It's That time of year....

It's football season again!!!

and here is what you will see if you come into my house on Saturday and Sunday for the next 4+ months :)

Hitting another milestone :)

Well I am about two weeks too late but here is Emmett and Molly's first days of school.....

Emmett started school on Wednesday August 24.  He is starting 2nd grade.  His teacher is Mrs. Atkinson.

(I didn't get up early enough to comb Molly & Max's hair :)

He really enjoyed his summer and everytime I asked him if he missed school he said NO!  But when we started to get closer to the first day he finally admitted that he was ready & excited for his first day.  I felt like last year being in 1st grade was still one of the little guys.  Now that he is in 2nd grade I feel like he is big time!! 

That same day Molly had her kindergarten orientation.  So her and I were able to go meet with her teacher, Mrs. Bishop, about 11:00.  Then we had the next two days to have fun and enjoy our time together before she became a "full-time" student.  Thursday we went shopping with grandma and Shannon.  Friday we went to take Grandma Becky a birthday card to her work.  (She turned 60 years old)!  After that we went on a lunch date with one of her best friends, Eme.  They got their nails painted and chose happy meals from Mcdonalds for lunch (of course)!  Then when we went to pick Max up from Grandma Kathy's Morgan was there.  And....I got ditched!!  Her last day before kindergarten and she wanted to hang out with Morgan instead!!

Monday rolled around, Finally!

She was so, so excited!!!

 

Here is Molly walking in the school and she NEVER looked back!

Now what I don't have a picture of is her mother crying...& crying....& crying!  Max kept asking "you done Mom?"  " You done?"   I wasn't.  I (for some reason) could not stop crying.  I kept picturing my little baby girl with her bangs put in a barrett.

How did I go from this...

....to this??

It just seems to have gone so fast.  How did I get TWO kids in school???  I told Max thank goodness I still have him at home :)

Well I stopped crying eventually and the day went pretty fast.  & Molly was all smiles when she got off the bus...

Her first two weeks have been great.  She loves every minute of it and I haven't shed a tear since that first day :)

Fifteen & counting....

What could be more fun than trying to get three kids to pose for a picture????

Trying to get Fifteen kids to pose for a picture!



It's one of those things that nobody wants to do but they want it done.  Well we got the kids as coordinated as we could and snapped as many pictures as we could before all hell broke loose.  And believe me...it didn't take very long for that to happen.  These are just the pictures I took.  I am sure some others got better pictures than I did, but these didn't turn out to horribly bad.

The fifteen grandkids with the two people responsible for all this madness...

Marsha & Scott's crew...

Chad & My gang...

Andrew & Michelles Boys....

Nick & AJ's sweetie....

Kyle & Kara's little guy....

Shannon & Aaron's new arrival...

I couldn't leave this one out.  The two newest buddies.  Max calls Tate, Tater Tot.  Tate calls Max, Maxers!  These two had so much fun playing together!

They are only 2 Months apart!

Wonder how many grandkids there will be when the next picture is taken ?



Setting new priorities!

I definately have a few summer things that I want to blog and don't seem to find the time, but it really is Ok with me because we are having a lot of fun this summer and I will catch up when I am stuck inside with TONS of snow outside. 

But for now, I don't want to think about that!!

After T-ball got started our next summer adventure was a girls trip to Chicago!  Tina & Mandi approached me last winter to take our girls, aka "the Triplets", to the American Girl Place Store.  Right away my thoughts were that I didn't think we would go because I felt as if that wasn't a priority.  Well after a couple days I decided to throw that priority list out the window and write a new one.  This time I put a mother/daughter trip at the top of the new list.  I decided that if I kept putting things on hold I was gonna miss out on a lot of great opportunities.  And now that we have done it, I don't regret going for a second!!

We loaded up early on a Friday morning and started out journey to the "big city"!

Here are the girls walking toward on hotel right on Michigan Avenue ( this is the back enterence).

After we got all our bags checked in, and when I say ALL I mean ALL!  You would be amazed how many bags 6 girls need on a ONE night trip!!  We headed straight to our destination....

The moment we walked into this store was the moment I knew that bringing Molly to Chicago was not a mistake.  The term "kid in a candy store" should be rewritten to "little girl in a doll store"!!  Molly was in Heaven!! I have to admit it was a little piece of Heaven for me too seeing how happy she was. 

We had lunch...

Molly got "Maggie's" hair done....

& of course, we SHOPPED!!

I definately think I kept things in check.  I would have loved to buy her all the things she wanted, but wanted to remember that the trip was about spending time together and with our friends and not how much I could buy for her.  She also had been working the past month or so to earn money to buy a few things of her own.  I was really proud of her.

Later that day we swam at the hotel...

One of the girls favorite parts of the trip was when we got back from dinner that night they had delivered American Girl doll beds, milk & cookies!  The were very impressed with that & how someone would have gotten in the room.  I guess that could seem a little creepy, ha ha!!

The "moms" stayed up Really late and talked but I don't have a picture of that :)



The next day we walked up and down Michigan Avenue and in and out of a few other stores...

Made a return to American Girl...

had lunch at Rainforest cafe...

...and headed home, EXHAUSTED!!!!

I will never forget this time with Molly and I hope she doesn't either. 

We were so lucky to share it with our wonderful frineds!!

A League of Their Own...

I am sooooo far behind on blogging!  We have been having a crazy, busy couple of months!  It is Wonderful.  With school ending, summer starting, a couple vacations and the birth of another NEPHEW I don't know where to start.  So I choose Summer Base/Softball!  There isn't much to be told about that, so I thought it would be easy enough to get me back in the blogging mood :)

So although it's "just" another season, it was Molly's FIRST season so it is definately a memorable one.  Molly could have played last year but I was a little skeptical about starting her too soon and so I waited until she was ready.  And this year she was! 

Molly actually missed what was to be their last game while we were in Georgia.  But, when we got home we were informed that that they were gonna have 1 more game at the High School field just for some extra fun and to make the girls feel big time.  So I let all of our family know so if they weren't doing anything they could come out for it.  Both of Molly's Grandma's were there along with Uncle Aaron, Aunt Shannon, Aunt Kara, Uncle Kyle & Baby Jake.  I think Molly's game is what put Shannon into labor because Hank came the next night ;)  Anyway here are some pic's of that fun night!

 Hitting off a live pitch!



Way to be ready Molly ;)

Medal time!!

Molly's very good friend Emili!

& Baby Jakers at the game!  Not to toot my own horn or anything, but this is a Great Picture :)

& Molly got to share this season with her two best friends Eme & Elle!!

And for Emmett's baseball season I am going to get the "Mother of the Year" award.  These are the only pictures I have for THE WHOLE SEASON!!!  Seriously?!?!?

& boy was he a good catcher ;)  You can't even see his face.  For all anyone knows this could be someone else's kid!  Well it's not.  I don't know why I only have these two pictures but that is the case.  I will try to do better in all of his upcoming season :) 

Emmett had a good season.  It is very fun to see him progress as a ball player.  He is just so little, I wish he would hit a growth spurt.  I know he will but until then he will just have to be my "little" boy!!  Ok by me :)

Participating in sports is a big part of our family and we enjoy it so much.  But when we have a break, we enjoy the down time too!  Baseball & Softball only last through June, so we are taking time in July to enjoy other summer activities like boating and swimming :)

Congrats on a great season Emmett & Molly!