This pretty much sums up her attitude on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning

12/6/22 Carter’s third (last) Cross Country race: 1.5 miles, 10:57.91, 69th out of 176.

12/9/22 Raine’s school soccer team

12/10/22 Carter’s first basketball game. They got KILLED by a team that was significantly bigger than them.

12/12/22 Raine attempting to decorate a gingerbread house (it didn’t end well).

12/16/22 Raine and Ruby’s last day of school before Christmas break.

12/17/22 Carter’s second basketball game. They won pretty handily. Carter was the 2nd highest scorer on his team with 5 points.

Near the end of the game, Carter got flung to the ground and “broke” his thumb. He stayed in the game and still managed to pull down a key rebound, but we went to the urgent care afterward and he is going to be in a brace for a little while.

The nurse practitioner at the urgent care pointed out the “broken” bone to us on the x-ray while we were there and made a referral to an orthopedist. However, she called us later that afternoon and told us that the radiologist report said that there was nothing abnormal in the x-ray. The nurse practitioner told us that she wasn’t comfortable with that and told us that we should still go to the orthopedist. Fortunately, Brother Garff in the ward is an orthopedist, so he checked it out for us at church the next day. He said that there was definitely something there, but that it wasn’t bad enough to require a cast and should feel better in a week if he just continued to wear the brace. We were fine with that, so that’s what Carter is doing.

12/21/22 Young Women activity

Several couples from our ward took a quick trip to NYC on December 2-3 — Andy and Beka Phillipp, John and Gisel Merrifield, Shaun and Faith Garff, and Paul and Glory Watts. We saw two musicals: “& Juliet” and “Hadestown”; we ate at Joe’s Pizza and had an amazing dinner at Quality Meats; we got robbed by bicycle rickshaws; we had amazing hot cocoa and desert at Max Brenner; and we walked around Time Square, Rockefeller Square, and 5th Avenue looking at the Christmas sights.

11/3/22 Carter’s last soccer game

11/16/22 Carter’s first Cross Country race: 1.5 miles, 11:17.25, 102nd out of 270.

11/29/22 Carter’s second Cross Country race: 1.5 miles, 10:59.10, 85th out of 255.

Monday through Friday (Nov 21-25) we stayed at a little cabin near Mineola, TX. There was a fishing pond right behind the cabin and hundreds of acres to explore.

Tucker was in heaven: running around without a leash, sniffing everything in sight, and getting covered in ticks.

There was plenty of space to play. The only problem is that it rained most of the time we were there.

The owner, Chris, took us on a tour of his property on his gator ATV. First, we brought treats to the longhorns.

Thanksgiving dinner consisted of prime rib rather than turkey because I only eat meat a few times a year so it needs to be GOOD when I do!

Before we left on Friday, we hiked over to edge of the property where it touches the dairy farm next door. The farm sells raw milk products and we stopped by Wednesday to buy some yogurt and chocolate milk. They were DELICIOUS! There was a donkey in with the cows and he came right up to us.

Since it was pouring rain on Thanksgiving, Carter had to do his Turkey Trot after we got home on Friday.

October 1 – Soccer game

October 3 – Football game

7th Grade Football Team (10/5)

October 15 – Soccer games (I finally just took my camera to Raine’s games with me so that I would have some pics of her too.)

October 17 Football game

October 22 Soccer games

Carter scored on this shot from way out on the left side!

Carter should have scored on this one, but he ricochet it right off the post!

Referee in the morning…

…player in the evening.

Carter participated in basketball skills training this month at the Southlake Marq. This video was from their end-of-month scrimmage. (10/24)

Daddy completed a half-Ironman today in Waco.

It started pouring rain just after Daddy entered the water but with the help of the Ironman tracker app, we were able to cheer him on a couple times as we got drenched!

The sign that Raine worked so hard on didn’t fair so well.

The rain had pretty much stopped when we drove out along the bike course to cheer for him.

We saw him run by on the running route as we were stuck in race traffic. Then we headed to the finish line to wait for him along the bridge which was the final stretch of the race.

The kids gave him a high five as he ran into the chute (but it was behind the flags so I couldn’t get a photo).

Detailed result times:

Raine attended homecoming with a bunch of her girlfriends.

Bella, Raine, Jayla, Ruby

Raine, Bella, Jayla, Ruby, Becca

September 7 – Carter’s first football game

September 10 – Soccer games

September 12 – Football game

September 19 – CARTER SCORED A TOUCHDOWN!!!

The play was on the opposite side of the field so I couldn’t get a picture until he was strolling through the endzone. He caught a pass out wide and ran it in.

Carter was named offensive player of the game the next morning over the announcements and got the blue horseshoe for the week.

September 20 – Soccer game

September 24 – Soccer game

September 26 – Football game

Carter got to be one of the team captains because he was the offensive player of the game at the previous game.

Raine is playing rec soccer and refereeing, but since I coach her team, I don’t get any photos of her.