November 2022

 

I got my Christmas present early!

Veterans Day Concert-Blakely 3rd grade

Blakely (2nd from left)

First snowfall!

This is what we woke up to...

Eden loved playing in the snow!

Blair helped her make a snowman before she had to leave for school.

She fell asleep on our way home from picking up the elementary school kids.

Eden's now at the age where she doesn't think she needs to take a nap anymore...I try to put her down about 2 hours before I need to pick up the kids but of course she doesn't end up taking a nap then.  However, I keep finding her fast asleep later in the day, which isn't ideal for anyone.

She's super cute when she's sleeping though!  I wish I had her eyelashes!

We had a very small Thanksgiving this year.  I thought Nathan's family was coming over but it ended up just being Nathan's mom and step dad.  It was nice though!

The kids help grandma made a fruit and veggie turkey tray.  So cute!

KK was pretty stoked she got a turkey leg this year!  She may or may not have rubbed it in her siblings faces...

Two days after Thanksgiving we started decorating for Christmas.  Honestly I feel like we were behind...  Apparently here in Idaho people start putting up their Christmas lights around Halloween!  So weird!  Last week I saw some people finally taking down their Christmas lights...We are almost in March!

I'm not sure I ever got a picture of our new star on top of the tree.  Oops!  We ordered it about a week or two after we put up the tree.

The next snow fall the kids went out and built a larger snowman!

Sleeping on our walk to pick up the elementary school kids!

KK basketball

The hoops are also lower for KK's group.  They don't have any refs (the coaches are in charge of that).  Basically they can get away with anything (Haha! traveling, double quadruple + dribble, not taking the ball out when a basket is made are all optional!)  They are all super cute but it's often times hard to watch.  This pretty much sums up how the game is played:  One child is chosen to bring the ball down.  They travel and/or dribble the ball (picking it up as many times as they want) down the court to the basket (no one can steal the ball) and take a shot.  Very rarely does anyone dribble down and pass the ball to a teammate.  Then you rotate to the next child to do the same exact thing.  Every once in a while a child will accidently loose the ball or two people will go after a rebound and some excitement will happen.

 

Every once in a while KK got into a funk and refused to either practice or play in her game for a while.  I think it only happened about 3-4 times this season but it was still annoying.  She kept flip flopping whether or not she loved basketball.  By the end of the season she had the best time and wants to play next year!

She shoots, she scores!

Finally she made a basket!  For about half the season she wasn't strong enough to get the ball above the hoop.

I think making her basket was what solidified her love for basketball!

It was a nice shot

Nice couple of shots and a nice rebound!

Blakely basketball

Blakely's age group couldn't full court press or steal the ball.  The hoop was slightly lower.  I think Blakely would have benefited with a hoop at the regular height.  There were many times when she over shot the basket!

First basket!

I wasn't able to go to Blakely's first game because Dyer had a football game that was about an hour away and Nathan was working.  A friend of Blakely's, who is also on her team, was kind enough to take her.  Her mom was able to get her basket on film for me!

Assist!

She scores!

Assist

basket

basket

Rebound

Tips the ball for a steal

At the end of the season Blakely's coach asked if Blakely would like to play on a traveling team with her daughter and a couple other girls on her team.  They would be playing at a 4th grade level though.  Blakely decided she wanted to.

Blair basketball

 Blair had a challenging time with her basketball team.  They weren't very good...They lost every game. However I think they improved as the season when on!  Blair definitely improved and has been working on her skills since basketball ended.  She is very coachable and works hard!  I think Blair was the star player on her team.  Blair is athletic which helps but this was only her second time playing basketball (the other time was right before Covid happened).  I wish we would have gotten her in basketball earlier...

Rebound

Another rebound

Nice shot but it didn't go in either time...

Blair wins the tip off

I find it so weird that she is tipping off the ball and for the most part playing down low.  She's about an inch shorter than me (right now) and I was always the point guard and one of the shortest players on the court!

I'm not sure why this video is sideways....Although she turned over the ball she got a nice jump ball!

Knocking the ball out!  Blair's a hard worker!

She shoots, she scores!!!

Nice rebound!

Basket!

 

Rebound

Rebound

Jump ball but she did a good job of ripping it though.

Steal

She didn't make it but it was a nice shot.

October 2022

 

Somehow they both ended up in my bed...

Pumpkin Patch:

We met up with some friends at the pumpkin patch.

Blakely and Eden

I took my kids and 2 other kids with me into the maze.  It took way too long and I wasn't sure we were ever going to find our way out but eventually we found the exit!

We made sugar cookies but I forgot to take pictures until most were already eaten!

I took the 3 youngest and our neighbor downtown to trick or treat.  It was crazy busy but I think the girls had fun.  

Blakely's costume/inflater decided to stop working as soon as we got to the first person handing out candy...I thought maybe the batteries ran out?  Blakely tried on the costume a couple times for fun but not for very long so I just thought the inflator just sucked the juice out of the batteries and we would need to bring extras on Halloween night.  When we got home we changed the batteries but nothing happened.  I check the charge on the batteries and they were still good.  The inflater just went out...We brought it back to the store hoping to get a replacement but there were no inflatable dinosaurs anywhere.  Plus, since it was so late in the season we couldn't find anything Jurassic Park/World to replace it with.  So Blakely ended up stealing Dyer's costume for Halloween and we bought Dyer something completely different.  Dyer was the odd one out.

Of course we had to carve a pumpkin to complete our theme.

Instead of dressing up for Halloween, KK's class did a mad scientist day!

Trying out my costume/wig.

We had spooky eyeball tacos for Halloween.

Here's the Jurassic Park/World gang plus random Fortnite skeleton dude!

KK as Beta (Blue's baby-Blakely was supposed to be Blue), Eden as a Pterodactyl, Blair as Soyona Santos (Villain in last movie), Easton as Dr. Alan Grant, Nathan as Owen Grady, me as Claire Dearing, Blakely as T-Rex (was supposed to be Dyer's costume), and Dyer as a random Fortnite skeleton.

About 20-30 minutes after we left to go trick or treating Blakely's inflator went out with this costume...So annoying!  I will never buy an inflatable costume again!  They aren't cheap and apparently they don't last long either.  So disappointing!