Who on earth can look good in a basketball outfit like this?  These uniforms are the original ones purchased when the school opened and they are ugly and uncomfortable I’m told on a regular basis.  You should see the warm-up sweat suits…whoa…that’s a sight!  Maybe it’s just because I’m her mom, but I think Morgan looks pretty darn cute!  You couldn’t pay me to put that outfit on!

Today I needed to go to Morgan’s school to get her cello for a concert and I happened to be there at the same time as the basketball players were walking out of the school and getting on the bus to their ‘away’ game.  It honestly choked me up!  Those 8th grade girls getting on that bus with their giant bags of gear in their uniforms…it was precious.  I spotted Morgan and I teared up.  MoMo, I know you are going to make fun of me for that!  They are stinkin’ cute and I’m proud of these girls for all the work they put into being student athletes.  They practice everyday after school until 5:30 and many of them eat a granola bar in the car and go straight to soccer practice for another hour or more.  When they finally get home, they generally have a lot of homework and in Morgan’s case, she has an orchestra concert to prepare for!  These ladies are juggling a lot at the age of 13.  Well I’m here to tell you that it does not go unnoticed by me!  I’m your biggest fan and I commend you for what you do each day.  I’m also embarrassed to admit that I circled the school twice trying to catch another glimpse of the BB girls and had a split second feeling that I wanted to follow the bus.  I need help…I know.  Like I said…I’m embarrassed!

Tuesday’s game was at Indian Trail (my alma mater!!) and Morgan cracked me up by saying how OLD the school was!  ha!   Compared to Prairie Trail, it is definitely an older school, but when I went to school there it sure seemed great!  Thursday’s game was at Oregon Trail which is also an older school…you know…the bleachers are actually wood instead of heavy-duty plastic.  I have to say I am really getting a kick out of going to all of these middle schools that I used to cheer at when I was in junior high!  It’s very nostalgic and I swear they are doing the same cheers I learned back then.  I can’t believe I’m a mom of a student playing sports at these schools now.  Why is time passing so quickly!?  It seems like yesterday that I thought I was hot stuff putting on that cheerleading skirt and hanging out with my friends at those schools.

Way to go huskies…a 22-8 win against the Tigers.  It was a slow start…I swear it was 2-2 for almost half the game!  Whew…glad that turned around!  You can see it really caught Reece’s interest..

and Morgan’s too…ha!

Go-Fight-Win Huskies!!

Rock those OLD uniforms girls…See you at the next game!  By the way, Reece is already asking if she can wear a PRT shirt.  Get ready!

I love music…all types (except country!), I love musicals, symphonies, concerts…all of it! So if you need a date for any of these events…I’m your girl (hint, hint)!  I also love Halloween, so when this Spooktacular concert comes around every October, I’m so excited! The students dress in costumes, they play great music, and compete in a fun costume contest. This year was even better because we could see Morgan play the cello and my nephew Collin play the violin!  Each Prairie Trail grade level (6,7, & 8) played three songs and they are amazing.  I’m serious, these little people are very talented!

Morgan, Reece, and I scurried out of her basketball game at Oregon Trail (a big 22-8 win by the way!), she changed into her costume in the car while Reece slammed down a PB&J for dinner and we arrived at Olathe Northwest high school to save seats front and center.  I’m not sure Reece and I are the best people for this job because it requires us to take more than our fair share of programs to lay over the seats, and push other families off.  We even used Reece’s library books and homework papers to mark the seats.  And to be clear, we are monopolizing the section by saving 16!  Next time I’m taking reinforcements (i.e. Aunt Jenn).

The 8th graders host and judge the costume contest and guess who is a two-time winner now!?  Drum roll please….Morgan “the drink” Conley!!  Woo hoo!!  You deserve this win, MoMo, you were the cutest and most creative homemade costume on that stage!  Check out her win on this super short YouTube video clip…

As Morgan and I were hanging out on the beach together in Turks and Caicos last week, we came up with this costume idea.  Morgan loves strawberry daiquiri’s (minus alcohol of course) and I think she had about 20 on our trip!  So we decided to make this cutie into a tropical drink for Halloween!

I searched all over town for a large paper umbrella, scrounged up things out of my craft room, and pestered my sister for items and wa-lah… this little strawberry daquiri/pink lemonade/fruit punch girl is so ADORABLE!  I love that it was inspired from an amazing vacation and quality time spent together.  Mo, you are forever my beach partner! 

Collin was a Royals player and also adorable (Collin, aren’t you a Royals player every Halloween!?)

I love you both to pieces and I can’t wait for your next concert!!  Keep up the hard work because you are very talented.

Thank you awesome family for supporting our little musicians!

And who can forget this!?  Here is a flashback from Morgan’s costume contest win last year…Royals Super Fan!

And I’m including these YouTube videos specifically for Uncle Scott Schwart who also loves music and orchestra concerts (wink, wink!).  I knew you would want to hear what you missed out on last night…

I’m just joking with you Scotty!

See…these 8th graders are REALLY GOOD!!

Today I finally had a chance to look at the 400+ photos taken at Jake’s 11th birthday party! That’s waaaaay too many pictures, but there was a lot that went on the evening of September 30th!  Going through them has made me smile from ear to ear!  Jake is so blessed to have spent a wonderful evening with family and friends.  Ok so lets be honest, there’s a few late nights involved in getting this all together for my sweet boy so I’m really just thrilled that I made it through and everything exceeded my expectations.

The weather was beautiful and we happened to have the day off school so Jake and Drew got to play a round of golf with Dad and Uncle Bob to start out the day!  lucky!  Jake shot one of his best rounds too.  Way to go golfers!  By the way, I was home slaving away kiddos;)

At 5:30pm the Olympic Games began!  We started out with an opening ceremony with a torch and the athlete parade.  This is the best group of people to do this with…these kiddos love competing!

EVENT 1: Soccer Shootout.  points winner: Jake (we had a few on the DL)

EVENT 2: Javelin (points winners: Aidan & Jackson)

Event 3: Long Jump (points winner: Jackson)

Event 4: Swimming Relay (carrying a water balloon on a spoon while wearing goggles and using your free arm to do a swim stroke)  HILARIOUS!!!

 

Event 5: Sprint (points winner: Jackson)  These kids are crazy fast runners and it was UPHILL!!  I’m guessing that a few of them were sore the next morning!

Event 6: Putting Contest (Points winners: Jake, Reece, Aidan, & Max)

And our overall winners by a tight margin were…

Bronze : Jackson Mervosh (58 points)

Silver: Aidan Boehmer (62 points)

Gold: Jake Conley Bday Boy (64 points)

Congratulations athletes…all of you were such great sports and absolutely a blast to watch!

Jake received so many nice cards and gifts – anything and everything sports and this 11 year old is a very happy guy (and spoiled rotten)!

I cannot even describe how much fun all of us had (kids and adults!)…this might be my favorite party yet!  Except I think I may say that every time.  I think I’m actually ‘for real’ this time!

Thank you Jake for being awesome and telling me thank you multiple times for all that went in to planning this party.  I enjoyed every minute of it (sleep deprived and burnt from my hot glue gun and all).  I love you so much buddy.  Thank you friends and family for taking time out of your crazy busy schedules to celebrate with our family.  Seriously…a total blast!

I’m giving my hot glue gun a break and just enjoying going through these memories… Happy Fall everyone!

He called me “Carebear” in the deepest gruff voice you’ve ever heard.  He would say hello to me with a gigantic firm hug that would practically knock the wind out of me every single time.  He always greeted Brian with the Sigma Chi handshake and a Miller Lite.  He was my uncle, an outdoors-man, a cowboy, and a dedicated family man.  His presence will be deeply missed and may he rest in peace and no longer suffer.

 

 

Ok so this is a little overdue because this project has been complete for several weeks now already!  It’s amazing how quickly I get behind on things.  Some of you may know that I had gotten to the point where the decor in my bedroom was literally making me mad on a daily basis.  Ok maybe that’s a little extreme, but I was certainly very tired of it.  We built and moved into our house in November of 2002 and I decorated my room just exactly how I wanted it.  Well, after 14 years, I could not stand one more day of looking at the same stuff in my room.  Thankfully I have a super generous husband that gave me a gift of redecorating the space!  Part of me was a little hesitant to spend a lot of effort and money on a bedroom which visitors never see but honestly, I actually spend a ton of time in here.  Most of the time is spent folding piles of laundry which is almost a full-time job in this household.  We also have a large sitting area that really wasn’t being used.  I made a decision to make it into my office!  So I’m sitting here right now writing this blog and entering in 5,000 soccer games into our family calendar with a giant smile on my face.  I love this newly transformed bedroom, office, and bathroom…it’s amazing.  Apparently everyone else in the family does to because if I ever need to find a child, they are in here hanging out!  Morgan does her homework in here most of the time and I absolutely love that my family wants to be in here now!  So long brown everything….hello bright and beautiful!

BEFORE

AFTER

Thank you Brian and Brooke for making me the happiest person.  I literally can’t wait to come in here each day.

 

Today was Morgan’s 1st 8th grade basketball game!  Prairie Trail played California Trail at CT and won 25-17…way to go Huskies!!  Morgan played really hard and scored 6 points today.  So proud of you MoMo!  What a great way to start the season.

On game days, the girls are supposed to dress up for school and she left the house this morning looking so adorable!  A nice black dress, scarf, boots & jean jacket…you’ll just have to envision this because the bus came before I could get a pic.  Sorry!  Trust me, she looked great.  I may be borrowing her outfit if I need to dress up for something!  It’s such a nice change of pace from the t-shirts, shorts, and athletic-wear that normally rolls out of here in the morning!  Regardless of what she wears, her hair always looks amazing.  She’s totally a perfectionist in the hair department!  I could use a lesson from her.  Actually, I may be a lost cause by now.

Since we have the day off school tomorrow Brian and Morgan rigged up a plan to go downtown to The Beast Haunted House.  I think they are absolutely insane to spend $30 to go into an old building and get scared out of your mind!  I remember going one time when I was young with a group of friends, and I never went back!  You actually couldn’t pay me to go to one of those places!  I was scared just being on the website today buying the tickets!  I had to use the promo code “clownsarescary” to get $5 off per ticket.  Given this weird clown frenzy that is going around the country, I’m not sure if I think that is funny or creepy!?  Either way, I believe this group of girls and dads are going to have a very memorable night!!  Have so much fun!

By the way, you guys need to get home…we have a 6am flight tomorrow!

 

Go to a Daisy’s meeting.  Check.  I did it Reece, I’ve already delivered on my pinky promise to go to a Daisy’s meeting this school year!  In fact, I was the helper today.  It was super fun too!  We shared our scrapbook pages we did from the fire station field trip last month…

We created new scrapbook pages for our pumpkin patch field trip…

and we decorated pumpkins!   I love Halloween, I love pumpkins, and I love decorating – this is my kind of meeting!  

Look how great these pumpkins look!  And the best part is we get to take them to a nursing home for the residents to enjoy!  Great job girls!

Getting 13 little 1st grade girl scouts to stay focused after a full school day is not the easiest job in the world I’ve discovered.  It’s sort of like herding cats.   I love you girls but I’m also thankful I’m not your leader.   Oops…did I just say that!?  What I meant to say was, thank you Kim Ho for being an awesome leader! 😉

I actually had a great time this afternoon and I can see myself trying a little harder to come to a few more meetings if my schedule allows.  Thank you Reece for doing such a great job today, listening to directions, and sharing snacks – cheetos, skittles, & juice boxes – best after school snack ever!

Speaking of schedule…I laid down for bed last night and I started going through my plans for today as I usually do.  It really makes your brain hurt and I had to resort to sending my own self an email about what I need to do today.  That’s scary isn’t it!?  May the force be with me today – if I get off schedule one minute a kiddo will be left or dropped off at the wrong place and time.  I even printed this out to share with Jake and Morgan this morning.  They love to know the schedule for the day.  I don’t know if I’m teaching them good habits or hindering them!  Are they going to be completely crazy adults one day!?  I personally hope they stay organized 😉  I need to leave RIGHT NOW to get to PRT to pick up morgan for an orthodontics appt…I cannot get off schedule already, I’m only on step 1 of the day! Love you guys…we got this!!

 

While we are on the topic of soccer, one of my good friends is married to Jake’s soccer coach.  Her name is Jen Herrington and she has been bravely battling breast cancer this past year.  My family supports the fight against ALL cancers but October happens to be Breast Cancer Awareness Month!  An opportunity came up for me to submit her picture and story for the breast cancer awareness Wall of Honor at the gym I go to, Healthridge Fitness Center.  I jumped at the chance and here are a few pics.  Love you  Jen.

This is us last year…soccer moms and friends…giving the Herrington’s a very pink Christmas tree full of gift cards for their family.

Jake supporting Jen…

I wore this for her on the day of her first chemo treatment.  She is a fighter, a wife, a mommy of two, and she’s awesome.  This family only wishes her the very best future.  She deserves it.

And a few more things we LOVE are Charlie Hustle shirts and Lokai bracelets!  They are VERY popular with Morgan and if you look around you see these bracelets on a lot of wrists in different colors. Morgan has several and they all support various charitable causes.  The breast cancer t-shirts are completely sold out, so thankfully we got ours!  We gave a shirt to Jen and a bracelet and we will be wearing ours too-thinking of her and supporting the fight.

 

And Morgan had new pink rubberbands put on her braces in honor of breast cancer awareness!  Love that you are willing to be a part of important charitable causes.  Stay kind sweet girl. XOXO, Mom

 

 

I absolutely love the confidence that this  guy has regarding soccer.  Unfortunately, it didn’t really play out as planned.  It’s ok, there’s always another tournament!  Trust me, just look at my calendar and you can find any number of upcoming games and tournaments.  I’m not worried at all.  The most important thing is, all 4 of you played so hard this weekend and that’s what you are supposed to do!  I’m proud of all of you for hanging in there, playing some fierce competition and keeping your head up.  And hey, you did score some goals and win some games!!  You just didn’t happen to come home with a medal.  No big deal…your championship win is coming, I promise.

Reece won both of her games and she even scored a goal for the other team!  It was “silent weekend” so no coaching allowed from the sidelines and she got a little turned around;)

And on a happy note, I did actually accomplish a few things in between games here in KC!  I got to go shopping with my girls for items for our vacation and got their outfits laid out including hair accessories!  Which my sister and I like to get a good laugh about…it takes about an hour just to pick accessories out and we all know that Reece will yank them off her head within 5 minutes!  We have too many hair accessories for a girl that really doesn’t appreciate them.

We also managed to clean out our toy bins in the family room and discovered we have 71 pairs of sunglasses (and I’m sure there’s more hidden in this house somewhere).  It’s safe to say that sunglasses are not on the vacay ‘things to purchase’ list!

The one thing I didn’t get fully accomplished was getting the Halloween decorations out.  shoot!  But my little crafters did get a Halloween banner made and Morgan worked diligently on a haunted house (Reece has completely taken it over and plays with all of her animals around it…so funny!).

Good job girls!  I absolutely LOVED spending time with you this weekend.  And I’ve come to the realization that Reece is much better behaved when the boys aren’t here 😉

XOXO,

Mommy

 

This past Friday night, I had to opportunity to take Reece to the Sprint Center to see the Olympics Final Five gymnastics tour.  We had an absolute blast!  What a great show!  It was a struggle to decide which fun event to attend this night…the outdoor movie at the school that a lot of her friends were going to or the gymnastics show.  Thank you Brian for driving to the Sprint Center to get the tickets for us!!  I’m so happy we did this since it only comes around every 4 years anyway.  In fact I took Morgan in 2012 for the Fierce Five and loved it then too!

The two main stars were Aly Rainsman and Simone Biles from the Final Five but there were also past gymnasts like Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin, many great male gymnastics champions, and acrobatics champions too.  Reece really loved watching Tiffani Williams & Axcel Osborne – the acrobatics pair champions.  Pretty amazing!

This little sweetie was so fun to be with and thanked me over and over again for taking her and she told me loves spending time with me!  It melted my heart.

So of course I had to get her something at the merchandise stand.  She was talking me into the $85 Olympics replica leotard but I was saved from myself because they were out of her size!  We ended up with a program and a final five t-shirt.  She has been wearing the t-shirt now for 3 days and the program has been shown to anyone that crosses her path.  $50 well spent.  I did stuff my purse with snacks and juice boxes to save on concessions.  Here is a pic of her enjoying a can of pringles of course 😉

A bit of an expensive girls night out, but a night I will never forget and I’m certain she won’t either.  I love you to pieces and had so much fun with you Reecie!

We realized at the end of the night that we hadn’t taken any pictures of the two of us together.  We decided to take a picture as I was putting her to bed (in her new t-shirt of course!).  We CRACKED UP…we are for sure amateurs in the selfie department.  Hoping that fad will pass and we can all just go back to taking normal pictures where we look decent and not like aliens with chopped off body parts. But for now, we were the only two home so this had to do the trick!

P.S. Thank you Aunt Jenn for taking Morgan to her cold 9:30pm soccer game so I could do this with Reece!