Book Character Parade

The kids at Carter's school got to dress up as book characters today.  They were supposed to dress up two weeks ago during the book fair but we got snow and school was cancelled.

So, today was finally the day.  Carter chose to dress up as Max, the dog in the book "Jack's House".  The book follows the general storyline of "This is the House that Jack Built", except the dog (Max) builds the house (not Jack) and ends up keeping it in the end.

I think Carter and I did a pretty good job of making him look like Max!

End of Basketball

Carter had his last basketball game on Saturday.  To end the season, there was a tournament.  Carter's age group (6 and under) had 10 teams so they decided to do an "A" and "B" bracket and then have both brackets be double elimination.

Carter's team did not win a game during the regular season so they were in the 4 team "B" bracket.  Unfortunately they didn't win either of their tournament games either.

Carter's team was the only team without returning players (and the shortest team in the league by far), and though they had a couple of relatively close games, they were never able to secure a win.  The kids did understand this, but they all maintained great attitudes throughout the season and seemed to always have fun.  They all improved tremendously.  Brian and I feel like it was ultimately better to have all these players on one team because they didn't get swallowed up on a team with much better players and then get no attention.

Brian did a great job coaching but he definitely didn't enjoy it as much as soccer (a sport he actually played growing up).  Practice was rough because our assistant coach could no longer help about midway through the season and we had one player that was pretty disruptive that required a lot of Brian's attention during practice.  Brian was still able to teach the kids a lot and they all came a long way since the beginning of the season.

Carter with Grayson during the last game (our assistant coach couldn't come so I helped on the bench) ...

Grayson wore his tiger onesie in support of the team :)  Our last game was rough and our team only scored 4 points, but Carter scored 2 of them!!!

To celebrate our season, I made cupcakes for after the last game.  I attempted to decorate them like basketballs ...

The boys also got participation trophies after the game.

Carter loved getting to add another trophy to his stash!

Carter ended up really liking basketball by the end of the season.  He finally found some confidence.  He improved SO MUCH and I hope he wants to continue playing in the future!

Snow Day #7

Williamson County builds 10 snow days into the school calendar.  Today we are using #7.  We'll use #8 tomorrow (school has already been cancelled).

We probably got about 1.5 inches of snow at our house overnight and this morning.  It's the most snow we've gotten this year.  It still stunk for building snowmen though!

With Grayson so fussy today, I couldn't leave him at the house with Brian when he was working so I didn't take the big boys sledding.  But we got an inch or two of rain yesterday so we'd be sledding into a pond at the bottom of the hill so it's probably good.

Brian did go out to shovel the driveway and took the boys out with him.  It was only in the 20s today and windy so I'm sure they all froze!

The boys were amazed with how deep the snow was this time :)

Brian decided to shovel the snow from the driveway into one huge pile at the end.

The boys LOVED the huge pile of snow!

Brian took the boys back out before dinner and they tried out the snow brick makers I had gotten at Target before our ice/snow storm a couple of weeks ago.  They built a really cool little fort!  That huge snow pile they made earlier made making the bricks a lot easier!

Grayson's 4 Month Checkup

Grayson turned 4 months old on the 3rd and he had his checkup at the pediatrician's office yesterday. He's been a little sick for almost three weeks. No runny nose but congestion and some coughing. His chest feels rattly but it's just the mucus he's not coughing up. He'd also been running a fever for 36 hours before his appointment (100 to 101F). The pediatrician wasn't concerned though. Grayson's lungs sounded okay and his ears were clear.

Dr. Huss was happy with Grayson's development and saw nothing at all wrong with him.  Because Grayson's fever had been under 101F, he said it was fine to go ahead with his shots.  Grayson stopped crying as soon as I picked him up but was pretty fussy the rest of the day.  I ended up giving him tylenol when his fever got about 102F yesterday evening.  He's still pretty fussy today but I was able to get a few cute pictures of him this morning.

Here are Grayson's measurements from yesterday and 2 months ago ...

Grayson's 4 month stats:

• Weight: 17 lbs, 3 oz (84th percentile) 
• Length: 25.25 inches (58th percentile) 
• Head Circumference: 43.3 cm (93rd percentile) 

Grayson's 2 month stats:

• Weight: 14 lbs, 11 oz (94th percentile) 
• Length: 23 inches (50th percentile) 
• Head Circumference: 41.2 cm (97th percentile) 

And the other boys' measurements from their 4 month appointments (Grayson is right in between them for weight) ...

Rylan's 4 month stats:

• Weight: 20 lbs, 1 oz (95th percentile) 
• Length: 25.5 inches (75th percentile) 
• Head Circumference: 45 cm (95th percentile) 

Carter's 4 month stats:

• Weight: 13 lbs, 13oz (34th percentile) 
• Length: 23.75 inches (17th percentile) 
• Head Circumference: 42.5 cm (75th percentile)

Grayson is doing all the stuff he should be - tracking objects, reaching for objects, recognizing us, laughing, holding his head up, etc.  And being stinking cute (when not crying!).

Williamson County Art Show

Carter got selected to participate in the Williamson County Art Show at the Frist Center (Nashville's art museum).  Each school in the county got to select two students from each grade level to participate and Carter was one of the two kindergarteners at Clovercroft!!!  He absolutely loves to create art and says that art is his favorite part of kindergarten so this was super exciting for him.

Carter's art will be on display for a couple of weeks.  On Saturday, all of the artists and their families received free admission to the Frist Center.  We've only been their one other time and were excited to get another opportunity to visit.  We spent most of our time there in the Martin ArtQuest area where the kids can create their own art.

The kids really enjoyed the getting to do the printing press.  They each got to draw something on a piece of foam (by just pressing into it), paint the foam, and then send it through the press.

Both boys created a design similar to Carter's artwork in the show ...

This was really fun ...

The kids got to create a movie using 16 still frame pictures.  They would move things in the scene just a little bit for each picture.  Here is a video I took of the movie they created ...

The big boys also got to paint with watercolors ...

Grayson slept the whole time we were there which made it a lot easier to give the other boys lots of attention.

On our way out we saw Christian who was one of the first graders picked from Crockett Elementary.  Christian is Campbell's brother who was in Carter's preschool class for two years and plays soccer with us.  Christian is super sweet and usually plays with Rylan during our practices and games.

We are super proud of Carter and so happy he received such a cool opportunity!

Grayson's New Tricks

Grayson can sit up in the Bumbo seat now.  But he just barely fits.  He doesn't have the thighs that Rylan had, but he's not that much smaller either.  He looks like a big boy though, doesn't he?

Ever since Grayson rolled over a few weeks ago, he will not stay on his back.  He discovered how to do something and he doesn't want to stop.  However, he HATES being on his belly more than a few seconds.  He gets so mad!  But he won't flip back over or just stop rolling to his belly!  I sense some Rylan stubbornness!!!

Sheryl Crow

First celebrity siting of the year ... Sheryl Crow at Monkey Joe's.

Snow Day, Again

Because of the ice, school was out Tuesday through Friday last week and Monday.  We got less than an inch of snow last night and they canceled school for today again.  Since it's sunny and going to get to 40F today, I got the big boys out early to sled for a bit with the neighbors.

Rylan was up for it this time because I found him his swimming goggles so flying snow wouldn't get in his eyes again!

Climbing Wall

The boys have tried the climbing wall at Pump It Up before but will never go higher than my head.  They always get scared and decide they are done.  Usually they aren't even interested in trying it.  Well Carter surprised me on Monday and asked to try climbing the wall when we were there.  He almost got all the way to the top too (there is a button to push at the top that sets off a siren - he almost got there!).

Lego Winner

Carter won a prize at the Lego contest this weekend!

Besides 1st, 2nd, and crowd favorite in each age category, there are also a few superlative awards given out.  The superlative winners don't get a gift card to the Lego Store, but they do get a certificate and ribbon.

Here are some facts about the competition:

I believe there were less entries than 2 years ago when Carter last did the competition (the boys didn't do it last year because we were at Disney World).

Carter's creation won "Best Nashville Architecture".

Carter was so excited.  He kept saying, "I can't believe they picked mine!"

Rylan was sad that he didn't win but he did really well for him.  He has a lot of trouble with losing (you do not want to play a game with him unless you are prepared for a fit with lots of tears if he loses ... sometimes things are thrown ... we are working on this!).