Homecoming

 Micah's regular season is winding down. He had a fantastic race on Thursday. He couldn't go as fast as he wanted to at first, due to mud and terrain. But he said he felt good on the last mile, and he looked like it! He passed a lot of people, had a great kick at the finish, and ended up in the top 20. One of his favorite courses is this Saturday, then the team will have at least two post-season races.

(these pictures are from a couple of weeks ago)

Saturday was the homecoming dance. Micah went with a big group of friends. 

Hannah's hip is still giving her a lot of trouble. She has sat out for several weeks to try to heal and do physical therapy. With both her soccer and cross country seasons coming to an end, she decided to just play through the pain for the next week rather than missing out.

This team continues to improve! They lost a close game in the rain yesterday to an all-boys team that included some high-schoolers. 

a little sideline coaching from dad

a cool sunset picture that Hannah took

Matthew's football team playing at the fire station after practice one night

Matthew was recognized as a player of the week for the 2nd week straight

I ran the Akron half marathon again this year. I was not happy with my performance. I must not have eaten and hydrated enough in the days leading up to it, because I felt hungry and thirsty almost the whole race. But I still did it! And having a goal and a plan kept me active for the past three months, so that's a win. Neiva and I ran the first few miles together; she did amazing!

We got to babysit Baby K one night. She's doing great!

Sugar Overload

 For the past two Fridays I led a Fantastic Friday group called "Sweet Treats". The first week we made cutout sugar cookies and decorated them with royal icing. The second week I taught them how to make buttercream and use a piping bag. The group had 16 students (including Matthew), grades 1-5. To make everything as smooth as possible and manageable for 1st and 2nd graders, I spent days preparing ahead of time each week and cleaning up after - baking about 200 cupcakes, mixing many batches of royal icing, sugar cookie dough, and buttercream, and filling a zillion piping bags. 

It was exhausting, but it was also a lot of fun. I think all my prep work paid off. We were able to keep the mess and chaos to a minimum, and the kids were really excited about what they were able to create. 

The 1st grade boy who made this cookie literally shrieked with excitement when he did it. He immediately asked me to take a picture to send to his mom.

My kids were less than thrilled that I was doing tons of baking and not letting them eat it. The first version of the cookie monster cupcake that I made didn't turn out quite right, so I wasn't going to keep it. Micah saw it sitting on the counter and asked if he could have it. I told him he could have it, but did he really want to eat all that sugar right before running? 

Micah: It will be fine; I'll just eat half.

Me: Ok, if you're sure.

Micah: (eats the top half)

Me: 🤦

But that's not all! To add to the stickiness of my kitchen, Hannah's morning meeting group wanted to make a video of a baking competition, and Hannah volunteered our house "since we have lots of baking stuff". [I actually love that she volunteered our house. It's really fun having the girls here and getting to know them better, and I do have a lot of baking stuff.]

Hannah and her partner made this impressive Bluey cake for their entry into the competition.

Football

Matthew's football team started the season 3-0! They lost their fourth game to the best team in the league.   Hopefully they'll get a second chance to play them in the post-season. When the season started, we thought Matthew would primarily be playing on offense. But his coaches have been putting him on defense more and more - he played almost every down of their last game!

He has the white and blue gloves on

One of the moms captured this sequence of events with Matthew making a tackle. I kind of want to print them out and make a flip book. 

Hannah turns 14!

 Hannah turned 14! We sure do love her a lot! She has grown in confidence and kindness this year. She has developed the ability to laugh at herself and to make us laugh with the ridiculous things she says and does. She works hard to do well in both school and sports and has a (usually) good attitude about being helpful at home.

On her actual birthday, she got up early to go to Micah's cross country meet...

...opened some presents at home, and went to Matthew's football game in the evening. 

Since Gramme was here the weekend before her birthday, she took Hannah clothes shopping.

On the weekend after her birthday, we took a group of her friends to do an escape room. They did not quite complete it, but they came close! The host told us afterward that only 15% of people completed that room. We came back to the house for chicken nuggets, presents, ice cream sundaes, and an outdoor movie.

They didn't end up watching most of the movie. They played games and volleyball and acted loud and silly.

Sadly, Hannah's injury from two weeks ago has continued to be a problem. She has still attempted to do some running and soccer, but she has been in pain. She started physical therapy yesterday and is completely resting for a few days to try to get it to heal. She worked hard all summer to be able to meet running goals that she set for herself, so she's pretty frustrated to be on the sidelines and losing ground. Hopefully she can feel 100% to finish off the last few races of the season. 

Baby K is walking now!

Off to the Races

 We're a couple of weeks into school and sports, and everyone seems to be doing well so far. 

Matthew is "big man on campus", as he is literally the oldest student at the school. He's enjoying some of the special perks that only 5th graders have, like getting to take their chromebooks home at night, learning to play ukulele, having P.E. twice a week, and getting to sit in chairs for chapel (rather than on the floor). 

Hannah gets to take a couple of high school level classes this year, including Spanish. (Anytime she hears Spanish being spoken, she likes to joke that she's fluent and can translate for us.) She's also on the Morning Meeting Team, which means that she makes little videos and helps with announcements at the start of the school day.

I mentioned before that Micah is only at school for half the day. The other half of the day he is taking two online classes with the University of Akron. Scott and I are really enjoying getting to see Micah throughout the day, and he loves having lots of flexibility and making himself good lunches at home. So far, his writing class is a lot of work, and his government and politics class is pretty easy.

Matthew's football team looks a little different this year. In the past, each grade has always been split between two teams. This is the first year that all of the fifth graders are on the same team together. Also, they changed leagues, so the competition and format are a little different. Matthew's primary position is right guard on offense (although the coaches will put him in a variety of positions when needed). 

At their first game, the boy Matthew was blocking was HUGE. 

Matthew is #18 in blue

On the very first play, the boy knocked Matthew back a few steps. After that, Matthew barely let him go anywhere the rest of the game! We were so proud of him! Matthew's efforts helped create openings for his teammate to score, and they ended up winning 24-23.

Their second game was against more normal-sized boys. His team came away with another win. 

The picture doesn't capture it, but the sky was an amazing pink!

For soccer, Hannah is playing on a U15 co-ed team for Tallmadge. The team has a wide variety of ages and ability levels (including several kids who have never played before) and has more girls than boys. I was a little nervous that they would get destroyed going up against teams of 14-year-old boys each week. I was pleasantly surprised that their first two games were against teams who also had a variety of ages and had at least a couple of girls. They lost one, won one, then for their third game they got destroyed by a team of all boys. 

Hannah has been aggressive and unflappable - even when she gets knocked to the ground or has to sprint from one end of the field to the other. 

Hannah is also running cross country for school this season. Sadly, last night she stepped in a hole early in the race and pulled something in her hip. We're hoping that it's not major and will heal with a couple of days of rest and ice. Other than that wrinkle, she's been doing amazing! She's leading her team in speed, but what I'm more excited about is that she is starting to lead her team off the course. I've heard her encouraging her teammates and making sure the younger girls are included. We hosted a team dinner before their first invitational, and it was encouraging to see all the girls bonding and laughing together. 

Their first race was against one other school. Hannah led the entire race, then the second place girl sprinted the last 400 meters and beat her. Oh, and it was over 90 degrees and Hannah had a soccer game the night before and immediately after this race. She's insane.

some of her best buddies

playing spoons

Their second race was an invitational. Hannah was a minute faster than she was at this race last year. She finished 18th out of 161.

Micah's first race was the evening race at Riverside that has become our favorite. They line the course with Christmas lights, and it's always an amazing atmosphere. The only disadvantage to running in the dark is that if you slip and fall going around a tight curve and have your glasses knocked off of your face, it might take you a second to find them again so you can keep going. I didn't see it happen, but I was told that he popped right back up and only lost a few seconds. Even with the fall, he still set a new PR 17:42!

The team finished 3rd out of 56 schools.

They had a dual meet during the week (the same one as Hannah where it was over 90 degrees), then another invitational on Saturday at Marlington (same as Hannah). The past two years, Micah has done pretty poorly at Marlington. This year he did "fine", so I think that's a success. 

This feels like a good time to remind you that any of the sports pictures that look good were not taken by me. We are richly blessed to have people who take nice pictures and share them.

In life outside of sports, Gramme was here for Labor Day weekend to visit and check a few more things off the list as she prepares to move to Ohio later this fall. 

Scott had the opportunity to preach the sermon at church again. Here's the link, if you're interested: https://www.thechapel.life/sermonsbank/blessed-are-the-forgiven. 

And I'm just trying to keep everyone fed and in clean clothes.