Here it is!!  The annual picture of the kids with two liters of pop!  Let me explain.  Each year Brian’s parents’ church has an Ice Cream Social which is a carnival event that raises money for Christ The King school in Kansas City, KS.  For years we have taken our kids and the ring toss to win two-liters of pop always seems to stick in everyone’s memory!  It always has the longest line and somehow the kids are successful at that particular game and we find ourselves loaded down with two-liters.  The funny thing is…we don’t even drink pop!  Hey-it’s all about the victory, success, and skill at throwing a ring over the top of a bottle of pop.  Just days ago when I was reminding kids about the upcoming weekend events and the social..I just said…”remember the games you play in the parking lot of Grandma’s church and you always win two-liters of pop”  Ohhhh yes, we love that night!  It’s also a high light for Grandma and Grandpa.  They always look forward to it and this one was particularly special because it happened to fall on their 50th wedding anniversary!  For them, the perfect way to celebrate is to be with grandkids so what a great night!  Happy Anniversary!

This is a flashback from last year…

2014

2013

2011

SAMSUNG

SAMSUNG

SAMSUNG

2010

2009

In addition to this game, there are many others and usually lots of prizes are won.  They love the Bingo, balloon animals, and the prizes.  I will never forget 2 years ago when Jake was so proud of winning a crock pot!  That’s when he decided he was going to start helping me in the kitchen and still to this day when I use that crock pot, he gets a giant smile on his face!  This year he came home with a knife set, so this young chef is ready to get into the kitchen.  Jake, I can’t wait to see what you start whipping up for us!!  Love that you have an interest in the culinary arts.  I can picture it now, you are going to be making food for all of your buddies in college.  He also came home with a watch, a bath and body kit, a remote control truck, and a snowman decoration.  Reece won a princess sleeping bag that she slept in overnight, Morgan and Drew came home with two liters, and Brian won some beer.  They are always SO PROUD of their prizes.  What a night!

The most funny thing that always makes me laugh when this day comes around is the ice cream.  I will always remember years ago when I experienced all of this for the first time, I looked at Brian and said….”so where is the actual ice cream at this ice cream social?”  ha!  Apparently they had already run out of ice cream that year.  And actually, it seems like ice cream is usually low priority on the list for the evenings agenda because not much was consumed this year either.

Anyone thirsty?…come on over!!

This is a flashback from 2009 when the neighborhood kids were having a toast with Jake’s grape flavored pop…CHEERS!

Each year before school starts we get together with the Lonergan family for our “Back to School Breakfast.”  It started out years ago when our good friend Jenny Doherty lived in KC and we would meet at a park, bring our breakfast, take pics of all of our kiddos, discuss who we got for teachers, and talk about the upcoming school years’ activities.  Jenny has since moved away to Texas (boo!) and Cara and I are trying our hardest to continue the tradition.  This is not an easy task with these two busy families!  But WE DID IT!  We met on Sunday morning for breakfast which really was lunch (the kids like to tease us that it’s not really breakfast).  Cara’s kids have already been in school about a week longer than us so we technically didn’t get it in before school started but the point is, we got it in and we had fun!  Wishing all of you an amazing school year!  And stop growing up please!

Here are the flashback photos!!

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

We have our first day of school in the books.  I have a to do list a mile long from the last 13 years and I am plugging away at it and still feeling like I haven’t made much progress.  I’m guessing pretty much everyone on the planet feels this same way and I’m going to cut myself some slack since I’m only 4 days in.  Reece seems to be adjusting like a champ to all day school.  I wish I could be a champ like her…what’s the secret!?  I think the secret is she gets to sit with her besties in her classroom, go to recess, eat lunch with friends, learn a few cool things, and still gets to play with a unicorn before and after school.  Jealous.Reece and Star Lily Unicorn waiting for the bus…

Reece & Star Lily waiting for the bus

Reece & Star Lily waiting for the bus

My hair expert (Morgan) is on the DL with her broken wrist so I’m trying my very best to make Reece presentable for school.  Actually, I’m kind of proud of myself with today’s hair do!  MoMo, I hope you approve.

And if she needs a change of pace, Reece always makes good use of anything she can find to serve as a gymnastics apparatus for Barbies.  This happens to be a pile of stuff from my master bedroom that I don’t know what to do with and is currently dangerously cluttering our entryway.  I promise to get to it.  promise.  And if I don’t…Reece you have acquired an awesome gymnastics bar for your dolls.  Love you to pieces. XOXO

Morgan participated in her 1st soccer tournament with her new team this past weekend (Challenger Fall Classic). Her coach works for Challenger Sports and manages many Challenger Tournaments throughout the Midwest.   The weather was so great and she worked really hard even with that crazy cast on her arm.  Unfortunately, her team lost their 3 games.  The first game they definitely had a chance to win but lost 2-1.  The second game would have been a close one as well.  They played well in the second half but just didn’t turn it on soon enough.  The last game on Sunday was a little rough but they were playing a team that was at the top of the division above.  Not to mention we have 2 girls with broken wrists and one with a hamstring injury.  Yikes!  Not really the way Coach Ben probably wanted to start the season.

Keep up the hard work MoMo, there’s always another game to be played and I’m certain your team will be on the winning end again.  I love watching you play!

And you have to get a kick out of Reece packed and ready for Morgan’s Sunday game…

This is an email letter we received on 8/11/16 from Sean, the assistant golf pro at Lake Quivira, regarding the Jr. League season:

First of all I would just like to thank each and every one of you for your help and co-operation throughout the year. It was a pleasure being the team captain and getting to work with all the kids. This was a great experience for me and hopefully all the kids had a great experience also. We did finish in the bottom of our league but we had the youngest, least experienced team and we caused a couple of upsets by beating CC of Leawood and we tied with Blue Hills. These are great results to build on for next year.

For a couple of our players, the year is not over just yet. From our league, an All-Star team has been selected by the captains of each team. Lake Quivira earned two spots on the team to play against the other private club league in the city on August 20^th. Cade Scherzer and Jake Conley have been selected to represent Lake Quivira on the All-Star team. We wish them all the best in their upcoming match and hopefully they can progress on to the later stages of that competition.

Finally, please try to continue bringing your kids out to play and practice, even if it is just once a week. This will make a huge difference when it comes to competitive action next season and hopefully their interest in the game will grow further. If you need any help with anything at all, please don’t hesitate to ask myself, Chris or Tom and we will be happy to assist.

Thanks again to everyone for an enjoyable year and I look forward to next year.

Regards,

Sean Cleary

Assistant Golf Professional

Lake Quivira CC

Jake, I wanted to keep this letter for you because it’s something you should be very proud of and a great memory!  This past Saturday, Jake played in his matches at Hallbrook Country Club with teammates assigned from Blue Hills and Hallbrook.  Each boy played 6 of the 9 holes and sits out for 3.  This was the lineup for his team (I have to include this just in case one of these boys becomes famous one day) 😉

4:20 Match

Jackson Ackerman (HBCC)

Jake Conley (LQCC)

Jimmy Welsh (BHCC)

Welsh sits out holes #1-3, Conley sits out holes #4-6, Ackerman sits out #7-9

Overall the South KC team fell short against the North KC team which caused a sad face from Mr. Competitive…

The winning teams went on to play on Sunday in Bolivar, MO at Silo Ridge Golf & Country Club.

Jakers I’m so proud of all you have accomplished this summer in this Jr. Golf League.  You are such a hard worker and dedicated competitor.  Keep your chin up, it’s an honor to just be selected for the team!  You are absolutely an ALL STAR in every sense.

Happy to show off his All Star pin and new head cover received as gifts from the tournament.

It’s Morgan’s turn…1st day of 8th grade!  She doesn’t wear makeup often but today we decided we should touch her up a bit to hide her bike accident scratches.  Isn’t she precious?  She was face-timing with her friend Emma last night on what to wear to school today.   Oh I remember those days!  Great memories!  She’s still having some pain in her arm and I’m worrying about her every second but I know she will push through.  Four weeks from now she’ll be a professional 8th grader, healed, and a few pounds lighter on the right arm.  MoMo, we hope you have an AWESOME day today!!

Here are Ava & Brooke again (our big high-schoolers) and all the girls in our driveway breakfast group this morning…

and here are the boys (minus Conor Stout who was sick).  Feel better Conor!

I absolutely cannot resist our littlest crew.  Max Stowell & Olivia are in Kindergarten and Reece 1st grade.  I’m pretty sure these 3 are going to rule the school by Friday.  Hope the teachers are ready!Bye MoMo…you will be missed my sweet girl (I forgot to take a picture of you actually getting on the bus because I was chatting…you really are on that bus).   Don’t forget to be nice to the bus driver!

My kids might explode if they hear me say that one more time.  I’m trying to explain that the bus driver has a really important and super hard job so we need to treat them well and pretty much butter them up!  A lot of kids are not nice to bus drivers and then the drivers get crabby (I would too!) and makes for a bad bus experience.  I’ll be quiet now about the bus drivers.  Until tomorrow morning…

Drew was not in the best frame of mind this morning because it was a P.E. day and he wanted to wear ‘sports clothes.’  I only allow them to wear sports clothes on their P.E. days which gets categorized as pure torture around here.  I really wanted him to wear a nice outfit on Morgan’s first day so I made a deal that he could wear sports clothes an extra day next week.  I also make them take fruit for their school ‘re-fueling’ snack and don’t allow electronics on the bus.  I know…I know…worst mom ever.

Drew Boo…you look so handsome!  I hope I haven’t completely ruined your day.  I know you are going to have an awesome school year!

You guys look great!!

I’m not going to lie, it’s been a rough morning for me.  This is my first full day with all of my kids in school.  I keep tearing up and trying to pull it together.  I always wish for more time.  I’m not good with idle time, I always feel like I should be getting something accomplished.  So I sit here with a list a mile long of things I have wanted to get to over the last 13 years, it’s almost 2pm. and I already need to leave in 40 minutes to get Morgan.  I can’t wait to see her and I’ll be waiting by the door for the bus to pull up so I can take in the other 3 and drill them with questions about their day.  Sorry guys…mom’s want to know every little detail…get used to it, it’s just the way life is.  I hope your day was awesome and hoping each day will get a little easier for me too.  I did manage to get a golf lesson in today and poor Chris is probably exhausted after being with me talking about my kids and Morgan’s accident.  Sorry Chris…next time I promise I will focus.

Happy first FULL day of school!!

What…how did that happen…Summer is over!?  Today I’m sending Reece to 1st grade, Drew to 3rd grade, and Jake to 5th grade.  Wow that sounds really old!  Or maybe that just makes me old?  Either way, this mom is not ready to say goodbye to summer and hello to homework, making lunches, and millions of sports practices.  Oh well summer fun has to come to an end sometime and maybe we might get to bed before 11 soon.  I’m blaming it on the Olympics.  We can’t stop watching it!  I feel like I’m back in the days of the Royals in the playoffs and world series when families went to bed late night after night and everyone in the city was walking around in a fog.

Each year we all gather in our driveway for donuts and pictures with the neighborhood kids.  My kids absolutely love doing this.  They’ve been asking me for days if I had it set up and the food ready, etc.  So cute.  Don’t worry guys…I’ve got this under control.  I love how they are looking out for me (or themselves really).  Most years we have two days of celebrating because the kids start on different days.  Today was the high schoolers 1st day (yes, we now have kids in our group that are in high school!  Ava & Brooke…hope your 1st day was awesome!  The 6th graders started today and all of the elementary aged kids.  So, this means Morgan did not start today – one last day of summer vacay for her but she was outside with us this morning looking adorable.

look at this flashback photo…holy moly my girls are growing up!!

I love seeing all the new school clothes, backpacks, and perfect new shoes which will likely be scuffed by the end of this first half day of school (and knowing Jake and Drew they will be asking for new shoes by next week).  The anticipation and preparation for this day is overwhelming for all moms and we want everything to go perfectly.  This is why a neighborhood friend of mine hosts moms at her house for mimosas after the kids are dropped off!

Reece loves peacocks so we found this snazzy peacock backpack for her this year!  The boys are using last years because they were still in great shape (thanks boys!).

Meet Liv & Maddie Stowell our neighbors and friends across the street.  Liv is Drew’s 3rd grade buddy and Maddie is Jake’s 5th grade buddy for several years now.  We like to joke that they will get married one day (that would be two very cute & stylish couples).  For now, I wish all of these kids were still babies so let’s not jump ahead!

Liv Stowell 3rd Grade

Maddie Stowell 5th Grade

And Aunt Jenn always makes an appearance on the 1st day of school (donuts in hand)…she’s kind of famous around the neighborhood 😉

Reece’s bestie, Olivia,  started Kindergarten today!

I hope every single one of these kids has the best day ever, feel great in their new clothes, love their teachers and classrooms and have a successful school year!  And may the force be with all of us that are sending our babies to school all day for the first time tomorrow.  A new chapter begins…

Jake is famous for this move….putting the window down and waving at us each morning.  Hoping he doesn’t get in trouble for this…new bus driver…yikes!

At 11:35 we were patiently waiting on the side of the school.  Sure enough there was a mix up.  Jake got in the walkers line, Drew got in the bus line and Reece got in the carpool line. The secretary called me asking if I had Reece because the boys were in the office looking for her.  She was MIA for a minute.  Apparently we should try not to stray from the normal way of getting home because they were CONFUSED.  Not to worry, everyone had a great day and we enjoyed a family lunch at Austin’s.

Finally, I will leave you with this funny video of Reece at Austin’s bar & grill.  She has some great moves doesn’t she!?  Enjoy!

For some reason the Olathe Schools seem to be starting back to school a week later this year because all of my other friends have kiddos in school already!  Tonight was our night to go meet our teachers, drop off our school supplies, and see our classrooms.  I love this night.  Even though it’s a total zoo and chaotic, I just find it so exciting that we get to see where the kids will spend a majority of their time over the next 10 months!  We typically get there early for good parking and truthfully we are always in a time crunch to get to a practice or two.

We went to Drew’s 3rd grade classroom first.  He has Mrs. Berg this year and she has been at Manchester Park since it opened 13 years ago.  Her room is perfect and Drew has several good friends in his class so I can already tell this is going to be an awesome year for Drew!

Drew & friend Jordy Nelson

Next we visited the 5th grade hallway  to meet Jake’s teacher Mrs. Petty.  She is also a Manchester Park veteran and I hear nothing but amazing things about her.  Although Jake does not have a group of close friends in his class, I am confident he is going to have a great school year with Mrs. Petty and will be well prepared for middle school!  You are going to rock this Jakers! (and you have a cute new school haircut).  Love you buddy.

Finally we made it to Reece’s 1st grade classroom to meet Mrs. Lawrence.  This is her 4th year at Manchester Park and Reece’s desk group contains two of her besties, Lila Ho and Stella Robinson.  Does it get much better than this!?  Although, this is absolutely killing me to send my baby off all day long to school, I know she is 100% ready for this.  In fact, when I tucked her in to bed tonight she was so upset that the first day was only a half day.  She wanted to be at school all day to eat lunch and be with her friends.  This is gratifying and sad all at the same time.  Reece, I hope you love every minute of school, your new classroom, your teacher, and all the fun things that elementary school offers.

Now it was time to head to Prairie Trail Middle School to drop off a few more school supplies for Morgan and to try her locker again.  Her locker needed some repairs so we wanted to be sure they had been taken care of for her.  All was well!

The swelling is still hanging around in her lip a little bit and the scrapes are scabbing and darkening which doesn’t make this 8th grader very happy but to me she is still the prettiest girl in the school.  We are hoping for the injuries to become a little less visible by next Friday because it’s picture day of course!

Each year I give the kids a small gift and a gushy note the night before school starts.Jake read Reece her note…melts my heart!They all got Klitch clips…clips to hang their smelly cleats and slides from their sports bags!

Ignore the fact that the boys are in their underwear!

I hope your first day of school is so amazing!!

The morning before school starts a group of neighborhood families meet at 8am for a bike ride to Price Chopper for donuts.  I think this tradition has been going on for a few years but this is our 2nd year participating.  My kids love this!  They had their clothes laid out and the bikes ready to roll (actually Reece slept in her outfit because she was afraid of not having enough time to get ready).  In fact, I was getting in trouble for not waking them up earlier than 7:20 to get to the meeting spot!  I woke Reece up and she popped out of bed and said…I really need to wake up…I’m going to do a few karate chops to get myself awake.  Ummm…Ok…an interesting way to start the morning but nothing surprises me with this crazy girl!!  I sooooo wish I had a video of that karate chopping session!

Most of the time the little kids can’t make the trip to the grocery store in its entirety because it contains a few inclines that tire them out.  Last year Reece rode in a stroller and this year she was riding Drew’s bike all the way there.  This shows you how much she has grown in a years’ time!  I was so proud of her this morning.  She rocked it on that bigger bike!  Drew is not an expert at bike-riding so he stuck to what he loves best…a razor scooter.  Jake took his newly remodeled bike hand-me down from Morgan and Morgan borrowed Brooke Dearmore’s bike.  Usually we will drive our cars to the starting point just in case kids are too tired to make it back but this year I was braving it and fully confident we could make it.

Last year we had a few bike issues…so we just stash them in the bushes and come back to get them later.

This big group invades the price chopper bakery, cleans them out of donuts, and takes over every table.  It’s super fun and I’m happy our family gets to be a part of it!

You may notice that Morgan is not in our group picture.  She was scheduled to babysit a little girl and her mom was picking her up at 9:15a.m.  She wanted to get home and get some toys packed up for her and be prepared so she went ahead and left on her bike.  A few minutes later my phone rang and Morgan was on the other end crying pretty hard saying she had gotten into a bike accident and she was hurt.  I quickly asked my friends to look after my other 3 and ran to find Morgan who was just past the grocery store in the grass by the nearby apartments.  Apparently, she had started picking up speed and it scared her as she approached a golf cart passing so she hit the hand brake but it was the front wheel brake which caused her to flip over the handlebars. She had a bloody lip and scrapes on her face and was holding her arm.  I was immediately afraid that she had fractured her wrist as she has in the past and passers-by were asking if we needed help.  Her teeth were in tact and she was able to walk so I started walking the bike as she walked beside me.   We still had quite a walk to get home.  Soon our neighbor Jackie pulled up and got Morgan home for me in her car and I continued walking the bike.  I ran into another neighbor (Morgan’s friends Ava, Ellie, Clara, & their mom Jessica).  I told them what happened and they offered to help me by loading up the bike in their car and taking me home to Morgan.  THANK YOU FRIENDS!   When I arrived home to Morgan she was very upset and given her history with fractured wrists, I knew we needed to get to urgent care for x-rays.

Even with a broken wrist…teenagers still find a way to use their phones!The urgent care doctor confirmed a buckle fracture in her right wrist.  She stabilized it with a piece of foam and an ace bandage to save us money and sent us on our way to the Ortho Doc.  By noon, she was casted and home to complete her babysitting job (thank you Brian for babysitting!).  He had been in Miami and as he always does, he calls me when he lands in KC.  Unfortunately it wasn’t a fun conversation as I had to beg him to get home quickly to babysit for Morgan so I could take her to urgent care.  ugh!

She chose a lime green cast to go with Aunt Jenn’s wedding colors and should have it off 3 days post wedding – a 4 week healing process.  MoMo, I know this is not the way you wanted to start your 8th grade year but I can’t tell you how proud I am of you being so brave and amazing.  You are so tough and I am so thankful that these are the only injuries you sustained.  Whatever you may need help with – I’m on it.  You are going to be back to normal activity in no time and I am praying for a perfect recovery.  Feeling so blessed you are ok MoMo.  I love you.

This will be a back to school donut run we will never forget!

Each summer we make a summer fun list.  The purpose is to basically have a bucket list of items we would like to do and when we are bored we refer to the list for ideas.  Around here, our family schedule seems to be constantly busy so sometimes we don’t need ideas to fill up our time!  Nevertheless, having a sleepover at Shauna and Scott’s house always makes the list and we managed to squeeze it in at the very last minute.  The kids really look forward to this night because it only happens once a year!  Imagine that anticipation!  They generally take a ride around the golf course they live on or have a putting contest, watch a movie, and this year they added in a few rounds of wiffle ball.  They like to give Aunt Shauna a hard time because she doesn’t come off as the most athletic of the bunch but she showed off a bit I heard.  You go girl…show ’em how its done!At Shauna’s house all of the bedrooms are downstairs except for the master bedroom.  Needless to say, any child under the age of 15 is scared to death and won’t step foot downstairs unless a grown-up is within eyesight.  So they usually set up a slumber party upstairs.  It’s been under the dining room table in the past but since they have remodeled their dining room it’s not really slumber party friendly anymore!  This year they created the slumber party on couches and a few patio lounge chair cushions on the floor.  Why not…it’s a slumber party…it’s supposed to be out of the ordinary sleeping arrangements right!?  A wonderful time was had by all and we are certain it will take every bit of a year for S&S to recover after 4 busy kids wore them out.  Thank you Aunt Shauna & Uncle Scott for being awesome and loving these kids to bits.

Aunt Jenn and Bob get the pleasure of hosting sleepovers at their place too!  They usually host a summer sleepover as well and we barely got it in the schedule this year.  Aunt Jenn is very busy getting her wedding together so we try not to bug her too much.  However, she came to the rescue and saved my children from horrendous paint fumes and had them overnight.  Thank you Aunt Jenn & Bob!  I only have one picture because Aunt Jenn’s phone ran out of battery – Morgan was actually there but maybe she was in the pool!?

Let us know if you want to be added to the summer fun list next year!!  I’ve got 4 kiddos that would LOVE to keep you company for the evening…