Yearbook Cover

Carter's school does a contest each year where kids can submit drawings for the cover of the school yearbook.  Since Carter loves to draw, he decided to do one.  He had no idea what to do so we Googled yearbook covers for a couple of minutes for some inspiration.

Carter worked super hard on his drawing and was so proud of it.  He submitted it and then he waited for a few weeks.

One morning we got a phone call while the boys were at school.  And it was Carter.  His teacher had him call us to let us know his drawing was one of the drawings chosen!  He got on the back cover!  He was the youngest and only boy chosen.  It was announced over the morning announcements and apparently his whole class was screaming with excitement :)

Carter finally got his yearbook on Friday.  His drawing is the one on the bottom right ...

We are super proud of our kiddo!

TryBoro Kids Run

Brian and I are some super proud parents tonight!!!

Rylan ran the TryBoro 2.5K race and Carter ran the 5K race this evening in Murfreesboro.

This was Rylan's very first race.  He's done some fun runs before but this was the first one with a timing chip and real awards.  Rylan did the 2.5K race (which is just over 1.5 miles).  I ran with him and he never walked once.  He was getting tired but still trying to pick up the pace with about 1/4 mile left and fell but got right back up and got going.  I'm still in awe of how hard he ran and his amazing attitude.  Rylan finished the 2.5K in 16:07 (which is a speedy 10:24/mile pace).

Rylan and me waiting in the starting area ...

Carter has done a few 5Ks before but never done as amazing as he did tonight.  The 5K started 5 minutes after the 2.5K race and consisted of 2 laps.  When Rylan finished his race, I waited for a couple of minutes for Carter to catch up and ran his second lap with him.  Wow!  That kid is fast!!!  He was able to talk most of the time and I kept telling him to be quiet so he didn't get too winded.   He never walked during the race either.  Carter ran HARD the last 1/2 mile and when he sprinted the last 0.2 miles or so, I just let him go.  It would have taken everything I had to keep up with him.  Carter finished the 5K in 26:36 (which is an insane 8:35/mile pace).

Waiting with Gray for the awards ceremony ...

And both boys placed in their age group.  Rylan got 3rd place in the 5 and under category for the 2.5K and Carter got 1st place in the 7 and under category for the 5K (Carter got fourth and just missed a trophy in so many races last year - he was so excited).

These boys are amazing!  They try so hard at sports, school, being good friends, being good brothers, and everything else.  We love it when they get rewarded for it!!!

Mom of the Year

Gray is definitely our third child.  Can you picture us letting Carter do this at 18 months?!?!

Honestly though, he was sitting like this for less than a minute and ate a total of one cheeseball.

Another Game Ball

Look who got another game ball on Saturday ...

I think Carter may have been the first kid on his team to get a second game ball this season!  I didn't get to see much of his game because Rylan was playing at the same time and there was another field between their fields.  But the timing worked out that I was able to run over for all of Carter's at bats.  He had an awesome triple and two solid singles.  I didn't see it but apparently Carter fielded two hits while at short stop one inning and threw them to second for outs.  I'm sure he had a few other good plays that helped his earn the game ball.

Carter also found out at last night's game that he is the alternate for the all-star team.  Each team gets to pick two players and Coach Jeff picked Drew and Fisher.  But if one of them can't play in the game, then Carter will get to play.  He was a little disappointed that he wasn't a first pick, but he is such a great kid that gets past things like that quickly.  We are super proud of Carter's effort this season (and that he kept a good attitude while fighting through a hitting slump in the middle of the season)!

Bookworm

Carter's love to read comes and goes.  Right now all he wants to do in his free time is read.  I love it!

The Scholastic Book Fair Warehouse sale started Friday and I got some great deals.  For $50, I got 5 Diary of a Wimpy Kid books (per Carter's request), 10 I Survived books, 10 Geronimo Stilton books, 2 preschool level books for Gray, 2 of the giant Lego books with minifigures in the front, a huge Star Wars Encyclopedia, 2 books about dinosaurs, and a giant DK Ask Me Anything encyclopedia.

I made Carter finish the book he was already reading and he started the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid at bedtime on Friday.  He finished it already this afternoon.  It's 217 pages!  And a 5th grade reading level.  I know he's skipping over some words he doesn't know, but I'm loving his ambition right now!

Not sure what's up with that smile though :)

Sounds Game

Last night we took the boys to a Nashville Sounds game.  Brian's company realizes that he's working way too much and bought our tickets as a "please don't quit" bribe :)

We were totally pampered and sat in the first row of the club level.  Padded seats are awesome :)  This is the second season the awesome new stadium is open and the third time we've been there.  These were definitely our favorite seats so far.

The game was at 6:30 pm and we had perfect weather.  It was sunny and warm yesterday (mid-80s) but we were in the shade and it was cooling off around game time.  Perfect baseball weather.

Brian went to get beers for us during the first inning and the boys got a visit from Booster the Rooster!

Booster caught the boys looking at him!

He stole Rylan's glove ...

And put it on Rylan's head!

He also turned Carter's hat around on his head.  Gray was a little scared of the big red guy but didn't freak out.  He did keep an eye on him for awhile as he wandered around our area though.

We loved our seats.  We had lots of space being in the front row and on an aisle.  Plus there was no one sitting in the seats next to us and only two people behind us.  The big boys paid attention the entire game being able to watch it so well.  We even were close to a foul ball that went over the net (he landed a couple of seats over and one row back).

We did get a t-shirt!  It went right through the boys' hands and the guy behind us was super nice and pretended to drop it so they could have it.

This little man did amazing!  He only got fussy when either Brian or I left to get some more food.  The game lasted almost 3 hours too so it was 1 1/2 hours past his bedtime by the time we left.

It wasn't the most exciting game but the Sounds won 2-1 and the boys were super happy about it!

Rylan - End of Soccer Season

Rylan finished up his soccer season yesterday.  He is definitely one of the top players on his team and rarely sheds a tear during his games (he's our emotional one!).  Yesterday he scored 4 goals and played some stellar defense to prevent the other team from scoring when he was on the field.

I finally took some videos of Rylan playing (Carter didn't have a baseball game at the same time and Gray was napping).

One of Rylan's goals ...

Rylan is the go-to player for goal kicks.  I didn't get a video of it but he scored off a goal kick again at this game (no one else touched it - he just kicked it all the way down the field and it went in!).  Here is one of his other goal kicks ...

I love Rylan's pass to Caleb here (a lot of kids still don't pass at this age) and then getting back on defense to prevent a goal ...

Almost another goal (off the post!) ...

Rylan is also the go-to guy for corner kicks ...

Rylan has come a long way in the last two seasons.  We are so proud of his effort out there!  He's really matured and it's so much fun now that he doesn't cry every time he gets knocked down :)

After the game yesterday we had a small celebration.  I made cupcakes ...

And Brian handed out trophies ...

Rylan moves over to the big fields at Crockett Park next season.  They get to play 4v4 plus a goalie instead of 3v3 with no goalie.  It's a big change but it's exciting!  We are looking forward to having both boys at the same location again (we still have a couple of years before Gray can play and make Saturdays even more complicated!).

Baseball Star

Gray is not only going to be a soccer star, he wants to be a baseball star :)  I'm amazed by how much he tries to imitate the big boys!  Now, if we could just get him to talk (he still only says "mama").

But then there is also this madness!!!

Carter's Baseball Hitting

About two games into the season, I noticed Carter's bat was VERY lumpy.  There were dents ALL OVER it.  It was time for a new bat!  I wanted to size Carter up one inch on his bat length but ended up going up two inches to a 27".  The bat I got for him has the same -12 drop so it is also 2 oz heavier than his old bat.

Carter took a couple days of practice to get used to the bat but then he was crushing the ball every time.  He hit doubles and triples every time at bat.  UNTIL ... his basketball coach (who we didn't like) saw Carter hit and said, "I bet you're going to hit a homerun, but save it for another game" since Carter was playing his son's team.  And the hitting slump began!  Carter then struck out or hit mostly singles.  Since he heard "hit a homerun", he was trying to KILL the ball.  Because Carter was hitting less, his coach also started analyzing his swing.  We all saw that Carter was dropping his bat very low (so he was hitting a lot of balls in the air when he did hit).  Trying to fix Carter's swing is tricky because Carter thinks too much.  And he was stressing himself out about striking out.

We are all trying to lay off fixing anything and just reminding Carter to take a good swing and not try to kill it.  He's FINALLY hitting again.  He's gotten a hit at every at bat the last two games.  He even hit a clutch double in the bottom of the last inning on Saturday to help his team come back and win the game.

Here is one of Carter's hits during his come back from his slump from a week and a half ago ...

Crocs Tan

Gray tans really easily compared to the other boys.  I noticed yesterday that he has even tanned through the holes in this Crocs (that he has only worn once or twice so far).  He has a very neat dot pattern on his feet :)