Oh Be Wise: Football, cheer, trophies and a girls trip!

Okay, so at the beginning of November (the day after Halloween) I was in charge of football snacks, which shouldn't be a big deal, but Jaxon's team was more high-maintenance than Madison's cheer squad, it was a little ridiculous, anyway, this is what pinterest came up with, easy peasy:

I was also in charge of treats for Colton's soccer party, where he finally received his soccer trophy. It was a great day.

Unfortunately the day before Colton got his soccer trophy, Jaxon got his football trophy, which was gigantic. So that kind of tainted the experience for Colton a little bit. Poor third child. It's hard having older siblings doing cool things sometimes.

Speaking of older siblings' activities, we have bowel-movement-at-practice-with-no-bathroom issues. It's ridiculous. Colton, especially, is really "regular" which is great, expect that we have practice every evening and quite frequently we have the situation below occur. Colton just has to hold it because there isn't time to go to a gas station and come back before practice ends. In this picture he is saying, "If I hold still it might go away." And that, my friends, is one of the most glamorous parts of motherhood.

Sweet little Colton, though, is really growing up and he's a smart little cookie. His handwriting and attention span are about 10 million times better than Jaxon's were (and let's be honest still are) at this age. Colton will sit and happily work on his workbook or color or write for a very decent amount of time. None of my kids are good at holding still, so for us 10 minutes is awesome!

Now let's talk about cheerleading. I've mentioned, I know, that it was hard putting Madison in cheerleading because of the stigma. We were very, very blessed to have an amazing coach and a great squad of very down to earth families. We had a great experience. Madison had a cheer competition the second week in November. We had to do this cheer poof on her hair and I thought it made her look way too old, and way too "cheerleaderish" but still adorable!

Madison's friend Brode came to watch her. How cute are they. He's 6 months younger than her and a head taller and we are already planning their future together. (When Madison starts dating at age 25, that is.)

Colton and I were Madison's only family there because Chris was at Jaxon's game.

One weekend in November we went on a fall leaf walk before church and we found this swinging vine.

Even dad took a turn.

The leaves were still pretty green, but it was still fun.

As I said in another post, Hudson loves being in the middle of chaos. I put him on the trampoline one afternoon with 5 other kids and he was totally thrilled. I was obviously supervising, but they were jostling him pretty hard and he was loving it.

Madison had a choir performance for Veteran's Day. Madison's school music teacher is amazing and the performance was awesome!

I took her lunch afterward to tell her good job. She is really starting to love music. She loves to sing and she loves piano and I can see those talents shining through!

Hudson is officially terrible to take to the store. I hate it. But it's a necessary evil. Two reasons it's so hard:

1) he likes to try to jump out of the cart and/or strangle himself in the seat belt.

2) This is just wrong. And such a pain to deal with in public

And speaking of messes, Hudson is a first class mess maker.

Here's a great story. Well, not really, but it will be funny someday, so I'm laughing now. Jaxon, as you may have realized, is generally a really, really good kid, but he also sometimes has lapses in judgement. Thankfully, they tend to be very brief, one-time scenarios, but some of the things he comes up with are just exasperating. One day he came home from school with two huge holes in his brand new sweatshirt that were obviously made with scissors. He confessed to having cut the holes on purpose. This resulted in his boy shirt being taken away and replaced by a girl shirt, because he obviously didn't appreciate the boy clothes that he owned. It was all I could do not to crack up every time I saw him (which really helped me be less angry with him). We were kind and only made him wear Madison's shirt one evening while we were at home, but he was mortified and I doubt he will ever ruin his clothes again.

Hudson started walking. He took his first steps at the beginning of November at 11 months. I wasn't surprised. He's nuts.

I had a baby shower for a friend of mine who was having her 5th baby (when did I get old enough to have friends with 5 kids?). I made this fun diaper truck for the centerpiece, kind of a fun variation on the diaper cake.

I have decided that 4-year-olds are my favorite. I'm almost ready to put Hudson in preschool and let Colton just stay home with me all day. (Not really, but kind of.) Colton is such a great little buddy to hang out with all day. We have so much fun together and he's so happy and easy-going most of the time.

Jaxon's football team made it to the Super Bowl. They lost. It was a cold, cold game. I will be honest. Jaxon is not very athletic. I love him to death, but sports just do not seem to mesh with him. It's kind of sad because he's so tall and so much bigger than most kids in his grade. It's funny because our short, roundish little Colton is a very good athlete. Jaxon is just too busy keeping score and figuring out by how much the other team is winning/losing. There isn't an aggressive bone in his body, despite his love of swords. But he does enjoy playing sports, and we want him to be active and learn sportsmanship and at least learn not to be afraid of balls, so we will keep having him play.

We set up for Christmas pretty early this year because I was out of town the weekend before Thanksgiving, and my whole family was coming the week of Thanksgiving. I wanted to make sure it all got done.

Usually it's hot the weekend we set up Christmas, but this year it was cold, which made it fun. It even snowed a little bit. We got Madison out of bed to show her the snow.

The boys enjoyed sliding in the 1mm of snow the next morning before school.

I made Jaxon his Thanksgiving lunch. Turkey pb sandwich, acorns for a snack and an orange. I really wish I could record how excited he gets about these funny lunches. It makes it totally worth the extra effort.

Then it was off to Miami!!! My good friend Lindsey invited Keri and I to join her on a girls weekend in Miami! It was fabulous. We left Friday morning and got back Sunday night, so it was very quick, but so fun. We went shopping and got pedicures.

We drove down to the Florida keys and had the BEST fish tacos I've ever had. Seriously amazing.

And key lime pie in the keys. To die for.

Look at that amazing water. I couldn't get over how green it was.

Lindsey, me and Keri. It was so fun to just hang out and talk and not have any kids or even husbands around. It was so relaxing.

Again with the amazing green water.

We went on a boat tour of the bay, past all the rich peoples' homes. The view of downtown was awesome. And all the cargo ships unloading their freight were pretty cool to watch.