Monday, April 13, 2020

Nora Kate is 6 AND A HALF

Our sweet sunshine is six AND A HALF now (as of Valentine's Day).  Nora Kate is caring and kind. She loves to be sweet and snuggle, but she can also totally hold her own wrestling with her brothers. She loves all things pink, glittery, and girly. She loves having her nails polished. Making decisions on how she wants her hair done each day are important at 6.5 (the styles are "regular," one pony tail, two pony tails, two french braids, or one braid).  I can very rarely talk her into a bun anymore because she says it's too heavy on her head.  We love her hair and she and I have a lot of fun doing her beauitful curls. Nora Kate loves art and little projects (usually consists of making something out of cardboard and lots of little pieces of scrap paper). She loves Wellie Wishers. We thought we had read ALL of the Wellie Wisher books there are, but we were excited to find two more that we didn't know about this month! Now we have read all of them.  
I cannot remember if I recorded this on the blog or not, but after Fall Break Nora Kate moved up to first grade.  She was technically old enough to be a first grader anyway, and with all the homeschool pre-K we did last year, she has done well since moving up to 1st.  She LOVES our school set up where she goes to the building two morning a week.  She has some sweet friends at school that she talks about all the time.  NK makes us laugh because I think she knows every persons name at school.  The boys will be talking about someone in 5th grade and say that they can't remember their name, and out of nowhere Nora Kate knows it.  She was thrilled because during the big boys' basketball season, we saw lots of her school friends at the games and practices.  She is also great about making friends just about anywhere and she made friends with siblings of the players on the teams too. She was not bored at all during their season. 
Nora Kate still loves to bake. She's a good little soccer player. We didn't do gymnastics after soccer was over this year, which I think we are starting to regret-so we will probably add gymnastics or ballet back in next year if she wants. She also ran her first kids marathon since her 6th birthday.  She has done great with having had her earrings for 6 months now. Loves them and has never once complained.  
She loves the beach and even though we have been twice since her 6th birthday, so loves to frequently discuss and "plan" our next trip to the beach...that's my girl!  She's an expert bike rider and hover boarder! NK has amazed me these last 6 months with her rock climbing skills too.  We go to High Point Climbing every couple of months, and she is a great climber! Nora Kate is a sweet big sister to Clayton and little sister to "the boys" as she refers to them. She wants to share a room with somebody like "the boys" do because she's "lonely" all by herself, but deep down I can tell she enjoys having her own space to go to when she wants to do her own thing.  Nora Kate is a sweet, fancy, fun, loving, helpful, caring, feisty six AND A HALF YEAR OLD now! We love her so! Here are a few pictures from the past 6 months since she turned 6.

This girl loves the beach!

Walking around the neighborhood lake.

All fancy with Mommy for Christmas.

Rock Climbing at High Point

Her craft...Forkie from Toy Story 4.

Hiking Monte Sano on New Year's Day.

She loves to stay in a hotel..this was in Nashville.

Soccer...go Lime Lightening!

At another favorite place-the Cook Museum!

 November hike around Green Mountain also showcasing her favorite way to wear a coat...half off her shoulder and unzipped...not sure why.

Crafty...making potholders and coasters.

Happy 6.5, sweet girl!

Sunday, February 9, 2020

January 2020

We started out welcoming 2020 with friends.  For New Year's Eve we had our friends the Houghs over for dinner.  The kids-our 4 and their 3-played and played then watched a movie.  We put all 7 kids to bed and then the adults visited and celebrated NYE. The kids were up bright and early the next morning and got in plenty of play time before their parents came to pick them up.
It was the perfect NYE for the kids and adults!

Clayton's always excited to have Ruby sleep over.

If you didn't start your New Year with seven kids blowing these party blowers all night on NYE and before 7am on NY's Day, is it even really a party?!

After their friends left we loaded up a picnic and drove up to Monte Sano.  We had a picnic lunch and did a 2 mile hike.  It was a nice, beautiful, sunny day.







Clayton was a trooper but eventually had to be on John's shoulders to complete the hike.

On the way home from hiking we stopped by Target, and Clayton was SO TIRED that he grabbed this fleece blanket and laid on the floor! Sweet boy.



School started back in January and Dawson has had some really cool science experiments to do in his lesson on sound waves. Here he is completing one of them.
First homeschool day back from Christmas break!
Nora Kate wanted a picture in this outfit she was so excited to wear back to school.  A bright pink dress with hearts, and her matching heart earrings!

I try to pull out toys for Clayton that he doesn't always get to play with to keep him entertained when I'm super focused on school with the big three.  We hadn't had the ballpit out in months, so I pulled it out and  he was thrilled...like it was a brand new toy! (he loves his skeleton pjs)

We took the kids to a hockey game...we love cheering on the Huntsville Havoc.  I really thought I took a couple more pictures there, but this is what I can find. NK was clearly enjoying the entertainment.
The morning after the hockey game we got up bring and early and drove to Nashville for a little day trip.  It was pouring buckets of rain, so we had a lot of fun inside at Opry Mills Mall...
the lego store was a huge hit...


We had lunch at the Rainforest Café...another huge hit!


Inside the Rainforest Cafe

Then I took Nora Kate and Clayton to see Spies in Disguise movie...
while John took Dawson and Carter to the Tennessee v. Vandy bball game (obviously at Vanderbilt).
They met up with their friends Steven and Henry there to watch the game.
After our movie and shopping we picked the boys up from the game, went to Cool Springs and then got on the road back to Huntsville...
our "on the road home selfie"

Dawson and Carter got matching "riding" Polaris shirts for Christmas and have been wearing them A LOT

Baking cookies with batman while the bigs were at school

Clayton looked like such a big kid at the library reading his batman book.

We went to explore a new (to us) trail in Athens one Sunday afternoon. Fun and pretty!

One of Clayton's fav things to do while the bigs are doing schoolwork is PLAYDOH!

Clayton wears this batman mask A LOT!

Vest Day

Clayton loves to "play with" the  hermit crabs!

Clayton LOVES eggs...like LOVES eggs!
He thought he was being so funny to share eggs with his doggy hah!

One rainy day, we did waterbeads in a crate on the patio...always fun!

Dawson basketball team won their first game! We went to (a fav!) Village Pizza to celebrate!

Just livin' their VEST life!

Always making us laugh...a banjo playing astronaut came down from the playroom while I was making dinner one evening.

And this....thumbs down!
All four kids (Clayton not pictured he was on the exam table) came down with the flu...and this is why there aren't as many pictures from January as normal months...because we stayed home and didn't do anything for days.  The kids felt rotten and were more than willing to rest.  Thankfully they all recovered...
and were excited for our first outing in days...a walk around the neighborhood lake (below)

Can't believe it's February already!