School Party, Last soccer game, Pumpkins and Leaves

This Thursday, Drew's class had their Fall Celebration party.  I was one of the three moms in charge of planning this party.  I baked sugar cookies and brought orange icing and candy for them to decorate the cookies and make jack-o-lanterns.  Here's Drew and Emma at work!

 

We also had the kids make silly spider hats, and we read them several Halloween/Fall stories.  Drew was such a good big brother and sat with Emma! 

Then Thursday night my parents got into town!  On Friday we had kind of a lazy day.  I woke up not feeling well, but the kids had a great time hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa!  Then on Saturday morning my parents got to see Drew play soccer!  He had a great game.  He was aggressive and played well - and scored two goals!  Here's Drew and Madison with their game faces on, waiting for the ball to be put back in play after someone scored. 

 

And we got laughing so hard at how Drew was sitting with his legs crossed when he wasn't in the game!!  HAHA

It was actually his last game of the season, so they got trophies!  I've loved being a soccer mom and watching him play the last couple months...and now we're on to basketball - it starts at the end of November!

 

 

After Drew's game, we went to the fall festival at Drew's school. They had all kinds of vendors inside and a bouncy house and pumpkin painting outside. And we took this crazy picture there! LOL  

 

 

The guys played golf outside and Emma swept the deck  =)  The leaves are REALLY falling down now!

 

Sunday I went to IKEA with my parents while Chad let the kids run off some energy at the park.  I wanted to look at kitchen tables, b/c I've wanted to move our dining room table back to the dining room for awhile.  I ended up finding one I really liked, so my parents got it as an early Christmas present!! (which makes sense b/c it would be hard to fly home with it at Christmas-time!)  I am so excited! It's exactly what I wanted!  Then Sunday night we ordered pizza and carved our pumpkins.  Everybody got pretty crafty!   Here's Drew and I trying to talk Emma into sticking her hand inside the pumpkin!  I think this is the first year that Drew had no problem getting all gooey!

And Chad got a picture of one of the few times she actually did get her hand in there!

Drew and my dad are concentrating pretty hard on their masterpieces!

And here's the final product!  I think they look GREAT!!  As soon as we lit them, the kids started singing "happy birthday pumpkins!" 

After my parents left Monday morning, I took the kids outside to play in the leaves.  It was in the 50s, but SO windy so it felt colder! 

Ever since Drew's class talked about leaves at school, he's been very interested.  He really wanted me to get a closeup picture of this beautiful leaf!

Here's our silly face picture! 



Field Trip, Trunk or Treat, Mountains

All the 4 year old classes at Drew's school went on a field trip to Carrigan Farms this past week.  Emma and I wen too.  Here's Emma feeding the pony.

 

Emma and I in the pumpkin patch! 

Drew didn't have much to do with Emma and I - he was too busy running around and acting crazy with his buddies!  Here he is with Owen and Jack W. 

And I got a picture of them running by!  Here he is with Jack W. and Jack S. (Yes, there are two Jacks in Drew class, and it cracks Chad up that they call one of them JackS!!  LOL)  I was pretty frustrated with how wild and crazy Drew was on this field trip...apparently he and Jack W. are best buddies and act like nuts together...I'm concerned this is how he's acting at school.  At least his teacher seemed happy with him when I met with her for parent conferences earlier in the week!

I got them to sit together with their pumpkins long enough to take a picture  =)

Emma loved the hayride and she loved the 2 golden retrievers that were there!  In this picture I think she was watching the dogs swim in the pond! 

We went to the pumpkin patch with Grant and Sherry, and then Drew had a field trip to the pumpkin patch, and then Susan and Alan brought us a couple more pumpkins...we have LOTS of pumpkins!  We have only had one not make it...the bottom right one is rotton and needs to be thrown away!

This Saturday was the LKNM Trunk or Treat event.  Emma was a little black cat (you can't see her tail in the picture!) and Drew was a red lego (his costume is sitting beside them...he couldn't sit in it! oops!).  Here they are sharing some McDonalds in the back of the Jeep before the event really got started. 

Emma was a little bit clingy and wanted to be held for the first part of the event...wouldn't even smile for a picture...

Family picture (Chad and I didn't dress up like a lot of the adults)...and Emma still wouldn't smile.

But give the girl some juice and dessert and she's all smiles again!  Here's the lego costume!  Drew entered the costume contest and a kid in a homemade R2D2 costume clearly won...but Drew was a very obvious runner up!  (it was by applause).  Chad did a great job with his costume!

Then on Sunday, we went up to Blowing Rock.  We discovered an awesome one mile paved trail around Bass Lake.  It was beautiful there!  There were quite a few bare trees, but still tons of colorful ones too!  The weather was in the high 50s and sunny...perfect!  Here's Emma finishing up her Capri Sun before we went for our walk.  We brough KFC to eat before we walked - even Drew had some! (we found out the extra crispy is dairy free!)

 

There were 2 swans in the pond - they were so pretty!  I was surprised how long they would keep their heads under water!

 

Here's part of our crew heading out on the walk!

 

Emma was walking backwards and playing around with Nana.  She thought Nana was so funny!

 

Here's the kids with their Granddad and their Nana. 

 

It was such a pretty trail!  Here's Nana, Drew and Grandmom.

 

 

Drew and Nana were taking a break. 

 

The kids were being silly!

 

I love this picture of Drew!

Emma was done walking about halfway through the trail...but this made her happy! 

 

Me and the kids!  =)

 

 

Family picture! 

 

Emma got a big sloppy kiss from this friendly guy!

 

Nana and I...we were talking about how her leg was hurting a little bit.  And she said, "Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's just old age. It can sneak up on you, you know?"  =)   Yeah, that might happen at almost 88 years old...she is in amazing shape!

The kids with their grandparents 

After the mountains, we went back to Lenoir and the kids played on the playground at the school Susan works at.  It's a great playground!

 

I'm so glad we did the trip to the mountains.  I wanted to see pretty leaves and get lots of good family pictures...mission accomplished!  We had a great time!

Oh yeah...I need to add...EMMA IS POTTY TRAINED!  On Thursday night she decided that she wanted to wear undies and use the potty...and that was that!  Even through all this stuff we did over the weekend, she did great and had NO accidents!  We were gone for over 3 hours at Trunk or Treat, and she stayed dry and went potty when we got home!  I am still in shock...but totally proud of her!!

More Soccer!

Drew had a make-up game on Friday night.  Here he is as goalie, getting ready to stop the ball.

 

And then throwing the ball back into play!

After the game, we invited some of Drew's teammates and their families to join us at Fuel Pizza.  Six players ended up coming, so we had quite a crowd.  It was great hanging out with the other parents, and I think the kids had a blast!

Then he had another game this morning...and it was COLD!  Here's Drew getting ready to score his only goal from this morning.  He scored 2 on Friday night!

And here's a video of Drew breaking away from the crowd, but not kicking it quite hard enough.  He's figured out how to dribble and run with the ball, but can let it get too far out in front of him or doesn't kick it hard enough right in front of the goal.  He's figuring it out though!

 

I already had my clothes on to head out to Drew's game...and then I found one of Drew's old IU sweatshirts that would fit Emma...and her jeans were dirty...so, yeah, we dressed alike!!

Hill Ridge Farm and other random things

Drew was changing into his jammies in the living room and acting like a nut flexing his muscles...and I actually see some biceps developing!! LOL

 

 

I have taken Emma to do gymnastics a couple more times.  She loves jumping on the trampoline, doing forward rolls down the mats, and swinging on the rope.  Here she is swinging and cheesing!

Here she is jumping - and I can get her to do straight jumps, tuck jumps, apart/together jumps and even seat drops.  She loves trying to do whatever I show her.

 

 

And here's her beautiful forward roll!  =)

 

This past weekend it was picture day for Drew's soccer team.  We bought individual pictures, but I got a team picture of my own!   

Drew scored two more goals this Saturday.  His team won, 8-6.

This past weekend we made a trip to Wake Forest to stay with Grant and Sherry.  We took the kids to Hill Ridge Farms to play and pick out pumpkins.  Here Drew and Olivia going through the maze.  They figured it out quick and left Emma in the dust!

She needed a little help and we had to yell out to her where to go! 

The kids LOVE the giant slide!  What a silly face Drew is making!

Emma and I got to go down too!  Last time we were here (2 years ago) we didn't go down b/c she was so little!  She said, "Emma want to go down slide again!" as soon as we got to the bottom.

Even Owen went down!!  LOL

We got a nice group photo as we waited for the train to come.

This is such a cute picture - I just love Owen's sweet little grin!

And here's a nice picture of Chad and I - we're all cramped up in the caboose of the train! haha 

And we got a great family picture on the hayride on our way to go pick out our pumpkins!

They were about pictured-out at this point... but still a pretty good group picture!

Emma chose the first pumpkin she found and carried it around awhile...then she started getting bored and was standing on the pumpkins!  =)

 

A few weeks ago, we took the kids to Freedom Park in Charlotte.  Chad and I took turns going for 3 mile runs while the other played with the kids.  They played on the playground while I ran, and then I took them over to the huge pond while Chad ran.  They liked cheering him on when he ran by us.  And they liked balancing on the rock ledge.

 

 

Here's Drew doing a superman pose!

 

A couple babies were swinging in the baby swings for a long time while I was at the park with the kids...so I encouraged Emma to try the big swings!  She actually did a really good job - and I think she was proud of herself!  I was proud of this adorable picture I took!  It is seriously one of my new favorite pictures!

Last weekend Chad and I both went for 7.5 mile runs and didn't feel like moving afterwards, but the kids were restless!  So, we took them to Latta Plantation and went for a hike.  Drew wore my Nike GPS running watch and loved keeping up with our mileage.  I think we went 1.2 miles!   

 

Chad emailed me a couple pictures he's taken on his phone on our last Carowinds trip.  I love this one of the kids riding together!  

And here's Emma and I in the car!