Wonder Years

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Fall Leaves

The kids (particularly Grace) have been waiting for the tree in our front yard to drop it's beautiful leaves. They were quite excited today when Jeff started raking them up into a big pile. The pile was quickly destroyed, but the three of them had a super time playing in all those leaves!

Monday, October 8, 2012

Pumpkin Patch...sort of

Saturday was our annual neighborhood picnic at Remlinger Farm. It hardly felt like a trip to the pumpkin patch due to the amazingly warm weather. (That and we never actually set foot in a pumpkin patch! We did at least leave with three small pumpkins.) We all had a great time going on the rides and running into friends.

Pretty girl waiting in line

Grace knew before we even got there that the climbing wall was the first thing she wanted to do. She climbed right to the top without even hesitating. I can't say I'm too surprised. That girl's been a climber since she was a baby!

The pumpkin ride

On the train!

Driving an old truck

Taking Daddy for a ride!

One of Charlie's favorites...the boats!

At the end of the day, Charlie decided he wanted to try the climbing wall, too. I was so proud of him for wanting to do it since he was scared to when we first got there!

Friday, October 5, 2012

Soccer!

Grace is loving her first season playing soccer. Not so much because she loves the game but because so many of her best buddies are on her team! She has actually improved a lot over the season and is becoming quite the little soccer player. We love going to watch her and her team play!

She has a pretty great cheering section, too!

Back to School!

Grace is now fully immersed in first grade. She likes school, but the magic of Kindergarten is definitely gone. Her favorite parts of the day are P.E., recess, and lunch. The school work really just gets in the way of her socializing, and that seems to bother her quite a bit. :) She's making lots of friends, reading like a champ, and buying milk in the cafeteria all by herself. My sweet baby girl is growing up!

Charlie started Pre-k. Don't make the mistake of calling it Preschool (as I do almost daily) because he will not heistate to correct you. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE his new school. He is growing academically and socially, and he comes home almost every day singing me a new song he's learned about Jesus. He also likes recess the best because he and his buddies play "Jake and the Neverland Pirates." He's making lots of new friends, and this year he even knows some of their names! I love that he gets to go four mornings a week since he's so happy being there, and I get a chance to spend some time with just Liv. (Who by the way is growing up so quickly before my eyes that sometimes I just want to cry. But I'll save that for another post.)

Summer Recap (Better late than never!)

So, here we are. It's October. The last time I posted it was June. I skipped an entire season! There is good reason. Our summer was busy, busy, busy and so. much. fun. School has been in session now for just over a month and I already long for those days of summer when we could just wake up and decide what fun that day would hold. We spent a lot of time playing at parks and beaches, picking berries, going to the zoo, meeting friends for picnics, running through the sprinkler in the backyard, and going for long walks and bike/scooter rides. I'm laughing at myself right now because that's how I remember it already, but in reality, I know that our summer also held plenty of sibling bickering, illness (even a trip for Charlie to Children's Hospital), and afternoons of whiny kids. But it really was a sweet, sweet time with my family.

There's no way I can go back at this point and write detailed posts of all the highlights, so here, instead, are the some of the best memories in pictures...

A June trip to Seabrook, WA with just a few of our dearest friends..