Catching up - In a BIG way!!!

So this blog is titled, "Keeping Up With the Smuckers."  Well..... NOONE has been keeping up with the Smuckers - especially me.  I feel I am always behind, missing something, forgetting something, etc.  It's all I can do to keep up with everyone and everything - and some days are better than others.

However, I am going to attempt to catch up a little bit this evening.  This will be a long post with lots of pictures covering several months.  So here goes...

We had our family birthday party for the girls in early October at the park down the road from us.  It's a great venue with a pavilion right next to a playground. We celebrated Emma turning 9, Heidi turning 6 and Rachel turning 3. Yes, I made 3 cakes - 2 Princess cakes and 1 Sprinkle cake!

 

 The girls with Papa & Grandpa!

 Chief in Charge of Cake!

 Rain boots!!! She's got an eye for fashion already.

 All the cousins watching gift opening.

 Heidi with Kelsey.

 Family photo op!

 Emma with Grandma & Grandpa

 And I got something for my birthday too!

 Exhaustion! Heidi didn't even make it home (less than 3 miles).

It was such a fun evening!  So thankful our family could gather with us to celebrate our girls!

Jason spent 18 days in Brazil participating in the World Boomerang Championships.  If you're on Facebook, you saw lots of his pictures and videos there.  He had a wonderful time and a great trip. But we missed him greatly while he was gone. We made special signs and decorated the house for his return.

 

 

 

 They were both happy to see each other! :-)

 Welcome Home Daddy (decoration by Heidi)

 We went out to Chili's for dinner that night.

 

 Daddy and his girls.

We continued to stay busy while he was gone - with Fall Festivals, Heidi's birthday and party, and Halloween parties!  He did make it home for Halloween and trick-or-treating.

Heidi's birthday party was at one of our favorite places - Champion Kids! She was SO excited about her party she was constantly asking if it was time to go yet.  The party was at 4PM. I told her we'd leave at 3:35 - I wrote it on a piece of paper and she sat by her clock waiting for the minutes to tick by.

 

Emma jumping on the trampoline - one of her favorite things to do.

Heidi on the rope swing - one of her favorite things.

 

Heidi and Ava

Me and two of my girls (missing the birthday girl)

I think this is the first time I did not make a cake for one of my girls' parties.  But she really wanted a cookie cake, I'm no good at those, and it was so nice to just go pick it up! Not to mention it was really yummy!

 That is some genuine happiness right there! Love that smile!

 

 Silly friends

 Angie and Heidi

It was SUCH a fun time.  She is blessed to have so many wonderful friends from her preschool years, neighbors, and Kindergarten class. Happy Birthday Heidi!!!

Our Halloween festivities started with a trip to the pumpkin patch.

We came home with one large pumpkin to carve and six little "baby" pumpkins. Heidi decided to draw faces and write names on the little pumpkins (while Rachel supervised).

Later we carved our big pumpkin. Jason is usually chief in charge of getting the "goop" out, but he was in Brazil, so it became a team effort (but mostly mine). I think Heidi would have done more, but it is difficult.

 Rachel wanted her turn too.

 Proud of the finished product.

 Our pumpkin family.

Next was our annual Neighborhood Halloween party which is conveniently held in the cul-de-sac we live on. It's a great time to visit with neighbors, meet new ones, and for all the kids to play. Initial Halloween costumes this year were Heidi and Rachel as "Purple Fairies," and Emma wanted to "be herself."  So for the neighborhood party, we had two chilly purple fairies and one Emma horseback rider.

 

 

However, when Halloween rolled around, it was going to be way too cold for fairies.  So we had some last minute costume changes.  We still had Emma horseback rider, but we added Curious George and a ladybug.

 

 

 We went trick-or-treating with our neighbor and a friend who came over to our neighborhood.

 Good friends!!

The girls all came home with pumpkins FULL of candy! Everyone covered more ground this year. I guess that will continue to increase from year to year. We may have to go with something bigger than a plastic pumpkin though.

That's enough catching up for one post. Next will be November and in to December. Christmas will get it's own post. Stay tuned...

Red Dragon Soccer

Heidi's Fall soccer season is underway.  She's playing on a team of Kindergarten and 1st grade girls. The teams get to pick their own names, which they really enjoy.  This season, their jerseys are red, so they chose Red Dragons! (Quite the opposite extreme from Pinkalicious 2 seasons ago. :-) )  They are having fun and doing great!

Heidi still really enjoys playing goalie.

For some reason, she is refusing to play offense, but she's getting in there for some defense.

And it's always fun to have a friend on the team! Juliette & Heidi have been on the same soccer team since they started three seasons ago. :-)

 Go Red Dragons!!!

Rachel's 3rd Birthday Party

We have been dragging out Rachel's birthday celebration!  We had her party on Sept 15 at Champion Kids!  She had so much fun!  It worked really well in that there is another family that we already knew who have twin boys (Ben & Luke) in her preschool class.  Their birthday is just 5 days after Rachel's, so we joined forces and had one party! It was a great success!  In looking at all the pictures I took, I think Rachel had a smile on her face the entire time!!!

The Birthday Kids: Rachel, Ben & Luke.

Everybody swang...

They jumped...

Swung a little more... (can we say NO fear???)

Climbed...

Played with a parachute...

Did a zip line in to the foam pit!!!

Had cupcakes...

And an all around great time having fun with friends and family!

 

 

 After the party, she opened her gifts at home. She LOVED everything she received!

 

Happy Birthday Rachel! Round 3 will be in about 2 weeks when our extended families gather to celebrate all of our girls' birthdays!

Pop Up Fall Rally

September 7-9, we took the camper back out to McKinney Campground on Lake Allatoona. We were joining a group of other pop up camper people.  There is a website/blog/portal that has been a good resource as we've been getting in to this camping habit. This is the same group we camped with our first time out of the driveway back in the Spring.  This Fall Rally had most of the same people plus a lot more!  It was a lot of fun.

They had the weekend really well organized including a scavenger hunt for the kids on Saturday morning.  Heidi and Rachel really got in to that - they wanted to keep looking for things!!! There was also a corn hole tournament for the adults and a pinata for the kids. And Saturday evening was a potluck dinner that was delicious, fun, and entertaining - complete with door prizes!

It did not take long for all the kids to start playing together. Our site was on a circle that was perfect for riding bikes and scooters - it turned in to a mini Grand Prix! At one point there were about 6 vehicles cruising around the circle.

The pinata not only contained candy, but toys too! Playing with their new army men.

This was our wildlife sighting for the weekend. She was right next to our campsite.

 And the girls enjoyed walking along the lake looking for shells and pretty rocks.

The weather was wonderful. It was a little warm on Friday night, but Saturday it rained a little (not enough to dampen any plans) and brought in the cool temperatures.  We woke up Sunday morning to wonderful Fall temperatures (thus, Emma is in her PJ's with a fleece jacket). However it did warm up enough for us to take a little swim in the lake before we broke camp. It was such a fun time!  We've got to find a way to get out there more.

Rachel is 3!!!

It's hard to believe, but Rachel is 3 years old!  It takes a little work for her to just hold up 3 fingers - the pinky wants to pop up too, but she's working on it. :-)

She really enjoyed celebrating her birthday at school.  They gave her a birthday crown, a Happy Birthday sticker, and she got to share chocolate chip cookies with her friends.

Her actual party is in a couple weeks, so we're drawing it out - which I think is a little confusing to her, but I think she's enjoying it all.  Happy Birthday Rachel!  We love you!!!

Labor Day Weekend

We did some fun things over the Labor Day weekend.  We started it Saturday with a visit to Great Gram.  We had not been to her new apartment (which she moved in to in May). We had a nice visit with her. She is 96 years old and doing wonderfully well!  Great Gram allowed the girls to go through some of her seashells and pick out some to take home.  Heidi and Rachel particularly enjoyed this.

 Trying to hear the ocean...

 Great Gram with 3 of her great granddaughters.

Sunday we went to church and enjoyed a nice lunch afterward.  Hanging out at home for the afternoon, Heidi found a Christmas Carol song book.  There's nothing wrong with singing Christmas carols in September is there???

 Then it was snuggle nap time with mom.

 

 Or not.

 

Monday - Labor Day - our local YMCA had a Y-to-Y 10K road race (we actually have 2 Ys pretty close to us). As part of that event, they were having an arts and crafts fair.  The price was right and we were available, so we thought we'd give a boomerang booth a try.

 

It was great to have a space in front of our booth that we could throw and catch.  Jason and Rachel had fun doing some "team" catching.  Jason would throw the boomerang and then pick Rachel up and run to it for her to catch it.

 

They got pretty good at it and it was fun to watch!

 

After we closed down our booth, we went to Zaxby's for a yummy lunch.  Then it was back to the Y for a couple hours of swimming.  Our girls just LOVE the pool and Rachel is becoming quite the little swimmer! Heidi's latest thing is to do flips under water - she tries to do 2 or 3 in a row.  Emma loves floating around on the pool noodles.  After drying off, we went out to dinner at Willy's and then to Menchie's Yogurt for a birthday treat for me. They all sang Happy Birthday to me in the car on the way home.  What a fun weekend!