Birthday Bench

On Friday at school, Ben celebrated his half-birthday. He brought in a special birthday snack (powdered donuts and apple slices) and got to sit on the Birthday Bench at chapel. He was rather excited about his special day.

During chapel, the preschool director called each birthday child up one-by-one. When it was Ben's turn to sit with her, she asked him, "Ben Carroll, how old are you today?" He then held up 3 and 1/2 fingers (as we had been practicing that morning) for all of the preschool to see. He then lined up with the other birthday children to have the preschoolers sing them a special birthday song. I had one of Hayes's former teachers lean over to me and say, "Wasn't he just born?!" It is hard for everyone to believe that Ben Carroll is 3 1/2!

Tying Shoelaces

Shortly after the New Year, we noticed that Hayes's tennis shoes had holes in the toes from all of his hard playing. We took him to the shoe store to get a new pair of shoes and pitched him on tennis shoes with laces. He moaned and groaned and even did a good bit of pouting in the store as he only wanted velcro-closing shoes. You see, Hayes is not very good with change . . . and he's also not very willing to try something new unless he knows he'll be successful after the first or second try. With the shoelaces, he knew he was in for a challenge, and he did not like it. Unfortunately for Hayes, Mom and Dad won the shoelace battle, and Hayes came home with shoes he could not tie.

Since this purchase, we've been working with him on tying his shoes. We've since learned that his classmates all learned last year. If they mastered the skill, they went to their principal's office for a special treat. I'm guessing that a "principal visit" was not enticing enough to Hayes, because he never even mentioned this opportunity to us last year.

Last weekend, I sat him down for 20 minutes to working on his laces, and he mastered the skill during this time. Since then, he ties his shoes each time though we are still helping him with the double and triple knots he requests. I even caught him checking his shoes the other day while we were outside, almost as if he couldn't believe that he had tied them.

Mom's Portrait

For most of this month, Ben and his classmates have been preparing for the upcoming Dad's Day at the end of January. As part of this preparation, the children drew portraits of both their moms and their dads. Ben brought his portrait of me home this week. Don't you see the resemblance?

Discovering Harry Potter

For someone who gets scared by (1) the thought of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny coming into her house while she sleeps and (2) the sound of rain falling on the metal roof outside her window, I had been intentionally delaying the introduction of the Harry Potter series to Eleanor. I just knew that the latter books in the series would give her nightmares or lead to other sleep problems.

One night in mid-December, she saw the first Harry Potter movie over at a friend's house and that peaked her interest. The next day, she picked up the first book, started reading it and was hooked. She's now almost finished with the fifth book in the series with two more books to go. I was right when I predicted that the books would frighten her. She's started sleeping with her two closet doors open and their lights on. (Prior to starting Harry Potter, she would request that we close all of her closet doors and make sure that all of the lights were off.) If she gets too scared to sleep by herself in her room, we've found her sleeping in Ben's room the next morning.

In the end though, she has loved the series, and I'm glad that she's finally discovered J.K. Rowling's magic.

Ben's Colorful Art

Ben still loves to color and on some days is prolific with his creating. Instead of focusing on just one color, he's advanced to the stage where he prefers lots of color on his pages. Seeing his latest work reminds me so much of the work one of my favorite local artists, Michelle Armas. See the similarity?

First Basketball Victory EVER

This winter, Hayes is playing basketball for a third season and this time around, Thomas decided that he wanted to coach. Hayes's prior two seasons were win-less but he did not care as he loves basketball. This season started out differently though. The Yellow Jackets TIED their first three down-to-the-wire games - 16-16, 20-20 and 18-18. Talk about high scoring, especially for five and six-year-olds! Thomas and Hayes both felt that a victory would come this season . . . and it finally did yesterday. Hayes won his first basketball game and he sure had fun doing it!I think both Hayesand Thomas would agree that it feels good to get a "W" under their belts!

College Bowl Pool Champion

In the middle of December, Thomas starts to get anxious. He knows that it is almost time for "BLee's Annual College Bowl Pool" which takes place every December/January over the duration of the college football bowl games. This year, Brian Lee (Thomas's first cousin) was late in distributing news of this year's bowl pool. We even thought he might have taken this year off. Then on December 12, just four days before the first bowl game kick-off on Dec. 16, Thomas found the following email from BLee in his inbox:

Bowl Enthusiasts,
Let's kick off the 15th Annual College Bowl Pool!
Make a pick according to the corresponding spread for each of the 35 bowl games below and include your tiebreaker prediction (total points in the BCS title game).
The best record on Jan. 10th wins.
===========
15th Annual CBP
===========

Date Bowl Favorite Spread Underdog


12/17 New Mexico Temple (TU) 6.5 Wyoming (WY)

12/17 Potato Utah St. (US) 2.5 Ohio (OH)

12/17 New Orleans San Diego St. (SD) 5 La.-Lafayette (LL)

12/20 St. Petersburg Fla. Intl. (FI) 4 Marshall (Mar)

12/21 Poinsettia TCU (TCU) 10.5 La. Tech (LT)

12/22 Las Vegas Boise St. (BSU) 14 Arizona St. (ASU)

12/24 Hawaii So Miss. (SM) 6.5 Nevada (NV)

12/26 Independence Missouri (Miz) 4.5 N. Carolina. (NC)

12/27 Little Caesars Purdue (PU) 2.5 W. Michigan (WM)

12/27 Belk NC State (NCS) 3 Louisville (Lvl)

12/28 Military Toledo (Tol) 3 Air Force (AF)

12/28 Holiday Texas (TX) 3 California (Cal)

12/29 Champs Sports Florida St. (FSU) 3 Notre Dame (ND)

12/29 Alamo Baylor (BU) 9 Washington (UW)

12/30 Armed Forces BYU (BYU) 3 Tulsa (Tul)

12/30 Pinstripe Rutgers (RU) 1.5 Iowa St. (ISU)

12/30 Music City Miss St. (MSU) 7 Wake Forest (WF)

12/30 Insight Oklahoma (OK) 14 Iowa (IA)

12/31 Car Care Texas A&M (TAM) 10 Northwestern (NW)

12/31 Sun Ga. Tech (GT) 3.5 Utah (UT)

12/31 Liberty Vanderbilt (VU) 2.5 Cincinnati (Cin)

12/31 Hunger Illinois (IL) 2.5 UCLA (LA)

12/31 Chick-Fil-A Auburn (AU) 1.5 Virginia (VA)

01/02 TicketCity Houston (HU) 5.5 Penn St. (PSU)

01/02 Capital One S. Carolina (SC) 2.5 Nebraska (NE)

01/02 Outback Georgia (UGA) 4 Michigan St. (MiSt)

01/02 Gator Florida (UF) 2 Ohio St. (OSU)

01/02 Rose Oregon (OR) 6 Wisconsin (WI)

01/02 Fiesta Oklahoma St. (OkS) 3.5 Stanford (Stan)

01/03 Sugar Michigan (UM) 2.5 Va. Tech (VT)

01/04 Orange Clemson (CU) 3.5 W. Virginia (WV)

01/06 Cotton Arkansas (Ark) 8 Kansas St. (KSU)

01/07 Compass Pittsburgh (Pit) 5 SMU (SMU)

01/08 GoDaddy.com Arkansas St. (ArS) 1.5 N. Illinois (NI)

01/09 BS Champ. LSU (LSU) 1 Alabama (AL)

Tiebreaker = Total Points in BS title game

He and Hayes both filled out their brackets, paid their $10 a piece entry fee and started watching bowl games. Shockingly from the get-go, Hayes's record was strong among the 85 adult participants. He started off 2-2, but then he went on a 14-2 run. This year, many of the bowl games went down to the wire, especially when you considered the spread. Hayes's picks would always win the nail-biting games. He also made picks that others did not such as Michigan State over Georgia, Purdue over Western Michigan and Michigan over Virginia Tech.

After the Sugar Bowl on January 3, Hayes held a commanding lead. If he won just 1 game out of the last 5, he would win the bowl pool. The night of the the Orange Bowl (the first of the last five games), we sat around the dinner table and talked about what we would do with Hayes's winnings. We also chatted about what charity Hayes would choose to receive 25% of the total pot. Later, I questioned whether or not our discussion was premature. He ended up losing the next 3 games! We weren't feeling good about his pick (LSU) for the BCS Championship game, so we were hoping he could pull through as bowl pool champion with a victory by Northern Illinois over Arkansas State in the GoDaddy.com Bowl. Thomas stayed up to midnight to watch the Northern Illinois Huskies defeat the Arkansas State Red Wolves. Hayes had won the bowl pool!!! His final record was 24-10. Way to go, Hayes!

With this bowl pool championship, Hayes will get $550, and he has selected the City of Refuge as the charity of his choice to receive $200. (Through this organization, our family worked/played/ate with some homeless children before Thanksgiving.)

We are already busy trying to figure out how to sneak Hayes into our suitcase for our next trip to Vegas. With this victory and a 7/7 birthday and a 7 pound 7 ounce birth weight, we think he will bring us some much-needed luck!

E's Top 3 Goals

As I did with Hayes, I asked Eleanor what three things she wanted to accomplish in life. Here are her responses:

1. Be a successful artist. I then asked her how she would define her success and she replied, "If a lot of people buy my art or my music, then I think I will be successful."

2. Be the next Taylor Swift. Like her brother, she has some ambition! (I used this answer to offer some words of advice to her. I asked her, "Do you have any idea how long Taylor practices on her guitar or piano each and every day? A lot!" I then shared with her the theory that it takes someone 10,000 hours of doing a skill before then can be considered an expert at it. In this same vein, I asked her to remember this little tidbit when she does not want to practice her piano.)

3. Visit Hawaii. As I mentioned in this post, this answer is largely due to Bethany Hamilton and her true life story.


I will enjoy hearing how the answers to this big-picture question changes through the years, as I know I'm still working on my answer as well!

Comedy Act

A week or two before Christmas, cafeteria workers at E's school organized a third grade "Talent Show". Children who wanted to showcase a talent signed up and then were allowed to perform before the entire third grade during their lunch hour in the cafeteria. E and a few of her friends decided that their "talent" was comedy so they created a comedy skit entitled, "The McIntyre Bros from New Jersey." They worked on their act for two weeks, making adjustments to their script, figuring out what props they would need and what they would wear, and hoping against all hope that their skit would get some laughs.

Then, the big day finally arrived. E begged me to come watch so I obliged. Before they began, we captured one impromptu group photo
before they quickly transformed into the McIntyre Brothers from New Jersey. Here is the finished product on video. I convinced the girls to focus on physical comedy to get some laughs and luckily that succeeded!

Around the house

If you walked into our house right now, these are some of the sights you would see . . . I need a sign to hang on the front door that says, "Warning! Child at play with very small toys. Watch where you step, sit, and place your glass."

Atlanta Rock Climbing

We celebrated Eleanor's birthday with 9 of her close friends at Atlanta Rocks, an indoor rock climbing center. Both Eleanor and Hayes had been to the center before and really enjoyed the challenge of climbing. E had been begging to have her party there for the last two years so we finally relented and let her do it.

The party started off with the girls getting dressed in their harnesses and climbing shoes, then hearing some rules and basic instructions, and then they were off to the walls. I think the girls surprised the guides with their climbing skills as the guides ended up taking the girls to walls on which they had never before been able to climb.While the others climbed, Ben watched played on Daddy's phone.Once the girls and Hayes were done climbing, it was time for the birthday treats upstairs - Krispy Kreme doughnuts per Eleanor's request. Dad put some candles in her chocolate-covered doughnut, and then we all sang to E before she made a wish and blew out her candles.
Once the party was over, she was a very happy camper as she got to spend a few hours with her best friends having fun.