October 2021

October was a blur of soccer, golf, guitar, trumpet, and gymnastics.  We started the month at the beach as I’ve already written about in a separate post.  We got back on a Sunday night and Monday we had three soccer games and beginning of golf academy for Dawson.  I felt like we came back, hit the ground running, and didn’t stop the whole month.  It was definitively a fun one!

As I mentioned Dawson started Golf Academy at Canebrake Country Club early in October.  He loves it, and I think he’s pretty good!

Carter and one of his good buddies from school, Mason, didn’t end up on the same team this year, and they had to play against each other several times…but they enjoyed the competition!

Blogger has started uploading my pictures in random order, so I’m just going to lump all the soccer pictures from October together here.

This was Carter’s team.  I was so impressed with how this team really started playing like a team about half way through the season.  They trusted each other enough to pass and they improved so much from the beginning of the season as a team!

Here’s Carter with his medal.  His team was the underdog for a while, but then they got SO GOOD! So good actually that they came in second in the tournament!

Carter is a good athlete! His fav soccer positions are striker and midfield.

These with the trophies are obviously front he end of the season. Nora Kate played great this season and was on anther winning team. They were first place!

As you can see from NK’s trophies above they were season champs and tournament champs!!

Nora Kate had a friend playing AYSO soccer in Madison. Her friends team had a girl out for a portion of the season so they asked Nora Kate to sub.  She was thrilled to get to play three extra games by playing with them!

This was another time that NK got to play on Tiffany’s team.

When Clayton didn’t have a game, he enjoyed playing on the sidelines with his buddy Jude! These two are a hoot together-they planned their own sleepover together and then told us what they had planned.  We haven’t made it happen yet, but it’s funny the plans these boys can come up with!

This was Clayton’s first season playing soccer and he did GREAT! I loved watching him play. He’s aggressive and has good ball control!

This was the night we had three games…in the rain.  They’re still smiling!

Our neighborhood had a Halloween Golf Cart parade.  They even threw out candy.  Here are Dawson, Clayton, and Nora Kate with their friend Madalyn looking at candy from the parade.

Clayton’s kindergarten class had his very first field trip ever this month! They went to Lyon Family Farms.

They had fun playing in the corn cribs.

Sitting on big wooden horses.

Hay ride out to the pumpkin patch with his buddy!

Looking down from the hay ride!

And lunch!

We decided to get in one more boating day!  It turned out to be perfect weather for the lake/river in October! We tubed, sunned, swam, and boated all day long.

Our Captain.

One show we love to watch is NAILED IT! The baking show where people do less than Nail It.  We found out about a virtual way to participate in a special edition of Nailed It.  We bought the kid and registered.  The thing the winners get on the show is a golden chefs hat so we made our own to wear on the virtual show.  They even showed the kids in their hats!

Above is one NAILED IT creation.

And the other!

The weekend before Halloween Clayton’s buddy, Cooper, had his birthday party and it was costume themed so Clayton wore his Darth Vader suit!

The Friday before Halloween we had a costume party at our house for friends.  We played hilarious and fun minute to win it games, had a fire, s’mores, and a hay ride.  It was SO fun!

Sutton, Mason, Carter, and Henry on the hay ride.

The brownies we made for the party!

The kids wore their costumes for our party and for trick or treating on Halloween.  We went with a family theme of Star Wars this year.  Dawson was Chewbacca.

John was Yoda, Duke was Baby Yoda, Clayton was Darth Vader, Nora Kate was Princess Leia, I was Queen Amadala, Dawson was Chewbacca, and Carter was BB8.

This picture of some of the kids from the party is after a couple of hours of playing. You can tell they’ve mostly removed their costumes at this point and are worn out and sugared up.  They had so much fun!

The Halloween Punch was a hit…this was a big reason the kids were sugared up haha.  The base for it was Orange Fanta-Clayton’s favorite.

Queen Amadala

Hay Ride selfie

We ordered jack-o-lantern pizza for the party.

Hilarious minute to win it games.

These were the names of the minute to win it games….all Halloween themed.

Our invitation.

Clayton as Darth Vader

Nora Kate using skeleton hands to play the minute to win it game Corn Pickers where you move candy corn from one cauldron to another cauldron using skeleton hands.

This was actually a few days before the party…we had to test out the hay for a hayride.

The crew headed out for the hay ride at the party!

We had quite the crew in our house for a party.  It was great!

Here they’re all watching someone participate in the minute to win it games.

John as Yoda.

I don’t think I got everyone, but I tried to take pictures of each family as they arrived-there were some great costumes!

So funny-our friends also did a Star Wars theme and we had no idea until 2 days before the party!

Party Veggies

On Halloween I made our traditional dinner of MUMMY DOGS.

The kids got quite the loot trick or treating in our neighborhood…Clayton was proudly sorting his candy here.

Carter was a great inflatable BB8.

Carving pumpkins.  We did teams…Clayton, Dawson, and Mommy were on the team that made this jack-o-lantern.

Our Family Halloween 2021.

Oops here are a few more party pics that got out of order!

Some of the girls at the party.

Darth Vader without his mask.

Clayton and his buddy Jude supposed to be making scary Halloween faces…but I think they’re just cute!

Dawson and his friend Bryant enjoying pizza.

A minute to win it game…blowing spiders across the floor with straws.

Hay ride!

Nora Kate as Princess Leia.

We had a fire in the fire pit this month and used fire color.  Neat!

Nora Kate’s friend Madalyn came over to enjoy the fire with us.

Clayton has had a wiggly tooth for a while.  It got really wiggly this month and he asked John to wiggle it.

Then it came out!

His first lost tooth!

These Halloween pictures are everywhere…a few more from the party…

Cupcakes.

Girls chatting and eating

Enjoy scooping your chips with these skeleton hands.

Duke was Baby Yoda.

We used more fire changing colors for the fire at the party!

The beginning of October, Carter started guitar lessons! He’s loving it!

And he’s sounding really good already!

Clayton still sometimes requests a selfie with me before going into school.  I’m always happy to take a selfie with this sweet boy!

We had some beautiful sunsets this month.

The picture above was one night and the picture below was the following night.

For some reason this picture are way out of order but here they are…

Our FALL BREAK was a couple weeks after our beach trip so we did a little school but mostly took a break during fall break.  One activity we did was visit the fall decor at the Botanical Gardens…

Then one day the kids and I drove up to Nashville to visit the Nashville Zoo.

They had this cool rope bridge.

And we loved the pink flamingos

And feeding the birds!

The kangaroo exhibit was our favorite…you could walk through with the kangaroos!

It was such a fun day. Unfortunately John had to work, but we took lots of pictures and told him all about it.  So fun!

We made a quick stop in the Gulch after the zoo before heading back to Alabama!

Carter is Nine AND A HALF

 On October 13th, our brown-eyed, big hearted, athletic, funny, competitive, sweet boy turned nine and a half!  Carter is such an easy kid at 9.5 and he always really has been.  He is now in 4th grade and is so smart.  I am continually amazed at how quickly he catches on to new concepts and even at how it jumps ahead and pieces things together before I can completely explain a new concept in our school work.  He loves math and science.  He’s been interested in his social studies lessons this year too as they are Alabama state history.  English Language Arts is his least favorite subject, although he still excels in this subject.  Carter loves a challenging math problem and a fun hands on science activity.  Carter is outgoing and has lots of friends at school and wherever we go.  

This year Carter played spring soccer and fall soccer.  Then at the end of fall soccer season we got the call that Carter had been invited to play on the All Star team again this year.  He didn’t think he would make it this year because he is now in the 9-10 division and is obviously only 9 so he has a little less experience under his belt, but that made him even more excited when we got the call asking him to be part of the Athens All Star team to play down in Dothan.  That will be coming up in November.  Carter prefers to play striker or midfield.  He’s very competitive when it comes to soccer…or anything for that matter.

Carter still golfs too.  Back in the summer his two camps that he selected to do were a week long day camp at UAH for soccer and a week long day camp at Madison Golf Center.

At 9.5 Carter also still enjoys fishing in the ocean or the neighborhood lake.

Carter loves the time we’ve spent out on the lake over the past few months boating, tubing, and swimming.  And, of course, Carter loves the beach and our beach trips too.

He loves Duke Dog and taking care of him.

At 9 and a half, Carter has become very responsible.  I’m impressed with he maturity and responsibility he shows with so many things. I can tell he’s growing up.

One completely new “thing” for Carter is that he started guitar lessons this month (October).  So far just a couple lessons in, he loves it!

Carter is a tender-hearted boy. He is very compassionate and loving. He also loves silliness….I feel like this has always been true.  Carter loves to laugh and make others laugh.  His brown eyes just twinkle.  

Here are a few of my favorite pictures of our sweet Carter from between turning 9 and now being 9.5.  I can’t believe that at my next Carter update, he will be in double digits! 

Feeding a bird at the Nashville Zoo

With a foul ball at the Trash Pandas game.

Practicing his new guitar.

Carter and his buddy Mason were not on the same soccer team this year which meant they had to play each other a couple of times.  

Getting his reward for reading the first 1,000 pages of summer at THE YARD.

Golf camp!

Carter loves his siblings BIG time. This sweet boy has a big heart.

Carter loves golfing at TOP GOLF

fun lake days

Carter loves the beach!

Clayton is Five AND A HALF

 Our sweet, funny, confident, loving Mr. Baby is now five and a half! He was pretty excited to get to add that “and a half” to his age this time.  He seems to have grown up so much over the last 6 months between turning 5 on March 21 and turning 5.5 on September 21st.  

He has had a lot of big changes.  First he finished preschool.  He loved his sweet little preschool at First Baptist Athens and his buddies there.  Every time we drive by he points out, “There was where I went to preschool.” They did an adorable end of year program for them and at one point they called the students names alphabetically by last name to get their diploma then exit the stay, Clayton was the last child on stage.  He was completely unfazed by this and walked up last to get his diploma with all the confidence in the world.  I always say that if everyone could have the confidence of Clayton that would be awesome!

This picture was after his Hawaiian themed graduation/end of year program.

In the Spring Clayton played baseball in Athens.  He loved it.

This picture was the day he got the game ball!

Then school was out for summer break and we absorbed every minute we could.  He fully cut out his nap over summer break, but he is my only child who will sleep past 7:30 if he’s had a late night.  It’s amazing.

This fall Clayton played soccer for the first time.

At first he didn’t want to play soccer but having seen his dribbling skills in the yard we encouraged him to play.  Now he says it’s his favorite because “it’s the easiest because the ball doesn’t have to go up like baseball or basketball it’s just on the ground.”  He did great at soccer this season.  He really lucked out to be with one of his best buddies from school on his team too.  It was a REALLY fun season.  

Clayton is such a fun kid! I think he has fun at just about everything he does! I enjoy that so much with him.  Here are just some random pictures of Clayton being his happy, fun self…

Another change for Clayton over the last 6 months was what we decided he was old enough to enjoy summer camp. He was thrilled to do the baseball camp at Athens High. At drop off the first day I was relieved when he was confidently and happily seeing friends he knew from baseball and even his older siblings’ friends and saying hi.  He had the very best time and even won the camp award for BEST CAMPER.

Probably the biggest change for Clayton between 5 and 5 and a half has been starting kindergarten.  Since we hybrid school the adjustment hasn’t been a huge one.  But he loves school! Loves it! He enjoys his time at the building with his teacher Mrs. Burttram.  He loves being big and walking up the steps and inside with Carter and Nora Kate. He also loves doing his schoolwork at him.  He’s learning quickly and seems to catch on to new concepts quickly.

We will call this section of his 5 and a half year old update “These are a few of my favorite things…”

the beach!

Fishing

trash pandas baseball games and catching a foul ball there!

All things star wars

Riding his dirt bike

Playing outside

Sweets

Duke

And more baseball

This sweet boy knows how to melt my heart.  He is so sweet and snuggly, but he also has this great sense of humor.  He sees and understands so many things and a lot of times he puts the funniest spin on things to make us laugh. 

We cannot believe our sweet Mr. Baby is already 5.5 years old!  Time passes much to quickly, but with Clayton it’s easy to enjoy it.