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!

Two Weeks In

We just finished up the second week of school.  Everyone is tired, exhausted and flat worn out. :-)

Heidi continues to enjoy Kindergarten. She seems to really enjoy the Specials - that's often the first thing she tells me when she gets off the bus - what Special they went to that day. She is slowly making some new friends - including one on the bus who is also in her class. She is also enjoying occasionally seeing a couple of her preschool friends that are in different classes.

Heidi has continued to mention how tired she is each day.  In fact, the morning of the 2nd day of school, she told me maybe she should go to bed at 7PM instead of 8PM 'cause she was still tired.  There have been other conversations since where she has suggested 6PM! :-) We are aiming for between 7 and 7:30.  She has also said that she wished Kindergarten wasn't so long because she's not getting to play with Rachel very much. ;-)

Emma seems to be doing well with her class. Every day when she gets off the bus she asks me how my day was with Rachel. I don't get too much feedback from her, but I do know she has a handful of friends in her class from last year, so that's always nice.

I think Rachel thinks she has arrived. She absolutely loves going to school. "I'm big now so I can go to my big school," is what she says. It didn't take her long to start calling it "my school" rather than "Heidi's school." She has fun with the craft projects, music, creative movement, playground, circle, and everything else. I'm so glad she likes it.

A couple Rachel updates... We started really working on potty training in July. I think it is fair to say that she is pretty much potty trained. She still has an accident about every other day, but we're getting there. She is excited to pick out her underwear every day and I'm excited to FINALLY be done with diapers (not including Pull-Ups)!

Additionally, she has started sleeping in the top bunk. She seems to like it and has adjusted easily to it. I'm still a little worried about her falling out, but so far so good.

School 2012-13

School started two days ago on August 13. First day of school pictures.

Heidi has started Kindergarten and is absolutely loving it!

After the first day, Heidi said her favorite thing was art. She couldn't remember any friends' names, but she did know her teacher's names, so I guess that's good.
Emma is starting 3rd grade.

Her first words to me after she got off the bus the first day were, "Mommy, did you enjoy your stay at home day with Rachel today?" :-)
They are riding the big bus together (up to now, Emma has always taken a special ed bus).

And they are enjoying friends at the bus stop. Here's Heidi with our neighbor Natalie.

While Emma and Heidi were gone for the first day of school, Rachel and I stayed busy.  We played at least 8 games of "Don't Break the Ice," played store, and she did all of her button art images - I think all before 9AM. :-)

 

She REALLY wanted to go to her school Monday too, but she had to wait 'til Tuesday. But she was so excited!  Can't you just see the excitement in that face?

She had a really great day too. She can't wait to go back tomorrow.  She'll be going on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I think she would love to go everyday if she could (I wouldn't mind it either, but I think we both have to wait a couple years).
Now that school is in session all the fall activities will start to get going too.  All three girls are taking gymnastics classes, Emma continues to take her horseback riding lessons, and Heidi will start soccer in the next several weeks.  Here we go.....