Elf on the Shelf Friday

Our favorite elf is back!  He arrived last Friday (December 1st).  All the boys still believe and are enjoying Mr. Elf's antics each morning.  It's getting tougher and tougher for him to come up with things though!

Friday, December 1st - Mr. Elf arrived!  He brought the boys an advent calendar again!

Saturday, December 2nd - The boys had their first basketball game of the season on this day and Mr. Elf staged his own game and cheering section.

Sunday, December 3rd - We found Mr. Elf spying on us in the Christmas tree!

Monday, December 4th - The boys had school on Monday and Mr. Elf brought them fun Christmas erasers for their pencils.

Tuesday, December 5th - Mr. Elf made himself a photo booth.

Wednesday, December 6th - Mr. Elf must have been on a soccer team this summer because he had a cool soccer uniform on and was playing a game against some Imaginex guys.

Thursday, December 7th - Mr. Elf must have gotten his soccer uniform duty because we found his drying his laundry on Thursday.

Friday, December 8th - This morning we found Mr. Elf in a ball pit!

Vanderbilt Basketball

We took the boys to a Vanderbilt basketball game this afternoon.  They finally all have Vandy shirts and we look like real fans :)  And we made sure to bring along the couple of pom-poms we got at a game last year.

We were in section 3K, row 8.  So we were side court this year but only a couple of rows from the top. 

However, we had a walkway in front of us which was perfect for the boys to be able to see and for Gray to move around more.  Plus with it being a non-conference game (against Kansas State), there weren't many people there.

Whenever it got loud with cheering, Gray found a pom-pom and started shaking it :)

In the second half, someone that worked at the arena came to our section and handed out free Vandy toboggans to the kids.  Score!  Carter decided to turn his pom-pom into hair and had this look the rest of the game ...

Gray made me use his hat and pom-pom to look like Carter ...

Vandy was down by 13 at the half but tied the game with only a few minutes left and made it exciting.  Unfortunately they didn't win but it was fun to watch them come back!

9 Years

Happy birthday to our big man who has one more year until double digits!!!

Fall Soccer

Soccer finished up last weekend (on November 4th) for the boys.  This season the league changed the teams to birth year (instead of the cutoff being the same as school) so Carter was on a U10 team and because we wanted to keep Rylan's team together, we moved him up and his team was U9.  The Y also decided to have U10 and U9 teams in the same division.  So the boys played the same teams (and each other).  We were really frustrated that the Y did this without telling us (we found out once the game schedule came out) because we could have had the boys on the same team. 

Another change this season was that the boys moved up to larger fields, started using size 4 balls, played 7v7 (including the goalie), and offsides was now called.  The Y decided we needed to increase our roster size up to 11 for both teams.

Carter's team fell apart a bit this season.  We used to have a team of 8 kids.  One of the kids left to play football, one decided to try another league (a lot of people haven't been happy with the leadership of the Y program, including us), and two left to play travel soccer.  So that left us with four returning players (Carter, Jack Henry, Jude, and Calum).  And 7 new players.

The new players were generally good players.  Brian worked really hard to get them to stop playing as individuals and work together and they improved on that by the end of the season.  There were a couple of attitude issues as well.  However, the main problem was that the majority of the new kids showed up late to all games and practices.  Very late sometimes and many of them.  We miraculously did not have to forfeit any games (partially because Rylan would sometimes start the game and we would play one down), but we were close.  We asked so many times and literally begged parents to get the players there on time, but nothing worked.  It was a frustrating season and we hope to rebuild the team next season with some kids we already know.  Carter did great (though he didn't improve dramatically this season because we couldn't focus on adding new skills for him).  He mainly played offense and was our leading scorer.  He's not selfish though (I'm sure he led the team in assists) and set up a ton of great goals for other players.

Back Row: Calum, Mark, Athan, Hudson, Luke, Ishaan

Front Row: Jude, Carter, Jack Henry, Ethan, Brian

Rylan's team had all 8 players return.  In addition, we got three new players added to the roster.  Each of them however had a connection to someone on the team so it was easy for them to mix into our bunch of boys that have been together for a few years now.  Rylan's team was already strong but they improved this season still.  They got much better at crossing the ball in front of the goal to set up scoring opportunities.  These guys were small sometimes playing against the giants of teams like Carter's but they could always hold their own.  Rylan did awesome.  He is so strong at both offense and defense.  He was probably our leading scorer (with Angelo and Liam) being right behind him.  But he was also a WALL at defense.  It is rare for anyone to get by him.

Back Row: Mac H., Maddox, Angelo, Mac B., Fletcher

Front Row: Cooper, Frank, Rylan, Liam, Harrison (missing Jameson)

Smith Park

Smith Park is only a couple of miles from our house and they are continuing to add to it.  Two multipurpose fields and a small playground were recently completed.  We are still hoping that the mountain bike trails originally planned for the later expansion are still a go!

Last Sunday was super warm and we had a day without games, practices, or birthday parties so we went for a hike in the park.  We also carved a new letterbox and planted it while we were out there.  We continued with our ACC series and did a stamp for Miami.

Gray hiked somewhere between half and one mile before getting in the carrier and falling asleep :)

Headgear

Carter went to the orthodontist this week.  He still only has the upper braces and upper palette expander but they added something new ... headgear!  He wears it at night, every night.

Carter's doing great with it.  He woke up in the middle of the night once and we took it off because he was having trouble sleeping (and he knew he had 5 quizzes the next day and wanted to be rested).  He's sore in the morning for a little bit but it doesn't last long.  We go back the week of Christmas for his next check.

Halloween

This year we went trick-or-treating with Jen and her family.  Gray gets to see Lofton all the time but the big boys haven't seen Jen's kids since school started, I think!  Which is crazy since they saw each other almost everyday during the summer.  The houses are a little closer together in Jen's neighborhood which makes it much better than ours for trick-or-treating.

This year Rylan was a ninja, Carter was a taco (he got tons of attention with his cool costume), and Gray let us put the skeleton pajama shirt on him that he also wore last year (he wore the matching pants last year but refused even those this year).  Gray wanted to be a million things (pizza, a grape, and applesauce packet, a monkey, and more) and agreed to Carter's old shark costume he wore at Gray's age but then Gray of course refused to wear it.

The little ones refused to be in the group picture but here are the rest of our group (Mae, Rylan, Reed, Carter, & Evie):

Carter, Rylan, Mae, and Reed ran from house to house and Gray kept up with them (Evie was with a friend for a bit and Lofton just couldn't keep up).  Gray did a great job (and got better and better) at saying "trick-or-treat" and "thank you".  And he always only took one piece of candy.

I think the kids trick-or-treated for about 1 1/2 hours.  They all got tons of candy.  Unfortunately Gray broke the handle on his bucket within two minutes and we had to carry it for him.  We were pretty much holding the older boys' too by the end because they were so heavy.

We spent some time at Jen's house before and after trick-or-treating too and the kids picked up like they've been hanging out all the time.  We definitely need to get them together more!  Carter and Rylan said it was the best Halloween yet!

3 Years

Happy birthday to our sweet little man!

He says he wants to stay 2 and doesn't want to be 3.  But he'll take the presents :)

Field of Dreams

Rylan had an awesome baseball team last spring.  It was Brian's second season head coaching baseball.  We really enjoyed all of the kids on that team.  At the end of the season, we got the team together for a Nashville Sounds game.  In addition to attending the game, we were able to take part in their Field of Dreams program.  Before the game, the boys got to go on the field.  Their names were announced, they were on the jumbotron, and then they got to stand with the players during the National Anthem.  As the game began, they had pizza in a private tent and then got to watch the game from seats near first base.  They also got some souvenirs including a baseball with the Sounds logo on it.  It was super fun and we were so glad we were able to make it work for the whole team!

Bryce & Jude:

Wilson & Matthew:

Boone & Hunter:

Maddox & Eli:

Rylan, Sam, & Carson: