Mia's first soccer practice was tonight. She had so much fun. She made a few new friends and of course Sophie was there. We met dad out for dinner after to celebrate her first practice.First game is Sept 8!


Water break. Annie joined in on the fun


Mia on the left. Super strong girl!





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Monkey bars

Mia is doing great on the monkey bars. Strong girl!!

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party weekend

We had two fun parties on Saturday. First was Mia's Popsicle Social at her preschool to kick off the school year. This being our second year, we felt like old pro's. We meet some new families and chatted with old friends too. Mia's teacher will be Mrs. O'Leary and there are nine kiddos in her class. Sophie, Lily, Jacob and Charlie will be with her again - Ben is trying to get into the class but so far it's closed. She is super excited to go back to school. We met some other kids on her soccer team too. I am going to serve as Secretary on the Parents Board this year so it should be fun.

Annie playing in the playground sandbox


Mia and one of her best buddies, Ben.



After the popsicle social we headed downtown to Maggiano's for a surprise birthday party for Greg. It was super fun and the girls had a great time playing with all their cousins. Grandma's friend Victoria was there and snapped some good family photos but until then here are a few from the party.

Silly Uncle John sneaking in the back



Happy birthday...make a wish



Annie hugging on Mady - they are 3 weeks apart



Greg, Brian and Me


The girls gift to Papo, a custom made hat he can wear while driving the new Pontoon boat they named after the girls



Only grandma would embarrass someone with a Pin the Hat on your face game! The kids loved it though

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3 kiddos and soccer

This was our first week with having Tillie back. I can honestly say that I have been handling having 3 kiddos pretty easily. Tillie is still super easy (except she wants me to hold her a lot but by the end of the week she knew I wasn't going to hold her all day long). She naps great in the morning and afternoon and is a lot easier to have because she is eating finger foods. She has a huge appetite and tries everything we feed her. The girls LOVE having her here and are having fun playing and taking care of her. I took all three to Trader Joe's on Friday and it was great.
Saturday was a busy day. I got up early and did my long run of 10 miles while daddy made the girls breakfast and read books. Then he took the girls to Mia's preschool playground clean up, the girls wanted to go since they wanted to play with the other kids in the childcare. Then we did some yardwork, had lunch then drove to a bbq. Mia's friend Ben's family, The Ruhe's, invited us to their house for an end of the summer bbq along with the
McManus family. They live in a brand new house about 20 mins south of us but hate how far away they live...so they are trying to move back into our town. It was a blast! The kids all played and the adults had a great time visiting. Sophie's older sister Ruth is wonderful with Annie, she plays and cares for her. I am excited to use her as our babysitter. Anyhow, the kiddos all somehow ended up in the Ruhe's masterbed and watched Peter Rabbit around 9pm. Too cute. I wish we would have snapped a photo. We all drove back and the kids were in bed by 10pm - super late for them but they had fun. Annie kept saying how dark it was out.
Sunday was church and again Annie went with Mia and her friends to Sunday School and said "mommy Nannie no crying, no crying". So that is great. Corey took Mia to get all her soccer gear and then took the girls to the soccer field to practice. Corey with be co-coaching with Sophie's dad so it should be a fun season

Gone Daddy

This was our last free week before babysitting Tillie again. We had a busy week but fun. The weather was perfect so lots of outside activities. We went to visit grandpa George too. Daddy was out of time from Wednesday until Sunday night on a trip with Papa to visit the Our Time Camp he supports. We kept busy though.

Saturday I took the girls to Lincoln park zoo to enjoy the great day. I took the girls to the brewery for dinner then home for movie night. We had fun and the girls did great with just me.

Today we went to church. Annie went to Sunday school for the first time without a fuss! She just followed Sophie's big sister out and did awesome. It was the first time I sat in quiet during church. Then we went to our friend Miguel's first birthday party. Mia loves making new friends so she always has fun. She enjoyed making bead necklaces with some of the older girls than became buddies with a girl exactly her age. We got home late and the girls are pooped!

Annie is obsessed with babies. She plays baby all the time and at the party would not stop hugging, feeding, playing with little Mickey and another baby that was there.

Mia climbing the big tree climbing obstacle for the first time at the Zoo.


The girls enjoying an ice cream treat at the Zoo.


Annie hitting the piñata (took that dad in the photo to finally bust it open after several kiddo attempts)



The whole party gang


The can't get enough of their little friend Miguel :)

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Deep river water park

The girls and I went to deep river water park today with our friends the McManus'. It was a blast! Mia got to play with her bestie and Annie loved splashing in the kiddie pools and splash parks. There were tons of slides and lazy rivers. We will definitely go back. It was nice to catch up with my friend too. She is also training for the half so I love talking 'running' with her. The older girls were so cute with Annie too. We had a picnic lunch then all grabbed ice cream. My favorite part was taking Annie down the lazy river while Mia and her friend rode a tube.






Summer is winding down. I really am looking forward to cooler weather (read: better running weather) and fall!!
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Girls week

The girls and I spent Sunday-Sunday at the summer house with grandma. We had amazing weather and did lots of fun things. It was fun living in the country for a week :)






































We went to the Air Zoo (aviation museum) in Kalamazoo and rode on all of the rides and saw a movie about the moon, saw mommy and daddy's old apartment and had lunch at the Olde Peninsula brewery. We went blueberry picking at a new organic farm, went to Saugatuck and had lunch then took a Ferry boat ride up the river and out into Lake Michigan. We went to South Haven and had a beach day (the girls loved splashing in the waves) and saw where mommy used to teach at St. Basil's. We went to St. Joe's and visited the fountain park, carousel, children's museum then rented a Surrey bike and rode around before dinner on the lake. We went to Surfari Joe's again for the mini water park, swam at home in the pool and the little pool grandma bought the girls. We had dinner in Dowagiac at woodfire and drove home during a really neat thunder and lightning storm...lots of lightning out over the cornfields was really a sight! We had movie night on Saturday and campout in the big living room. We made blueberry scones with our fresh blueberries and went to Sprague's family farm to play with the trains and play houses. We blew bubbles, shopped, antiqued, ate, slept, laughed and had a great country week!

The only thing we didn't do was Mommy's 10k race at the peach festival on Saturday due to my running injury early in the week. Here's hoping I run it next year !

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