sledding.

But then ... DONE!

Carter & Rylan:

Carter:

Rylan:

I took Gray down a few times on the sled.  I couldn't tell his reaction, but he didn't cry.  I got Rylan to film us (excuse the gloves!):

I'm pretty sure Rylan was trying to get stuck in the bushes ...

Other neighbors were sledding around the hill but you could barely see them because the snow was coming down so hard.

The boys went outside a few more times today but I only took Gray out the one time.  He's still recovering from the virus that required us to do breathing treatments over the weekend - staying out in the cold for too long didn't seem like the best idea!  Brian was able to take a break from working to take the big boys sledding one more time before it got dark.  They were worn out tonight!!!

It's not supposed to get above freezing tomorrow so I don't think the snow is going anywhere for at least another day!

Rewards

Rylan is one of those kids who responds much better to a reward system than having things taken away when he misbehaves or does something we don't like.

Rylan is still going to speech twice a week at Crockett Elementary.  He currently goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2:30 pm.  He goes to school each day from 9 am until 2 pm.  Rylan seems to work really hard at school and it's been tough for him to have a positive attitude about going to speech afterwards.  (Plus he's always overtired since he gets up usually around 5 am.)

Rylan's response to having to go to speech had been getting progressively worse before Christmas.  When I would pick him up, Rylan started crying and yelling that he doesn't want to go to speech.  It was very dramatic.  Half the time he'd fall asleep during all his tears and then I would have to literally drag him into the school (while also holding Grayson).  It was pretty awful.

So I decided to go back to what we've used before for sleeping until his clock turned green - a reward chart with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's when he gets enough stickers.

After 5 good attitudes before speech, Rylan gets to go to Chuck E. Cheese's.  So far every speech day has been great since we started the chart!!!  Today Rylan earned his 5th sticker so we headed off to Chuck E. Cheese's after picking Carter up from school.  Sometimes Rylan can be the sweetest kid ... instead of going by himself he wanted to take Carter and split his tokens :)

Grayson loved Chuck E. Cheese's as well.  Oh my!

Carter's Report Card

Carter got his second quarter report card on Friday.  He's doing great!!!

Carter gets pulled once a week for advanced math.  I'm not sure what they are working on now but he also got pulled in kindergarten and learned the basics of multiplication then.

He switches back and forth on if his favorite subject is math or reading.  I'd guess reading right now since he's been staying up late the last few nights reading in his bed :)

1st Snow Day

The boys had off from school yesterday because of some winter weather.  We started the morning with a little freezing rain that progressed to a short period of heavy falling snow.  There was very little accumulation but that didn't stop Carter and Rylan from attempting to play in it!

Afterwards they cuddled up with Grayson while still wearing their new thermals.  They wore just these the rest of the day - I couldn't get them out of them :)

Carter started school an hour late today and we are predicted to get some real snow tomorrow.  School for both big boys is already cancelled.  It's not supposed to change over from rain to snow until mid-morning.  I'm sure we will be eagerly staring out the window all morning!!!

Blogging Slump

I have been really bad about blogging for the last 6 months or so.  It's not just because we have three kids now (one that seems to need constant attention and two that are involved in tons of activities).  Or that I over-commit and say yes to every volunteer opportunity to help at the kids' schools and with their teams.

It's because I've been making and selling a lot of crafts on Buy Sell Trade sites.  I'm not getting rich from making them, but I enjoy it and do make some extra money.  I usually have to wait until the boys are all in bed before I have time to work on anything (which is when I usually blog).

The best selling thing I make are these milk bottle floral holders.

I also do something similar with mason jars.

I make a lot of chalkboards and signs.

I love these chalk painted mason jars.

I made TONS of picture frames before Christmas.  They have been really popular.

I've done lots of custom orders as well.  At the beginning of December I even did a small show at an apartment complex.

I'm hoping to find a better balance this year and keep up with the blog better.  I've cut back a little on making so much and am also charging a little more for the things I make.  It's been fun though and nice to have something that doesn't involve the kiddos :)