Dawson is 9 AND A HALF

Our big boy is getting even bigger!  I look at Dawson and cannot believe I cam be a Mommy to such a big boy!  On November 14th he hit the 9 AND A HALF mark!  He's getting so tall!  At the rate he's growing he will be taller than me in a few years if he keeps this up!  He loves that he's getting so tall.  For some reason this translates to him thinking he can pick me up, and he always wants to try to pick me up-hah!  Dawson doesn't just look older in stature and appearance, he also acts much older lately.  We go through periods of time where the 35 months between Dawson and Carter seem like nothing and then periods of time where those almost 3 years age difference are easier to see.  Right now, Dawson is just becoming more independent and able to do so many more things on his own...and he's SO responsible that he seems much, much older than his three younger siblings.  Did I mention Dawson is so responsible?!  He is! Sometimes he is so disciplined and responsible, I really feel like we've done something right-hah!  But, this is just Dawson.  He's always been a "pleaser" and now I think he truly enjoys doing the right thing and helping others.  He really does enjoy sneaking and doing something to help me, John, or his siblings and then watching their surprise when they have been helped to do something (like a chore) that they were expecting to have to do on their own.
We had a conference with Dawson's teacher in September, and she told us that he's doing amazing in school.  He has A's in all of his subjects.  His teacher is doing a great job teaching them math, in my opinion, and he actually has a higher A in math than in Language Arts which it's usually the other way around for him.  He has actually started to like math and have some more confidence in math this year which makes me happy!  He still loves reading, and he is an amazing reader! He has recently gotten into the I Survived Book Series after recently finishing off the Dragon Masters Series along with several other series books that have, honestly started to run together in my brain.  I have trouble keeping him in books-meaning he reads them so well (and comprehends them too!) that I feel like he's always needing/wanting more library books or us to order the next book in a particular series if he can't find it at the library.
Dawson has seemed to adjust very, very well to our new adventure in Alabama over these last several months, and I couldn't be more proud of him.  He's made friends at school and church.  We've also recently found out that there are some kids in our new neighborhood where we are building that we know from soccer and basketball that will be right down the street and round the corner from us that go to his school and so I'm excited for even more friends for the kids.  But, Dawson has done amazing with his new school.  Changing schools can be hard, but he just slipped right in there like it was no big deal on the first day and we really haven't had a rough adjustment period at all.  I'm so pleased.
Dawson just finished up fall soccer.  His team was first place for the season and then played in a tournament where they came in second place.  One of his coaches ended up being his gym coach at school, so that was nice for him to have a familiar face at school and on the soccer field.  Dawson really enjoyed soccer, and all the boys seemed to be so kind on his team!  Loved that.
Dawson is signed up for basketball and they JUST started practices.  He's excited to being the next sport.
Probably Dawson's very favorite thing over recent months has been fishing.  He has always loved fishing since the very first time Pop ever took him, but since moving to Alabama where our neighborhood has a lake he fishes all the time! He loves it.  He primarily catches Blue Gill in the lake but they've caught a few bass.
Dawson loves being outdoors in general.  I think he would stay outside 24/7 if I would let him.  He loves riding his bike, going on runs with me, fishing, playing basketball, shooting his bow and arrow, and the list goes on.  If it can  be done outside, he enjoys it.
We love our biggest boy, Dawson, and cannot believe that this sweet blue eyed boy can be so big! I continue to be amazed at the wonderful big kid he is becoming and I couldn't be more proud to be his Mommy!
Here's our sweet big boy outside near the water in one of his very favorite shirts to wear.  This truly captures him at 9 AND A HALF!

Carter 6.5 years

Oh, our sweet, sweet Carter.  We love this brown eyed boy so much!  Carter does everything at 110percent, and I love this about him.  Sometimes this comes off as him being pretty intense-like he gets pretty discouraged if his soccer team looses a game...BUT his "highs" are so high (and much outweighs his lows because he's such a happy guy.  He is so happy and so fun loving.  If he's going to run...he's going to run fast and a long distance.  If he's going to do math, he's not just going to do the 1st grade math he's being assigned, no, he will work on his multiplication or Dawson's 3rd grade homework.  If he's going to play soccer, he wants to score on offense and play awesome on defense as well.  He is competitive, and loving.  He plays hard, learns hard things, has extreme focus, but is also so sweet, compassionate, loving, caring, and snuggly.
On Carter's actual birthday was when we told the kids we were moving to Alabama, and so up until now his half birthday has been a period of adjustment at the idea of moving away from Tennessee and adjusting to a new home, state, friends, and school....it hasn't even felt like Carter has struggled with this adjustment AT ALL!  I've been beyond impressed with all of the kids, really.  Carter takes pride in the fact that he knows more about his school than me-Hah! I think it has made it feel like "his place" or something.  We had a conference with Carter's teacher in September, and she bragged on Carter and made me very proud of him.  Carter's so fun-loving, but at school he knows when to stop, listen, and follow directions.  He's very smart, and his teacher is trying to challenge him.  I am also trying to challenge him at home  by continuing to work on the rest of his multiplication times tables, continuing to find books he will be interested in that challenge him to read, etc.  Right now his favorite thing is math, but now that he's gotten into more interesting chapter books he loves reading almost as much.  He's been reading Magic Treehouse books and the Berenstain Bears chapter books, has finished almost all the Junie B. Jones books now, he's read almost all (if not all) of the Horrible Harry books, and has read all the My Weird School Book Series too.  He and Dawson fly through books so fast (and comprehend them!) that it's hard to stay caught up without constantly buying books or running to the public library.  Carter's teacher has done a lot of science with them this year and Carter loves this.  He was really particularly interested in their unit on trees and chlorophyll AND their unit on evaporation.  I feel like I work with the kids a lot on math and reading at home, but not much science at all, so this may be part of the reason he has been so intrigued and interested with all the science units.
Carter has made lots friends!  He's always been outgoing and liked making friends, and I love this about him.  He quickly buddied up with his friend Henry at choir on Wednesday nights and every time we get together with his family to swim or visit.  He has also enjoyed playing with several other friends from church.  In his class at school he seems to play with everyone.  He talks about different kids almost every day.  Carter always seems so comfortable with himself just to play what he wants to play and be able to play what whoever and make new friends so easily.
Carter is still our comedian! I absolutely love this characteristic about him. He loves to make us laugh...especially loves to make Clayton laugh.  And he comes up with the funniest things!  Oh, he's definitely our comic relief.  I hope he keeps this part of her personality as he grows older, I just love how his brown eyes sparkle and he gets that sly little smile as he's telling us something hilarious.
As a recap over the last six months, since this is his half birthday-Carter played spring soccer and is playing fall soccer.  He LOVES soccer, and he's really pretty good at it.
We love our sweet, sweet brown eyed six AND A HALF year old Carter so very much.  I couldn't imagine our family without the compassion, intensity, competitiveness, kisses, hugs, laughter, and love that he brings to our family!  Happy big 6 and a half birthday, Carter!
On Carter's 1/2 birthday we took a little walk around the neighborhood lake, and I captured a few pictures of him at exactly six and a half with the lake and the wildflowers in the background.

September 2018

We packed every possible fun thing into September that we could it seems like...along with spending six plus hours at the soccer field each week for games.  We had a great month and it feels like we are starting to get settled into our new adventure in Alabama.  

We started the month with a trip to Tennessee (our first time back since moving at the end of June).  The kids were out of school for a 3 day weekend for Labor Day and John was off work, so we arrived Friday evening and stayed until Monday afternoon.  We had a good visit with lots of activities packed in.

John made coffee at Mom's house one morning and put his coffee in this GIANT "coffee mug" he got out of the cabinet.  We all got so ticked that he was drinking his coffee out of this soup bowl.  We decided it was the "I have four young kids" portion of coffee.

Since we were in Tennessee we just HAD to go to Dollywood.  We had a great time with Lolly at Dollywood!

I did a little roofing while in Tennessee...haha

We visited with Nana and Grandad a lot while we were there too.

We swam in their pool on Saturday and Monday before leaving town.

We also got to see Emily, Eric, Drew, Zoe, and Zachary.

Lolly, Nora Kate, and I also went to get pedicures...well, pedis for Mom and I, and NK got a manicure.  She thought this was so fancy and special.

The following week we met up with our friends, the Houghs, at the Space and Rocket Center.

We basically had the place to ourselves which was AWESOME!

My big boys were at school (and were of course disappointed to have missed out), but the littles had fun with their friends!

Space and Rocket center play area.

We received our soccer schedules and I was trying to figure out how to make it all work.

Three kids playing on three separate teams with 10 games per team over the next 6 weeks....BEFORE we even get to the tournament games.

I wanted to keep this picture of the game schedules just so I could remember what life is like at this stage.

This boy always loves making us laugh...here's Clayton the pirate.

Dawson and Carter's school had their first pep rally this year.

They do it so neat where the high school football players, high school band, AND high school cheerleaders all come to the elementary school for the pep rally and get them involved.  I thought it was neat that the high school and elementary school were involved in this way.

Dawson's teacher sent this picture of Dawson with his shaker at the pep rally.  GO EAST!

Dawson and Carter LOVE fishing.

Dawson, especially.

When John told him that this pro fisher was in town doing a meet and greet, they were so excited to go meet him and see his boat.

He even let them hop on!

The BassMaster Matt Lee.

John took this picture of Clayton looking sweet one morning.

On our way to pick the boys up from school, but he's wanting to nap more.

Love that sweet thumb and how he holds his blanket.

Nora Kate's first soccer game...EVER!

So excited to see this girl play.

Go Nora Kate and Go Snow Clouds!

Carter's first soccer game of the season!

Go Carter and Go Thunder Hippos!

Sweet Nora Kate loves to bake.

One week in homeschool we were talking about community helpers, so we baked sweet treats and delivered them to the fire station.

Dawson's first game of the season.

Go White Ice!

When we have Saturday soccer games we are there the majority of the day.

We load our wagon like this and squeeze sweet Mr. Baby in there too for a day at the Sportsplex.

We joined the YMCA, and Clayton LOVES the pools and splash pad.

We now insist on eating an apple without it being sliced.

The big three kids are all singing in church choir.  There are so many kids in choir that they actually have several different choirs divided based on age.  The way it fell this year, all three of my choir kids are in three different choirs.  This has been a little bit to keep up with, but the good thing is that they a;; practice every Wednesday night.  Dawson's choir wears black shirts and khaki when they sing and Carter's wears white.

This particular day Nora Kate's choir didn't sing, but it was the first time for Dawson and Carter to sing at church in Alabama.  I'm proud of these boys.

As I've mentioned before I try not to post a ton of house progress pictures in our monthly blogs, and I'll save those for a few different posts after we get settled in our house....but this particular day was pretty exciting because they had most of the downstairs framed of our house and all six of us were SO excited to see it taking shape!

We went upstairs, but it wasn't framed in yet.

They boys thought this was SO COOL to be upstairs in the playroom with no walls (notice that serious grip I have on Clayton's arm...not the safest place to take your two year old-hah).  Nora Kate was a little nervous we were going to blow off of the top of the house! Haha.

But here we are upstairs in the playroom.

John and I upstairs in our house...before it had walls.

Nora Kate has (finally) started getting to be a better driver of the princess car.

She loves driving Clayton around in it, and he's a happy passenger.

Nora Kate is continuing to do amazing at homeschool with me.

When we can, we do some of our school on the back patio.

Hard Hat Clayton visiting the construction site of our new house.

September swimming!

This picture is from our first date, but this month on 9/21 it had been 17 years since our first date! 

That's crazy!

This month John went on a guys trip to Atlanta.

He went to a braves game.

While he was out of town, Lolly came to visit for the weekend.

We packed that weekend full of fun...first we spent most of the day Saturday at the soccer fields...all three kids had games which worked out perfectly because she got to see all three play.

It was oh, so hot! So after sweating for hours at the soccer fields we headed to an Athens sweet spot...the Kreme Delite!

Then we went home for a quick wardrobe change before heading back out to the Space and Rocket Center.  Lolly had never been and we really wanted to take her.  We had fun, then headed home for a pizza dinner.  Everyone slept awesome after such a fun packed day!

The next morning Lolly came to church with us.  It was a VERY special Sunday.  It was Bible Adventure Sunday for Carter.  This is the Sunday where all the 1st graders go through a special little program and receive their first Bible.  It was very special that Lolly got to come to that with us.

Oh, and mixed in we have some pictures of the Tour of Champions Golf that John went to in Atlanta that weekend.

Look, it's John and Tiger Woods!

Bible Adventure Day

Carter got to read some Scripture from his new Bible to everyone.

We had a great weekend with Lolly and we were so excited to have her come and get to see and be a part of several special things this weekend-soccer games for all and Bible adventure day!

Oops, this is out of order...but look how sweet, hot, and sweaty at the soccer field!

Double rainbow!

At work they celebrated John with lots of surprises including these fun balloons!

Then when he got home from work we had gifts, cake, and a piñata (per the kids' request) waiting on him...well after a soccer game, of course!

We met a friend at Let's Play.  It was our first time going, and it was SO fun!  They kids had a blast and were super excited to meet up with Heather there to play.

Nk and Heather

The Friday after John's birthday we had a date night.

John wanted to try Axe Throwing, and I wouldn't call it my strongest skill...but by I did learn a thing or two and get a couple bullseyes.

It was a fun experience.  John was way better than I was! 

We took the kids to this restaurant downtown that's full of old arcade games...the big kids all enjoyed all the games especially PacMan.  Clayton loved trying out every game with this stool they had for the little kids. HAHA

Pool fun at the Y

Love that sweet smile