Her First Day (again)

Kristen starts her sophomore year in college today! Unbelievable how much has changed in just a few short years!

This morning, I was sitting here thinking about her first day and I thought: I wonder if she'll let me take her picture? So as she was getting ready to head out the door, I asked her: Can I take your picture? At the same time she was asking me: Are you going to take my picture?? She knows me well! And she continues to humor me ;) I love that I can still see my little girl in there somewhere :)

Sophomore year:

I can't wait to hear all about her day!

Saturday's Flag Football

First game of the season was yesterday! Because of the storms last Thursday, practice was canceled so the boys were a bit nervous about not really knowing what to do. The rules are a bit different for flag football plus they still needed to learn how to deal with the flags.They had a really good time though and are looking forward to future practices and games :)

Brandon's team plays bright and early...8:45am to be exact. And as I posted before, this church isn't all that close to us! He did good though, grabbing a flag and stopping a player from getting a touchdown! (not in this picture. I was busy watching/cheering to snap a picture of that!)

Nicholas' team played right after Brandon's. Unfortunately this won't always be the case. Sometimes we will be hanging out there for an hour waiting for his team to play. That will stink.

Nicholas had the ball a few times. It was so fun to see him running it!

He even got to hike it!

I'm really loving these fall sports! It's really been a relaxing way to spend my Saturday mornings :)

Silliness...

We left the house early for our field trip Tuesday because I had a few stops to make. We still arrived at the orchard very early which gave us the time to just be silly :)

Everyone had to be a worm ;)

Only the girls wanted to be ladybugs ;)

Crazy little camera-hogs ;)

We Made a Friend at the Orchard :)

Lovely :)

Apple Picking

Tuesday was Apple Picking Day! Our co-op's fantastic field trip coordinator, Angi, happen to pick the most perfect day to have a behind-the-scenes tour at our local apple orchard (which is the largest in the state!). We had a great tour guide who handled our group really well even though he was in his eighties (I still can't get over that!). We started in the "factory" part with a slide show and some apple cider samples. After that we headed to the back were there were people hard at work checking all the apples, pulling out any bad ones. We ended our tour in the orchard where we were educated further on apple trees and how Lynd's specifically works their orchard. Then he passed out bags and turned us loose!

These girls were happy to see each other:

This little guy saw I was snapping pictures and walked right over and posed! ;) So cute! How could I not include him, I ask you?? Angi, you have him trained well!

I love all the vintage-y equipment they still have around.

Apple picking fun:

 

We've really enjoyed having Kristen along with us for some of our recent field trips. I'm so thankful that she's always enjoyed our field trips, even now that she's kind of beyond the typical field trip age ;) She'll be starting her sophomore year in college soon and her schedule will be filled with all sorts of college-y things, so for now, we're soaking up as much time as she'll give us!

It was a great afternoon and we came home with plenty of apples for all sorts of yummy treats ;)

What Every Girl Needs

...beautiful fairy wings to wear while she practices her letters ;)

Beautiful even if they're on upside down :)

Summer's Last Hurrah

We didn't do a whole lot on Labor Day. My family had a big family reunion the Saturday before (pictures to come as soon as I narrow them down a bit!) so we just hung out at the house; me-working on school planning/organizing, Todd-working on work and doing some household things I'd been nagging him about  waiting patiently for him to do for me ;)

But we ended the day and celebrated the coming of fall with a little cookout and a special treat. S'mores had been on our summer list all summer! Finally, we decided it was time :)

After all those sweet treats, the boys decided to work it off with a little game of football :)

This picture is blurry, sorry about that, but I had to post it! The big grin on Nicholas' face says it all!

Even though I titled this Summer's Last Hurrah, I'm really hoping for more warm evenings to enjoy just like this :)

Thursday Night

Things have really picked up here schedule-wise. Having three kids all doing multiple things is causing me to be organized and I'm not sure I like it! ;) Kidding...but not about the must-be-organized part :) The icing on the cake was when my cellphone broke (finally) this week and I had to be without for a couple of days until I could go get another one! Running around and not having a cellphone to stay in touch or coordinate things isn't fun!

The boys started Upwards Flag Football last night and they had a blast! They have really been looking forward to this all summer. The closest church that offers it isn't very close to us but I got very lucky with their practices both being at the same time which was a tremendous blessing.

Nicholas' team did some drills then they scrimmaged! Fun!

Look at that determination! He actually threw a touch-down pass!

The cheerleaders ;)

Remember I said my old phone broke? Guess who inherited it??

Here she is "making a call". I also found out from my dear, sweet, patient friend, Jenny, who is one of Megan's teachers at co-op this session, that she is "texting" in class when she is supposed to be listening to the story! Sorry! I'm thinking the cellphone will stay in the car next week ;)

Brandon's group just did drills but he still had so much fun!

It was a very fun night! We are thankful to have such a wonderful program for our kids.

Our Morning

This morning, I had a surprise for the gang...frozen fruit smoothies! I made them smoothies yesterday so I just made extra and froze them in molds. The boys have had a bit of a sore throat this week, so I had intended to give it to them yesterday evening as an after-dinner treat, but, um, I forgot ;) So they had them this morning as an addition to breakfast :) They were NOT complaining!

I use Kefir, one of the sweetened ones like strawberry, banana, then frozen fruit semi-thawed to make them nice and slushy. The kids gobble them up!

I sent them outside to eat them (mess!) and since it was so nice this morning, we moved out there for school :) Our back deck is shaded all morning so it's perfect this time of year.

Like my mostly dead impatiens in the background? I couldn't keep up with the watering this year. So stinkin' hot :(

I was afraid being outside for school would be too distracting for them, but they did pretty good! I'm so glad we did this! It was the perfect solution to our blahs.  I think we just might have to move most of our school out there this fall!