March 2020

Well we survived the LONGEST MONTH in the history of months!

March 2020...also known as the Corona Lockdown Month!

Sadly we didn't have anything exciting going on this month as we have been out of school and away from sports for almost the whole time!  Our school break started even earlier than others due to the Tornadoes that tore through Nashville.  Luckily we were safe but due to the district that our school is in, we were closed for 4 days BEFORE we shut down for Corona!

We have tried to stay busy and "socially distanced" from others but it is tough with 5 kiddos!  Here are some highlights of what our Corona Lock down has looked like:

Everyone got rainbow hair thanks to a little hair chalk we had laying around!

We are doing our best at homeschool!  The girls and Thomas do school work,workbooks and worksheets every day and the babies...well we just try to keep them occupied and out of the way!  We had a couple of "art" classes that everyone participated in which was fun.  

We took a field trip to the Ag Center and "studied" fish, police horses and flowers.

Thomas got a "during Quarantine only" Mohawk!

We went back to the Ag Center and played in the creek, got muddy and wet but loved every second.

 

The Twins are officially potty-trained!  It took about a week but what better time than during Lock down to mark that off the "to-do" list.  Tinsley happened to fall asleep during the first couple of days of training.....I guess she was reading too much about COVID on her "phone".

We try to do a little yoga every night...or as Tinsley calls it "yogurt".

And of course, it is Tennessee in the spring, which means RAIN, RAIN and more RAIN.  Thankfully it has also been warm which means plenty of time to play in puddles!  Sometimes just in our underwear but hey, it's Corona...anything goes!

So that is about it for now.  We have continued to do soccer training on our own 4-5 days a week and have done a little baseball practice also!  We are officially out of school until April 30th FOR NOW...so here's to another full month of Homeschool!  Baseball is on hold indefinitely and soccer is also off until at least April 15th!  

I am thankful that we are all safe and healthy, have plenty of food and supplies (well until we run out of snacks and toilet paper) and fingers crossed for more good weather!

Here are the rest of the pictures from our Corona March:

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February 2020

February was a month full of sports, sickness, rain and a little bit of snow!

We barely made it through this short - long month!  

Between the 7 of us, in the past month we passed around Sinus infections, bronchitis, pink eye and even had one guy bust up his mouth and teeth!  So we are glad to see this month come to an end!

We did manage to squeeze in a little fun though!

Sullivan and her friend, Raleigh, got to be part of the Paint Patrol at the Belmont women's basketball game!  Which means they got to be on the court all game and mop/towel up the sweat when the players fell!

It was pretty funny to watch them do what they don't want to do at home!  But they had fun and got a few free t-shirts out the deal! 

The rest of the crew had a way better time.  Popcorn and balloon animals and even face painting!  I'm not sure anyone watched the actual basketball game but they had a blast anyway! 

February also brought us our first "snow".  It was barely an inch but enough to get the day off of school.  The kids played as hard as they could with what little we had and seemed to have a great time!

Hudson wrapped up her first ever volleyball season and LOVED it!  She learned to much and got so much better each week.  She is now hooked and already asked when she can play again!

The first week of games, she didn't get one serve in. Here is her serving during her last night of games!  Such a huge improvement!

In addition to basketball, Sullivan has been playing some futsal with friends!  They love it, mostly b/c they get to play against boys and always seem to find a way to make the boys cry!  Haha.  They are having a lot of fun and it has been a good way to keep competing in the winter!  They are playing up against older boys and girls and have done really well.  

The babies ate still being hilarious!  Conner has taken a liking to bagels with cream cheese...or really JUST the cream cheese!

Tinsley is very into headgear and accessories these days!  Apparently you CAN'T have enough headbands on at the same time!

Thomas is gearing up for baseball season which starts in a few weeks!  He had his evaluation day recently and did awesome!  He is so excited to get to play again!

Sullivan also wrapped up basketball as well.  Lady Liberty went undefeated in the 3rd grade league and brought home the championship!  These girls are SO good and fun to watch!  Fearless, aggressive, intense, competitive...everything I love to see in GIRLS!!

That is about all for February!  Outdoor soccer started today and we are off and running!  Hudson has games tomorrow and heads to Memphis next weekend and Sullivan has her first two games next weekend also!  Never an off season around here!

Here are the rest of the pictures from a short but full month of February:

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January 2020

I'm not going to lie, January was a LONG month!  We survived it, but just barely!

The kids are all doing great and staying relatively healthy.

The babies are still loving school and changing so much every day!  Tins is still the boss and Conner is still happy-go-lucky.  He is starting to talk a lot more which is a blessing...and a curse!  They have both entered the "Why?" phase...so that's super fun!

Thomas is great too.  Still loves school, only wears athletic wear and can't understand why he is not in kindergarten yet.  

Sullivan is hanging in there!  To start off January, she slightly fractured the growth plate in her wrist (left hand luckily) and has been in a brace for about 2.5 weeks.  The doctor said she could keep playing sports as long as she keeps the brace on.  It hasn't much effected her soccer but has made basketball a bit difficult.  She can't quite catch or hang on to the ball as strong as she normally can...but fingers crossed, we get to take off the brace this week and she will be pain free!  She also came down with the flu last week!  Luckily it was mild and she was back to school after a few days at home!

Hudson is doing great!  She is really getting better and better at soccer every day and her team recently won an Indoor Tournament they played in!

She is also in full swing with her new volleyball team and she LOVES it!  She improves every time she steps on the court!  The first week I don't think she got one of her serves in....and last week, she got ALL but one over the net!  Trust me...that is huge!  She is really loving it, has a very sweet coach who plays at Belmont and is having a great time!

We were lucky enough to enjoy a quick visit from SueSue and BooBoo to celebrate my birthday which was exhausting, but fun!  They managed to come to town for 2 days and see, both girls play soccer, Sullivan play basketball and Hudson play volleyball!  It was a jam packed weekend!

Sadly, our January did not end on a great note.  We very unexpectedly had to put our sweet pup, Makers, down last week.  It was very sudden and very devastating!  We are heartbroken but with time I know we will recover....we will never forget her...but we will move on eventually.  She was the sweetest, goofiest, pup I knew.  She loved boat rides, chasing tennis balls, chewing on fences (and doors and trim and really anything made of wood) and eating everything...but really she loved her people.  She always just wanted to be close to us...in the same room, sitting in the yard watching us, in the car with us wherever we went.  She had a serious case of FOMO!  As sad as we are, I know that she is in a better place now and has been reunited with her best friend Maysie and I can only imagine how much fun they are having up there! 

Losing Makers was gut-wrenching but in the sweet words of our 2 year old Conner, when asked where Makers is, he responds with:

"Out of town with Jesus"

And I don't think there is a better way to put it than that!

Here are a few other pictures from our Very long month of January:

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December 2019

The end of a Decade....I can't believe it!

We packed in as much as we could in the last 31 days!!

We started off the month with a late birthday present for Hudson.  We had to wait until soccer was over for a bit before she could cash it in but she got her ears pierced!  She took it like a champ and didn't even flinch!

We followed that up with doing a little tree picking!  We had a lot of opinions but finally all agreed on one!

The babies even got into the decorating...and I think we only broke 5 or 6 ornaments this year!

Of course we had to squeeze in a trip to see the big guy!  The babies were so excited and had been talking about for days.....but once it was game time.....Tinsley was not having it!  But it made for a few great pictures!

She is still giving the side eye but at least she stopped crying!

 And not to be outdone by Thomas, Hudson also had her tonsils out.  It was a bit rougher recovery than Thomas had.  After about a week of a lot of sleep, Tylenol, Ibuprofen and no food.....she finally came back around to her old self!

We also took our annual trip to Columbus for Halter Christmas!  Of course the kids LOVE cousin time and we packed in 3 full days of it!  We watched Reed play soccer, played hard at the house and snuck in some ice skating!

All the kids picked it up really quickly, except Thomas...who was happy to hang on to the skate trainer and have PJ and Charlie just push him around the rink!

Hudson is a natural and had to show off her new tricks!

The babies LOVE the big boys and had so much fun finding their elf Candy every day!  They thought it was hilarious that he was riding a camel this morning! 

On our way home, we stopped in Atlanta to celebrate with MamMam.  It was so good to see her and she just loves to see the kids.  

While we were in Columbus, the babies decided they were all done with Pack n' Plays.  The first night Conner stepped right on out of his and then helped Tinsley out of hers!  It made for a long sleepless trip for us given their new found freedom....BUT....we took the opportunity, when we got home, to transition them to toddler beds!  After one night of banging on the door and wandering around...they are doing great!  They sleep great, wake up in the morning, get in the same bed and just play or talk until we come let them out!

We had a few nights left before Christmas Eve so we snuck in a trip to the Dancing Lights of Christmas!  Over 2 miles of lights that dance to the music in your car...it is so cool!  And this year we decided to check out Santa's Village also. Conner was so excited to ride a real "neigh" and Sullivan loved hers with a pink mane!

The kids had fun doing all the rides and jumping on the bounce houses and we ended the night with a train ride!

We enjoyed Christmas Eve Family Service at Church and got ready for the big guy to visit!

I guess Santa thought the kids were REALLY good this year!

That is all for our crazy circus!  We had a blessed, amazing, sometimes tough but always fun 2019!  Looking forward to 2020 and all it has in store for us!

Here are the rest of our December pictures:

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November 2019

November has come and gone and we are ready for Christmas!

We had a tough November but we made it through...just barely!

The twins had it the roughest.  Tinsley has spent the past few weeks fighting Flu B, Impetigo, Pneumonia and RSV....but she has been such a trooper!  She had a few really rough days but for the most part has been really tough!

They are loving school and apparently play with each other A LOT at school....something they rarely do at home.  But I get a lot of pictures like the one below from their teachers!

Conner also got a hair cut......a BIG hair cut!  But he loves it and looks so much like Thomas now!

This one still loves her pacis.....if anyone wants to come take them away please feel free...I have no clue how I am going to break her of these!

November also means the end of the Fall Soccer season.

Hudson wrapped up her season with the GIT tournament in Memphis.  It was cold and rainy one day and sunny and nice the next day.  Her team played well and won 3 straight games to make it to the finals.  They had to play a team that they had already beaten the day before and lost a close one 3-2 to finish as Runner-Ups.  Ironically, the team they lost to was Tophat!  It's crazy how soccer has come full circle in my life!  Hudson had a good season and continues to improve.  We get a small break from soccer (although they continue to train once a week) and she starts Volleyball in January.  She is very excited for that!

November also means Thanksgiving..which means the Annual (sort of) Aberdeen Woods Turkey Trot!  It was a little chilly but so much fun again!  We did a long walk together with pits stops at the playground, Ag Center to see the horses and climb on the tractors and then headed home!  It was a bit crazy with 9 adults, 12 kids and 2 dogs....but everyone had a great time!

 Sullivan wrapped up her Fall soccer season the weekend after Thanksgiving with a trip to the 3v3Live.com National Championships in Memphis!  

Her team is so talented and came out strong with 3 wins and 1 loss to a tough Dallas team on Saturday.  Unfortunately, they couldn't quite put it all together on Sunday and lost in the quarterfinals in a tough 4-3 game against a team from Mississippi.

I think they had fun and learned a lot.  They still finished the season ranked as the #4 team in the country in their age group....not too shabby for a group of 7 and 8 year olds from Nashville!

So the end of November means soccer wraps up and basketball gets going!  We are all getting ready for Christmas and the Holiday season and look forward to a little time off from sports and a trip to GA to see all the Halters for Christmas!

As always, here are the rest of the pics from our November adventures:

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October 2019

It's officially Fall...well more like winter these days!  We started October in the 90s and ended it in the 30s!  

We crammed a lot into October but we made it!

We kicked off the month with Thomas having his tonsils removed!  He was a total rock star and recovered very quickly (thank goodness).  He got to ride to the operating room in a Firetruck Power Wheels car and afterward he got a sprite and Popsicle....he thought it was the best day ever!

The following week was Fall Break for all the kiddos.  Since it was our only down time from school and soccer, we celebrated Hudson's birthday over fall break.  We took 6 of her buddies and one other soccer friend to Urban Air, a super fun trampoline park.  After 3 hours of jumping and playing, we had a little Chic-fil-a for lunch and finished with cookie cake, totally decorated by Hudson herself!

October was also FULL of soccer.  Sullivan's team played in 2 tournaments, an age group up, and won both!  They played really well and are so impressive for SEVEN year olds.  They do things and play way better than I ever did....probably until high school!

Music City Invitational Champions

 Thomas also wrapped up his soccer season.  Luckily, due to some rain, his last game was postponed and he got to play in it, since he was fully recovered from tonsil surgery.  This little group improved so much and finished the last games of the season with a win and a loss.  They were so much fun to coach and played so hard every weekend!

Both girls played in another tournament in October as well.  Sullivan's team once again went undefeated, playing an age group up, and brought home the championship.  Hudson's team also played up in the Top Division, and finished in a tough second place.  They won a battle in the semi-finals in double overtime and PKs...and just ran out of gas in the finals!  But it was a great weekend for both girls!  So proud of how much they are learning...about soccer and life!

After all that soccer, we finally officially celebrated Hudson turning NINE!  So so hard to believe!  She opened all her presents, highlighted by a gift card to get her ears pierced after soccer ends!  She also chose her birthday dinner out at...IHop!  So random but she really loved her Adams Family Pancakes!

We almost ran out of time but somehow managed to sneak in some time to get our pumpkins!  We usually hit up a fun pumpkin patch but this year we just didn't have time and when we did..the weather didn't cooperate!  But we made it work and everyone picked out some great pumpkins!

Thanks to a rainy weekend, the kids had a fun outing with Tom to the fire station!  They all loved it and got to sit in a real firetruck!

And last but never least....HALLOWEEN!

The babies and Thomas started the day with school parties and costume #1.  Tinsley went as Elsa and Conner was a football player of course!  Thomas went as a fireman - which was great b/c his rain jacket came in handy on a rainy cold Halloween day!

Halloween night was so much fun again!  Our neighborhood never disappoints, even when it is 32 degrees and windy, the kids loved every second.

Hermione, Unicorn, 2 Criminals and our Police Officer

We had to layer!

Hard to make a get-away when nobody will push you!

The babies trick-or-treated hard for an hour and then just got too cold!  The big kids stayed at it for several hours and hit up every house in the neighborhood!  It was such a fun night!

November brings us the end of fall soccer season, the beginning of basketball season and more craziness I'm sure!

Here are the rest of our October pictures:

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