Snow Days

The big boys have been out of school the last two days due to snow.  Currently, Carter has a one-hour delay for tomorrow - hopefully that doesn't change!

Yesterday the snow covered everything but wasn't thick enough to sled.  The big boys still went outside for awhile and played in the snow with some neighbors.

Overnight it snowed another inch or more.  So this morning we ventured out to try out some sledding.  Since Brian was at a meeting, I had to take Gray with us over to the hill we use for sledding.  He's been standing at the window squealing at the snow coming down since yesterday.  He acts like he loves it!  I was unsure how today would go though since last time he hated it.

Gray was very curious and wanted to walk around and touch the snow.

But he eventually fell on the hill and landed face-first into the snow.

He was not happy!

I held him for awhile and he eventually recovered.

The snow wasn't super thick so sledding was a little slower than normal but definitely do-able and still fun for the big boys!

It was pretty too :)

The historic home in our neighborhood is gorgeous covered in snow.

Gray was even happy for me to put him down again - I just made sure he didn't fall again!!!

We stayed out about 30 minutes before I made the big boys come home so I could get Gray warmed up.

Carter and Rylan decided to come in as well and all cuddled up on the couch while I made lunch!

Rylan's Report Card

Rylan got his report card for the second quarter a couple of weeks ago.  He is doing great!  I still LOVE his school and though we haven't decided if he'll do kindergarten or first grade at Clovercroft next year, I'm very happy we send him to Otter Creek Kindergarten this year.

The Comments say ... "He is a very good student with above average behavior.  He is showing a good understanding of concepts about reading and writing for meaning.  He demonstrates strong math skills.  He is a kind friend."

While I want Rylan to do well academically, I'm most proud of the good behavior and kind friend comments.  Go, Rylan! :)

Carter's Kindergarten Program

I'm (finally) going through pictures from the last year so there are going to be lots of posts here soon (hopefully!) of stuff that happened awhile ago.

Since Carter's first grade program is coming up later this month, I should probably post about his kindergarten program :)

Carter's kindergarten program was called "E-I-E-I Oops!" and was a farm themed musical.  It was back on May 14th, 2015 - a week before school let out for the summer.

Each of the six kindergarten classes got to perform one song with the other classes providing support.  When it was their turn, a class would come off the risers and perform at the front of the stage.  Based on what song they were singing, each class was assigned different farm animals to dress up as.  The song that Carter's class did was not about a specific type of animal so each child could choose anything they wanted.

Carter decided to be unique and picked a mouse - he was the only one dressed like a mouse!  I made his costume and it turned out pretty cute, in my opinion :)

Carter with Ian before the performance (Ian is the one boy from Carter's kindergarten class who is also in his 1st grade class).

Waiting for the performance to start in the gym ...

Grayson was so good during the performance!

Carter is second from the left, third row from the top ...

 

 Carter's class came up to the front for their song ...

During that portion of the performance, Carter got to "dance" with Whit (who was a rooster and had one of the biggest speaking parts) ...

Carter didn't have a speaking part but only a few kids from each class did.

I saw him singing the whole time though and he seemed to do great!

After the performance with Nicholas (who lives in the neighborhood across from ours - his mom and I have become good friends and we try to get the boys together often) ...

Each grade level has a performance and I'm looking forward to Carter's 1st grade performance in a couple weeks.  Carter even has a small speaking part this time!

Big Boy Bath

Poor, deprived Gray is definitely a third child!  Because the big boys always take showers and I'm always in a hurry to just get Gray clean, he's still been taking baths in the baby bath tub.  It doesn't take as much water and he's done in 2 minutes.

I finally decided it's time to transition to the bathtub.  So I got out all the new bath toys I've been accumulating and put some water in the tub.  Gray FREAKED OUT!  I even asked the big boys to join him - it didn't help.

Carter and Rylan had a blast though with all the new toys :)

I've given Gray one more bath since and he did a little better once he was distracted enough with getting to put his hand in water I continuously poured from a cup.  Even though the tears stopped (mostly), he never sat down.  Maybe next time will be a little better even.

Crazy Saturdays

Our insane sport Saturdays have already begun!

Carter had a basketball game at 9am, followed by team pictures at 10:30.  Brian is the assistant coach on that team.

Then Carter had baseball practice at 1pm.  Again, Brian is the assistant coach.

And last, Carter had indoor soccer practice (which we did outside) from 2 until 3:30pm.  Brian's the head coach for that team.

All of us went to everything even though we didn't have to.  Rylan got to practice baseball with Carter's team and then play with Charlie & Whit's little brother on the playground during soccer practice.  Gray was a trooper.  Basketball was by far the hardest as it was nap time and he had to stay with me and not wander.  He loved playing on the baseball field for awhile while the boys were practicing in the outfield (he didn't give up his baseball all day).   And soccer was fine as he could wander all over the park.  Unlike the other boys who would never wander far from me, Gray will.   Eeeekkkkk!

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!