School Pictures

We never buy the school pictures, but here are the boys' proofs!

Colt Corral

The boys have Colt Corral at the end of the week at school.  This is when the entire school spends the first 20 minutes of school in the gym for announcements and sometimes some fun visitors.

On Thursday (the boys were on fall break Friday), the Play 60 program visited our school.  The father of a girl in Carter's class is the event game day producer for the Titans (I'm not sure what that means he does though!).  He was able to organize the visit and also have T-Rac (the Titans' mascot) make an appearance.

Carter's class got some special treatment and got to take this picture with T-Rac.

They also came home with a t-shirt, flag, and pencil.  Rylan was very jealous.

Field Trip

The second grade at Clovercroft went on a field trip to the Discovery Center in Murfreesboro last Friday.  Brian was able to watch Gray so I got to go on the field trip as a chaperone - yay!  And Mrs. Fitch grouped together the best little group for us - Carter, Charlie, Whit, Noah, and Jett.  The chaperones were me, Suzi, and Hillary for this group of boys.

It's probably been a couple of years since we'd been at the Discovery Center.  I've taken the older boys several times.  Carter said this was the best field trip he's been on yet!

Our class had free time in the museum first.

Carter & Charlie ...

Our group of five (Charlie, Noah, Jett, Carter, & Whit) ...

Our class ate an early lunch at 10:30 and then went outside for a bunch of fun activities.  First was getting to see several animals such as turtles and snakes.  Then the kids were given nets and got to hunt for snails and other small animals in the pond.  Carter caught several snails and some dragonfly nymphs.

Next the kids got to put on boots and wade into the spring to see if they could find anymore wildlife.

The last activity was to walk on the wetland boardwalks.  We saw a ton of beaver dams and this cool raccoon crawled out of his home and back in.

I'm so glad I got to go on this fun field trip with the kids!

Recent Pictures

I'm finally starting to feel better and need to get back to blogging!  Here are a few recent photos!

Gray is still doing mommy and me gymnastics at Let It Shine.  He really loved the swing they let the kids use the other day.  It's on a pulley system and he was swinging above my head!

It's amazing what a third kid will do to you!  Carter didn't have a french fry until he was 5 years old.  I gave Gray the rest of my fries the other day ...

One of Carter's friends had an art birthday party at his house the other day.  I'm thinking Carter is going to be doing something very similar next month!

I had bought a bunch of canvases on sale awhile ago and the boys were inspired to paint.

I watched Jen's little girl Lofton (who is 8 months younger than Gray) the other day.  They played really well together when Gray wasn't super possessive of his toys and trying to rip everything out of Lofton's hands!  Eeekk!  We're going to have to work on that!!!

Baby Guppies

I have been really sick since the beginning of last week.  I got the stomach bug (for the second time in three weeks) and I am still really struggling.  I've lost a lot of weight and still can't eat.  Yesterday I found our last fish belly up.  And I felt really bad because I figured it was my fault for not feeding it everyday while I've been so sick (the kids are lucky to be getting fed right now).

But I was also looking forward to not having fish to take care of anymore.

No such luck ...

Apparently the fish was able to have its babies before going to fish heaven.  There are at least six, though they are itty bitty and some have been hiding so there may be more.  Yay :)

Orthodontist Update

Carter got his appliance off today!  Yay!!!  He is so excited to feel smooth teeth in his mouth again instead of all the metal.  And Dr. Lucas gave him a bag of all the goodies he couldn't eat while he had the appliance in.

Carter goes back in 6 months to see if he's lost more baby teeth.  Once he does, we'll decide on when to start the next phrase, which is probably a palette expander.

Unfortunately, when we went to the dentist last week, we discovered Rylan has the same issue with his upper 6-year-old molars coming in over his baby molars (which are eroding them).  So Rylan will be visiting Dr. Lucas on Monday for his first consultation.  Yikes!

Recent Pictures

A few random pictures from the last month ...

Keegan had his birthday party a few weeks ago at Bounce U and Rylan got to see two of his best buddies from school last year (Keegan and Mason).  They are all at different schools this year but we hope to get these kiddos together occasionally!

Gray took Charlotte to the vet with me for her annual checkup.  Gray has never been so chill!  He sat in this chair the entire time and just watched.

We aren't supposed to eat lunch with our kindergarteners the first two weeks of school but now that we are allowed to, I've been going once a week.  Carter's lunch starts at 11:00 and Rylan's starts at 11:05.  I took a picture with Rylan at our first lunch date :)

Sometimes watching TV is just too much ...

I took Gray to the Adventure Science Center last week.  He loved the temporary exhibit on dogs.  Whenever he sees someone walking a dog, he waves at the dog.

Gray really loves all animals right now.  I took him to the zoo last week and we all went last weekend.

This season Carter's baseball league has catchers.  Carter's gotten to play the position a couple of times and really likes it.

We had a free night last week and were able to make it to Math Night at school this year.  There are tons of games set up in the cafeteria and athletic games set up in the gym.  It was actually a lot of fun!

Progress Reports

The boys got their first quarter progress reports.  Both are doing great!  No "needs improvement" on anything :)

A couple of things that came home this week ...

These were on the classroom wall during orientation last month.  Carter's drawing in the sunglasses is amazing (especially compared to the rest of the class).

Rylan is enjoying art more and more.  He has his own style and I love it!

Burgess & Cummins Falls

We took the boys hiking on Saturday to a couple of state parks near Cookeville.  We got a late start because we planned a soccer scrimmage for the boys' teams at 9 am that morning.  But we still had plenty of time to get in a few miles.

Our first stop was Burgess Falls.  Brian and I have been here a few times before we had kids.  There are two smaller falls along the river before you reach the big falls.

The entire trail is along the river and shady.

The trail is pretty short (only about 0.75 miles each way) and the boys did it quickly.  We reached the lower falls and first viewed it from the overlook.

Then we made our way down the trail to the river above the falls.  Unfortunately the staircase to the base of the falls is still closed after it was damaged about a year ago in a flood.

We hung out here for awhile.  The boys had fun running around and throwing leaves in the water in hopes they'd go over the waterfall.  Eventually we headed back to the trailhead.  There was a ranger there with a bunch of animal pelts that the boys got to feel and guess which animal they belonged to, which was actually really fun.

Next we drove about 20 minutes north to Cummins Falls State Park.  This is a relatively new state park and it was the first time any of us had been to it.  The area at the base of the falls is a very popular swimming hole.

We didn't plan on swimming as it was already getting late and we didn't bring the right clothes or shoes.  Plus the boys were tired from having played soccer in the morning and hiking at Burgess.  So we hiked about 1/2 mile to the overlook.

We took a more primitive trail back to the car and had it to ourselves.  It had been really crowded at both parks since it was Labor Day weekend.

Hopefully we'll get to squeeze in some more hikes this fall!

Carter, the Artist

Carter drew this at school the other day ...