I think I can, I think I can....

 November had some rough spots and some times where I felt like everything was going wrong.  But the truth is that the good outweighs the bad, and there's always plenty to be thankful for.

Hannah and Matthew are still doing full-time in-person school.  The teachers and staff have gone to great lengths to keep everyone safe, and it's working.

Micah's school is going to be fully remote from now through Christmas break.  We are hopeful that he'll be able to return to in-person in January.

Matthew had the opportunity to be on a U8 indoor soccer team for Mighty Kicks.  He has absolutely loved being on a "real team" with real uniforms.  They've made huge improvements in the past few weeks.  Although they haven't had a win yet, their skills and teamwork are exciting to see!  Today Matthew even got two goals!

(He's number 5.)

Hannah also recently got a goal in indoor.  She is great about getting herself in the right position on the field, and she's been working hard on being more aggressive.  Her hard work paid off when she held her ground in a crowd near the goal and managed to get a foot on the ball, resulting in the only goal her team had that game (against a team of much bigger girls!).

Micah has been playing for both his Burning River team and a Tallmadge team.  For Tallmadge, he plays goalie and defense.  For Burning River, he plays offense.  He says he enjoys doing all the different positions.  As usual, he's playing against bigger, older boys in U14 and U15 leagues (at one game, the goalie looked 6 feet tall, and another player had a beard!!), but he uses his strengths to his advantage and has been making lots of improvements.

Here's a few videos that Scott took.  Micah is #58 on both teams and has bright orange shoes.

Burning River

Tallmadge

At the beginning of the month we had a day where Cornerstone was off and Micah and Oysters both had school-at-home days, so the Oysters came over while Meghan worked.  It was a beautiful day to play outside!

The number of covid cases in our state and county have continued to climb.  The week before Thanksgiving, there was an advisory issued that asked for no large gatherings and no interstate travel.  We made the tough but wise decision to cancel our plans with the Gurleys and Kollers.  We haven't seen any of our siblings/nieces/nephews since last year, so it was pretty disappointing.  We're really hoping we can make Christmas happen!

The Oysters also had to cancel with their family, so they invited us to a socially-distanced meal outside and in their barn.
Little Peanut was delighted by their dog Maple.

Meghan was so thoughtful in all her delicious cooking and planning to keep everything distanced. Ryan even brought a TV out so we could still watch football!

I'm not normally an early decorator, but this year we went ahead and got out the Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving.

I've often wished I could take the kids to a drive-in movie, but couldn't handle keeping them up so late.  But in the winter, it gets dark around 5:00!  And a local theater was showing "Elf", which is one movie we all like.  Scott stayed home with Little Peanut, and the kids and I had a great time munching on popcorn in the back of the van.

Baby L and her sister came over to play (and give Grandma a break!).  The kids had a great time playing, and we made Christmas cookies.

Hannah made a chicken and a chicken nugget.  I don't know why.  Her sense of humor is quite unique. ;)

The kids all got a snow day!  How do your kids play in the snow?  Mine make up some sort of elaborate dodgeball competition.  

Little Peanut likes to watch the roomba.  And, yes, we have a lot of gates up in our house right now.

Matthew lost his first tooth!

Tournament

 Micah and Hannah got to participate in their first soccer tournament this weekend.  They each had two games on Saturday, and one on Sunday guaranteed.  If they were in the top two teams in their age group, they had an additional game Sunday afternoon for the championship.  Our plans changed multiple times along the way, but the final result was that Matthew spent Saturday with his buddy Luke.  McKims watched Little Peanut for us.  We took two cars to the tournament (a little more than an hour away).  Both kids won their first game and lost their second. After they were done with games, I drove home to get the two littler kids, and the two big kids stayed in a hotel with Scott. 

 Sunday morning, Micah's game was at 8:00, and Hannah's was at 9:00.  It was 40 degrees and raining, so I stayed home.  Micah's team didn't make it to the championship, but Hannah's did.  By the time I got there with the younger kids that afternoon, it was down to 30's, windy, and various forms of precipitation.  The other kids and I watched the game from the car. 

Hannah's team played hard, but lost to the undefeated home team.  They still got medals for second place, though!  Despite the weather, they really enjoyed the tournament experience.  Hannah, especially, had a lot of fun with her team.

Check out the size difference between Micah and the boy he was defending!

We completely forced them to pose for this picture.

Cornerstone friends

Our view for Hannah's last game.

Matthew had a blast with Luke on Saturday.  Extra bonus: he got to trick-or-treat a second time, and they were both dressed as football players.

October

 Ever since Hannah broke her arm this summer, the kids have had SO MANY doctor's appointments.  I don't think I'm exaggerating to say there have been close to 30 in the past 5 months.  To keep the streak alive, Matthew fell on the playground at school and had to get stitches in his chin.  Apparently he just hopped up and kept playing, but the adult on the playground noticed he was bleeding and told him we had to check it out.  I just happened to be helping at school that day and was walking by the recess doors as he was coming in.  As soon as he saw me, he burst into tears.  By the time we were in the car, he was calm again, and he was an amazing patient at the ER.

Scott and I got to have a date night!  The Oysters took Little Peanut and Micah, and the Dodsons took Matthew and Hannah overnight.  We went to dinner near Cleveland, then saw the comedian Nate Bargatze live at a drive-in movie theater.  It was so refreshing to have a night off and spend time with each other.

Nana and Papa flew out for a visit.  We strategically picked a weekend where they could see several of the kids' events.  They got to see at least part of a game for each kid and Micah's last cross country meet.

Micah (far right) really pushed himself this season.  His best time was 13:17 (for 2 miles).

Little Peanut has made a fair contribution to those 30 doctor's appointments.  She has some issues with food and eczema and rashes.  But she didn't get her first runny nose until last month!  When you've spend most of your life in quarantine, you're just not exposed to very many germs!

Micah's soccer team got to play a game under the lights at a local private high school.  It was really fun!  Many of the families from the soccer club came to cheer, and one of the younger teams were "ball boys" for them.  Coach Jeremy MC'ed, and all the players got introduced by name.

By far, without a doubt, the most exciting part of the evening was when Micah scored a goal!!!!  Throughout the game, the other team's goalie kept coming out quite far from the goal (he's in pink in the video).  On a quick trip up the field, our forward was able to get past the goalie and have an open goal.  (Micah says he was yelling at the forward to shoot.)  He managed to get the ball over to Micah who immediately hit it with his left foot.  We were all on our feet, watching it sneak past the last defenders and roll into the goal!  Here's a link to the video on facebook.  (I'm not able to download it and post it here.)  Check out his coach at the bottom of the screen literally jumping for joy when it goes in.  The camera gets knocked away when all his teammates surrounded him and cheered for him, but it was heartwarming to see how excited they were.

For Fantastic Friday one week I did an egg drop with Hannah's class.  This was my view from the roof.  :)  I probably had as much fun as the kids.

One Saturday, Micah and Hannah were scheduled to both have games at their home field.  Both games got moved to Strongsville, an hour away.  At first I was frustrated because it was going to consume our whole day, and we couldn't all go together (Little Peanut was under the weather and needs her naps.)  Then Scott suggested that he stay home, and I take the older two kids.  My pendulum swung back up, and I was excited to spend the day with just the "big kids".  We packed activities for the car, warm blankets, hot cocoa, and made plans for what we would do in the hours between the two games.  Ten minutes before we arrived at the field, Scott called to let me know they had cancelled the games due to field conditions.  Good grief.  We got doughnuts on the way home as a consolation for driving two hours for no reason and decided to be thankful for having an unexpected afternoon at home.

Micah decided to go with a traditional jack-o-lantern look.  Matthew (with help from mom) did a Ram's logo to go with his costume of being Todd Gurley.  Hannah did a really cute one with an owl, but I forgot to take a picture, and then a deer ate it.

By the time I finished helping the kids, I didn't have much enthusiasm left, so I went with this: 

For trick-or-treat, Hannah and some of her friends dressed up like the girls from the "Babysitter's Club" book series.  Hannah was Claudia, the artistic one who loves candy.  :)  If you, like me, read all the books growing up, you might be able to figure out the other girls' characters.  (McKinley was not part of it - she was a unicorn.)

It was cold and raining, of course.  Micah and Matthew walked (ran) with the Oyster boys.  I don't know why Matthew looks sad.  He was actually super pumped.  And Micah went with the no-effort costume of being a soccer player. 

The post-event of sorting and trading. 

Sports Pictures

 Matthew soccer: 

Matthew got to play his first "game" on Saturday.  It was obvious that he was working hard on carrying out the things they had practiced (getting his head up to look for a pass, spreading out, etc.).  He scored a goal or two and had a great attitude despite being on the losing team.

Hannah soccer: 

Hannah has had two games so far.  They lost the first game in a well-fought battle.  The second game was probably Hannah's best game so far.  She was aggressive and attacked the ball!  That game ended with a win.

Micah soccer:

Micah had his first game on Saturday.  He's playing with a U15 team, and I really didn't know what to expect.  These boys haven't been playing together very long and many of them are young.  Plus, I didn't really have any context to know what their skill level is.  It turns out, they're pretty good!  I was so impressed with how well they played together and how they handled themselves on the field.  (One specific example: Micah got knocked down in play, and as he tried to get back up, the boy intentionally shoved him back down.  The ref missed it, but Micah just got right up and kept on playing.)  Micah played incredibly hard and had one exciting run for the goal.  He didn't get the score, but his team ended up winning. 

Blurry shot of Micah's goal attempt:

Micah cross country:

At Micah's last race he broke fourteen minutes and set a new PR of 13:53!  Doing both cross country and soccer must be exhausting, but he loves both and always gives 100%.  (Pictures are from other moms.)