A few days ago I was relaxing under an umbrella in 90 degree weather finishing a book that had been in my bedside basket since July and enjoying this beautiful place in Cabo…Brian and I took a little siesta and left the kiddos home with overworked and underpaid babysitters tending to schoolwork, carpooling, and Autumn leaves.  Thank goodness for family help…we are so blessed!Drew got to go to his first Nascar race at the KS Speedway with Uncle Greg and Collin!

As much as I LOVE the beach, I absolutely can’t stand missing one single thing my kids do.  Hence the reason why this trip was rescheduled 2 or 3 times!!  And even after all that, we managed to miss this beautiful girl attending her high school end of season golf banquet!  We are SO PROUD OF YOU MORGAN!!  And thank you Nanny and Papa for escorting her…we knew she was in great hands!

And we missed Drew have the best game of his season in the last outdoor game…

yes…I’m now on Twitter after my long quest to avoid social media.

We came back to bitter temperatures in KC compared to the 90’s in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.   When I saw Drew putting on shorts for school, I decided to tip him off that it was really cold outside so he better dress warm.  It was taking him FOREVER to come downstairs and when he finally arrived he had layered himself with 4 shirts and 3 pairs of pants!!  He really took my comment seriously!  This was the best laughing start to the morning…Drew you are the CUTEST!!

We had to bust out the hand warmers and heaters for these kiddos playing sports outside.  By my final game Saturday night, I literally had frost crystallizing on my blankets!  I was frosting over!

Jake and his Bulldogs baseball team took the fall season off but decided to play in the Old Man Winter tourney.  It was absolutely brutally cold for baseball but they finished 3rd and played some amazing baseball considering many of them haven’t touched a baseball since summer and half of our team is new!  They were hoping for a championship win but fell just a couple runs short in the semi-finals.  Jake got a new glove and bag so he thinks he’s hot stuff regardless!  They are so fun to watch and we were happy to have our catcher, David Garcia, for the tournament.  He is moving on to a new team in the Spring after many years with us, so we are sad to see him go.  Way to go Bulldogs!  I don’t have any pictures 😦  I think I was too frozen.

In addition to our final outdoor games, Morgan and I walked in the Strides for Kansas City Breast Cancer walk in honor of our friend, Jen Herrington!  I’ve written about her before, she’s awesome, and we love to support her when we can.  Even if it means stretching a tiny t-shirt over my ski coat and trying to walk 3.2 miles while numb from the waist down.Our team name was Jenny’s Jiggler’s…Jen designed the t-shirts and everyone laughed at me because I didn’t notice the picture she drew in the ‘g’s.  Get it!?  I’m just not that witty I guess 😉  We love you Jen!

After thawing out, Morgan and I grabbed Starbucks for breakfast.  I love hanging with my girl, she makes me smile.  She ordered a hot chocolate and a warm chocolate brownie!  That a girl!  MoMo, when you get to be my age, you order a green tea and a spinach egg white wrap.  It’s really not as fun as some good ‘ol chocolate overload for breakfast!

Meanwhile we are prepping for my favorite holiday tomorrow!  Sneak peak at my girls…and pumpkin patch pictures will be coming too!

We were paid up and registered for another parent-kid golf tourney at Burning Tree in DeSoto, but last minute, it was cancelled because we were the only ones signed up!  They continue to  offer these tourney’s to raise money for the hitting net they acquired.  We decided to go ahead and donate our money and still play golf on our own.  We made our own scramble with our teams…

And this very sweet brother turned in all of his 600+ tickets to get this sequin color changing journal for Reece.  She’s been dying for one of these and he absolutely made her day…and mine for being so kind!  

First of all, just excuse Jake’s hair in these pictures.  Somehow we have apparently run out of time to get him a haircut!  Yikes!  As I type this, we have already fixed it…I took him for a cut right after school today.Jake’s Panthers BB team has been playing tournaments off and on when it doesn’t conflict with baseball and soccer and they are finding success!  These 6th grade boys are super fun to watch.  They are small but ‘scrappy’ as they sometimes say.  As you can see, we do have two tall kids, but the rest of them are not.  We had everyone healthy and participating in this tourney and they came out on top.  Way to go Panthers!And look…all of his siblings actually attended the championship game!  This is rare that we are all available to be in the same place at the same time to support each other!No surprise that we split up right after this to go to multiple soccer games  in opposing parts of the city;)

Way to go Jake…so proud of you and your team!

I took these cute little freshman girls out for the day on Friday to celebrate no school (I say “little” even though all of them have way outgrown me!).  We ventured out to Independence, MO to go to an Escape Room.

Reece was glued to my side because everything about this outing seems really creepy to a 7 year old.  I have to admit, walking into an unfamiliar door in a strip mall with a bar next door and a carload of girls made me a little nervous!  I had no idea what to expect but it’s actually pretty cool!  Basically you pay money to get locked in a room and try to get yourself out.  You solve all kinds of puzzles and open locks to get more clues and eventually one code opens the locked door.  Clearly it helps if you are all working together well.  I wouldn’t want to be in there with my worst enemy by any means or need to use the restroom, that would be a disaster.  At this location there were 3 room choices in different themes.  The one that worked into our schedule for the day was called “Wall of Frames.”  All of those frames on the wall had to be solved and a purpose to the final code.Reece and I got to watch and hear the whole thing go down from the control room next door…it’s absolutely hilarious and so entertaining!They could ask for 3 helpful clues if they were stumped.  This guy in the control room watches what they are doing and if they ask for a clue then he types it into the computer which shows on their monitor in the room.  He just laughs and laughs because he obviously knows what all of the answers are and what they are doing wrong.  He’s seen it all! These cuties worked together well and my goodness they were loud!  They would put anyone at the bar next door to shame!  Here’s a video clip of what we were seeing…

They were doing so good and we thought for sure they would make it out in the allotted time.  Turns out they did get out but they were 4 seconds over time!  They had the right code, they just needed to push the # sign at the end!  I’m going to call it a success…way to go girls!  Here’s the video clip…

By the end, Emma was ready to go back and do a different room.  She was hooked.

We made our way out of Missouri and back to our neck of the woods for lunch at Panera  and couldn’t resist going into the American Girl store to reminisce about the days of loving dolls.  I would do anything to switch these girls back to the ‘dolls’ phase of life!Meanwhile, Drew was tromping and hiking through Lake Quivira for Carter’s (Emma’s little brothers’) birthday party…

Can you believe this waterfall exists at Lake Quivira!?  It reminds me of Dunn’s River Falls in Jamaica or Hawaii – obviously on a smaller scale, but it’s right here in KC!  Awesome!And Jake was playing a round of golf on the course with Uncle Scott…

I’d say that is one amazing day off from school!!!

It’s a little bit of a weird fluke but we have a pattern going here…every 3 years Jake goes with a golf theme for his birthday…6, 9, 12He loves the sport and it helps me to reuse decor and such.  I always have great intentions of reusing things from past parties, but somehow it never happens and now my craft room is overflowing with cute things I may never use again.  Morgan, I hope you want to be a party planner someday and you can have all of my stuff!  She’s my best helper (and my mom of course..she sewed canvas ribbon on all my outdoor chairs for this party!)

Morgan & Emma made her famous chocolate chex mix.  It’s a favorite now among our guests so she did a double batch.  I think I ate more than my fair share!  yikes!

The kids had the day off school so it worked out perfectly for him to play golf at LQ with his buddy Jake Robinson, Papa, and Brian.  What a great way to celebrate!

The rest of us were working hard at home to make final preparations for the party.  We counting our blessings that the weather was so perfect and we could finally show everybody our new back patio and outdoor kitchen!  It’s complete and we are so in love with it!

Before…After…We love to hang out with friends and family, and of course celebrate birthdays!!  As Jake gets older I think he prefers to not make such a fuss, but he let me do my thing.

Brian has now forbid me from hot gluing the house because apparently it takes the exterior paint off!  Oops!  He lets me do a lot of crazy stuff with these parties but that is a definite ‘no no’ now especially since our house is getting a fresh coat of paint next week.

We had a backyard chipping contest…

A big game of kick ball…

A putting contest…and a guessing game…Our winners did great!  Congrats Brooks, Brett, & Scott G!  Scott gave his prize to Reece…what a hero!

and then there’s always a jokester in the group…Dan Dearmore aka Dan was not the winner!

Jake got so many thoughtful gifts and we just had an absolute blast!  Thank you awesome friends and family, we love you to pieces!

Grammy D got to come to the party!  She’s the absolute BEST!

of course when you have a bunch of boys, a little PS4 in the basement is a must!

I was so proud of myself for buying these haybales and hauling them to the party and no one sat on them.  I made my mom have a photo shoot at the end of the night just to make myself feel better 😉

Happy Birthday Jakers…we love you so much!

Here is the Shutterfly link to all the photos…

pix.sfly.com/xNcRObjj

In addition, I always make a video for my kids to commemorate all that went on in their lives from the last birthday to the current one.  It’s always long and probably boring for most people but I hope they love it and appreciate it sometime in the future at least! Here is the link on dropbox…

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rew06f8owjm2vd9/Jake%27s%2012Bday%20Video.mp4?dl=0

Today I got to go on a 2nd grade field trip with Reece!  It’s a lottery system – at our school, there are usually more parents wanting to attend than spots available, so they have to draw names for parent helpers.  I even rescheduled my hair appointment to do this, so you know I was committed!  For girls, missing a hair appointment is a very serious matter.  Plus, I haven’t been to the Mahaffie Farm since Jake was a toddler when we went there for family pictures, so I wanted to check it out.  It’s grown tremendously and I learned a whole lot today about the Mahaffie family and all the ins and outs of running a stagecoach stop along the Santa Fe Trail.  Ugh, I might be at the stage of life that all of this historical stuff is now interesting.  When I was younger and my dad made us go on educational vacations, I think I wanted to poke my eyes out.

First we went down in the cellar of the limestone house and the kids churned butter.  Not surprisingly, none of them seemed to know what butter was made of or how it was made.  City folk for sure.We learned how they lived without electricity, iPads, TV’s, used outhouses, and slept all together in small rooms.  The best part of this trip was they did chores like the children did in the 1800’s!  They learned how to do laundry with lye soap…brrrr it was cold in that water!  I’m pretty sure this was Reece’s least favorite part of the day!

We learned what the children did for fun…we played ‘graces’ and running with these big wooden rings…so fun!They husked corn and ground it to feed the chickens, then they learned about the California Gold Rush and mined for gold…adorable!We learned all about the covered wagons traveling on the Oregon Trail and how they made their food on the fire, roasted and ground their coffee beans on the journey.  Ok so I actually didn’t realize that the people didn’t ride in the covered wagons…they walked along the side!  The wagons were just for their possessions, elderly and babies!  Oops…maybe that is something I should have known before today!We got to ride on a horse-drawn stagecoach!  And as you can see by this time of the day, we are going a little stir crazy…

So they put us back in the cellar to learn how to write with Quill pens!  You would think this would be super boring for 2nd graders.  Actually, they loved it!  They pretended they were living in the 1800’s and writing about their traveling adventures in a journal. How we made it out of there without permanent ink all over their clothing, I have no idea!  This could’ve been an absolute disaster!The kids read actual journal entries from a 14 year old young lady living in that time and passing through the area.Here is Reece’s journal…pretty good huh!?Finally we learned about the goods that were traded and they got to learn how to use a whip used for herding oxen (with safety goggles on of course!)Can you believe we packed all of this in!?  Well, I guess we were there for 5 hours!  What a cool field trip and this place is just a few miles down the road from where we live.  I feel like everyone should check this place out if passing through Olathe, KS.  The staff did an awesome job and kudos to them for wearing those horrendous outfits with a smile 😉

I LOVED spending this day with you Reecie Cups!

I struggle trying to find a title for this post because it’s just a mess of weekend madness all rolled into one…you’ll see!

On Friday afternoon I grabbed this cutie from school a few hours early to make the trip to O’Fallon, IL for the SLSG Soccer Tournament.  Despite the fact the Drew’s coach had already tipped him off that it was going to be a bloodbath of goal scoring (and not by our team), we were still excited to make the trip together.  And this kid LOVES soccer so any opportunity to play competitively, he’s in!It’s a little over 4 hours to get from KC to O’Fallon which is just past St. Louis.  This is a trip we have made several times before for soccer so we were prepared with snacks, Gatorade, and a PS4 of course.  I even bought him a new Big Nate book hoping he would actually do something productive that didn’t involve an electronic device.  He read the whole book!  Way to go Drewy!  Now could someone teach him to not stick his tongue out in pictures?  He’s learned this highly unattractive picture pose from his older sister.  boo!

One of the mom’s made these awesome posters for all of the boys and hung them on our hotel room doors.  By the looks of this thing, she is clearly a Cricut expert!  Drew is in love with it and is proudly displaying it on his bedroom door now.  And check out these great treat bags they received after the first game.  These boys are spoiled!

Game 1 was a bloodbath as expected.  Drew played like a maniac and scored our two goals.   The team we played was from Chicago, received 3 yellow cards in the game and the parents blow those stupid fog horn whistle things.  It was miserable!  If I ever hear one of those whistles again, I might go off the deep end.  Thank goodness it was at least fun to watch Drew.  He was giving it all he had…thank you Drew!

The amount of effort this kiddo puts into a game is so impressive.  Maybe it’s the giant double cheeseburgers he eats that helps??  As my sister would say, he’s the hamburglar!  Remember this McDonald’s’ marketing character…

Most of the weekend our room was FULL of boys playing PS4….and this actually is only a few of them!The second game of the day was interesting.  The beautiful sunny skies turned very ugly.  It was literally raining sideways.  I soaked through 3 layers of clothing and that was with me holding a giant golf umbrella!  How these kids play in those conditions, is beyond my comprehension.

This is a view from the sidelines and our friend Jason having a teeny bit of trouble with his umbrella…

You can see where his umbrella ended up at the end of the game!  Along with many others…this is the umbrella graveyard…

Of course after we were done playing, the weather turned beautiful again.  This is our luck!

The boys spent some much anticipated time in the hotel pool/hot tub after the game because the coach has strict rules of no swimming between games.

Unfortunately they were jacking around, like 9 year olds do, and Drew jumped into the hot tub and nailed his left foot on the concrete steps.  Lots of tears, swelling, and bruising occurred and I was really worried he had broken his foot.  This puts a major damper on the evening and the tournament!His sweet teammates were really worried about him and kept coming to check on him.  Since he couldn’t walk they decided to bring him a cart to get him out of the room and cheer him up…

So this is really what happens in the hallways at night on tournament weekends.  Words of advice…stay far far away from hotels with soccer boys trailing into the lobby.   If you see kids wearing jerseys or a soccer bag in sight, turn back!   There’s very little parental supervision and kids go wild.  I did the best I could to keep it all in control but when it’s just me and 13+ kids, there’s only so much I can do!

Meanwhile at home, many exciting things were happening!  Reece ran her first 5K!!  She’s attended this event in the past but she was riding in a stroller.  This is her first time running and finishing!  WAY TO GO REECE, you should be really proud of yourself!  She finished in 33.57.

And my sister, Shauna, was doing a 5K in Chicago.  She finished!  You have to know Shauna to understand the magnitude of this accomplishment.  This cutie is not a huge lover of exercise and she was scared to death for weeks!  She does exercise regularly because she’s smart and knows that it’s good for her.  But running 3.2 miles is stretching her abilities quite a bit.  I knew she could do it…I was confident!  WAY TO GO SHAUNA!

After the race, Brian rushed Morgan to her soccer game and then to his cousin’s wedding reception.  Poor Morgan had to attend in her soccer uniform…yikes!  Congrats Matt & Angela!

Audrey & Morgan – Poor Mo had to go to the reception in her soccer outfit, Yikes!

All the while, Jake had been asked to guest play in the  Monster Bash baseball tournament.  This is a huge local tournament and any chance he can get to play any sport at all, he does!  They ended up getting third place and he played great!  Way to go Royals!

Back to soccer…

I woke up every hour Saturday night worried I would oversleep for Drew’s 7:30 a.m. game.  As he slept with an ice pack around his foot I was making several trips to pack up the car and was hopeful he would wake up better to play one last game of soccer.  That’s what we came for, right!?  At 6:40 a.m. he was hopping on one foot to the car.  This is not a good sign.  When we got to the complex, I walked in Birkenstocks about a 1/4 mile with a 60 lb. 9 yr. old on my back, soccer bag in hand, trudging through fog to the field that he wouldn’t even be able to play on.  Good times.  My back may never be the same.  Was I competing in a Warrior Dash of some sort and I didn’t know it!?  Is this a boot camp or a soccer tournament?  Needless to say, he didn’t play and they got beat.  Not to toot his horn, but Drew is a key player on this team.  When his buddies realized he couldn’t play, they were a bit panicked.

After the game, we filled up with gas and got the heck out of there!  When things go south, you just want to get home and pronto!  I drove 4 hours thanking Brian every step of the way for keeping me entertained with updates from Jake’s baseball tourney and drove straight to children’s mercy ER to get an x-ray.I prayed feverishly that this little foot wasn’t broken but since you have lots of bones in your feet and every parent had me paranoid, I had to get answers.  When your kid is in love with sports and he’s injured all you really want is answers.  Even if it costs you thousands.  Just wait.  That massive bill is coming.  He has no fractures and just a deep bruise.  Thank goodness!

While we were away getting our teeth kicked in, falling in hot tubs, and not sleeping, his Bulldogs baseball team was playing in the Monster Bash.  They won the championship of course with help from 3 guest players.  Final kick in the gut for the weekend!  Actually I’m super happy for the Bulldogs, but sad for Drewy that he missed out on the tourney and the cute little Frankenstein trophy!  Maybe next year!?Whew, that was a lot to cover!  See…I told you this weekend was insanity.  Lots of ups and downs and we are already to Monday afternoon, all is well, and all of it will be a distant memory soon.  But I don’t want my kids to forget any of  these crazy moments, which is why I write this journal!

For today, my main message is to my Drew Boo…

Keep up the great work bud, good things with eventually happen!  I’m confident in that!  You’re awesome!

I can’t believe this handsome boy is 12 today!  I know we all say this repeatedly as our kids grow, but seriously, how can time really pass this quickly?  I’m guessing filling it up with 18 million sports and family activities isn’t helping matters.  Most of our days are a whirlwind and before we know it, our little boy wakes up to his 12th birthday!  It’s no secret that I am obsessed with celebrating my kids birthdays and the fact that this guy is too old to bring birthday treats to school and have me join him for lunch, too cool to bring treats to soccer practice tonight, and too busy to even go to dinner makes me so sad!  I will settle for him telling me sincerely that he appreciated all I did to make his birthday party awesome.  Details of his golf party are coming soon!

Aunt Jenn showed up bright and early with birthday donuts!  This is ‘her thing’ even though she absolutely hates getting up that early!  Every time she comes she says she’s going to stop doing it or turn it into birthday dinner donuts to suit the time of day she prefers!  But for this bday, she made it happen and it’s a tradition that makes these kiddos so happy!  Brian has to be out of town for work, so he left Jake a video message on his iPad.  look at this adorable flashback from his 8th birthday…And as sad as I am that I can’t join him for lunch today because according to him, there’s not enough room at the lunch table, I’m more than willing to bring him his favorite…Freddy’s!!  With extra Freddy’s fry sauce of course!  I waited in the office so I could at least see him and give him a hug.  Isn’t he the CUTEST!?He is staying after school for a pizza party and walking over to the PRT night football game (against my Alma Mater, Indian Trail) to sing the national anthem with the choir and hang out with friends at the game.To wrap up our celebrating, we sang him a beautiful rendition of happy birthday and served him a chocolate bundt cake at his request.  Sounds like a great birthday to me!Happy Birthday Jakers!  I love you to pieces!  Of course I couldn’t resist throwing in a few more flashback photos…

In addition to throwing a birthday party for Jake this weekend, Drew was playing in a baseball tournament, and Morgan was going on a date.  What!?!?  You read that right… Morgan went on her first official date!  I was just hanging out with my BFF, Lisa, at a baseball game, and I receive a text from Morgan asking if I can take her to play putt putt with Alex (her homecoming date/church friend).  I said sure before asking any questions at all.  First mistake.  When I dropped her off at the golf course, panic set in and I immediately felt like I was going to throw up.  I sat in the parking lot for awhile and finally I asked Drew if he thought we should leave.  Why am I asking dating advice from a nine year old!?  Second mistake.  He suggested we play a few groups behind but we figured we would look like stalkers and he neglected to bring shoes on the car ride so that sealed the deal to head home.

So there she was playing putt putt with a boy, not in a group of friends, and he paid.  That’s a DATE!  How can this be?  Was I going on dates at 14?  I think not.  Needless to say, I wanted to capture a picture of them coming out of the golf course together but I couldn’t get a good angle and again, didn’t want to look like a stalker.  I would’ve had to hide in the bushes to get a good shot, and that definitely would not be appropriate.  I would be fired from my mom job for sure!  Somehow Alex managed to beat her in both games despite the fact that she plays on the golf team.  Ugh, how embarrassing.  Maybe it was nerves.  I told her she should’ve brought her putter but she thought that was a terrible idea.  Most of my ideas are terrible in the eyes of a teenager by the way!

They had a great time and it must be harmless since it was the middle of the day and didn’t include a dark basement or movie theater.  Despite all of my nerves, I do think they are an adorable couple or “thing” or whatever they call themselves and she does wear his football sweatshirt on a daily basis.  My mom equates this to wearing a boys ‘letter jacket’ back in her days of dating 😉 

Ok back to baseball…

Drew’s Bulldogs team played in their first wood bat tournament and they faced the Rangers (my BFF’s team).  Even though I knew this would be a major challenge for the Bulldogs, I was thrilled because this meant I got to see Lee and catch up with her on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon!  We never get to see each other because we are too skinkin’ busy all the time and I miss her dearly!  Drew pitched a few innings (job well done by the way!) but Will bombed a double off of him and they still had adorable grins after the game…aren’t they the cutest!?

The Bulldogs didn’t advance and the Rangers ended up winning the championship!  Way to go Rangers!

A birthday party, a baseball tourney, a first date, a Sporting KC game, and 3 soccer games later,  we are finally to the end of the weekend!  Jake decided to brush up on his culinary skills and cook us lunch out on our new grill!  Way to go Jake…I love that you have an interest in cooking and you look like a natural in front of that grill!