Just before school started, I took Morgan and Emma to the Plaza to hang out and shop.At the time, we didn’t realize that the Gap store was closing, but we are always up for bargain shopping!  I have a big family, peeps, I have to find stuff on sale!  We scoured the store hoping for some super cute clothes for cheap but ended up leaving with a bag full of hawaiian shirts!  Morgan asked if she could get one for various school spirit days they have throughout the year, and within minutes we were grabbing up 6 of them for Halloween costumes.  Done. Check please.

Thank you Morgan for being the inspiration for this Halloween “tacky tourist” hot mess!Add in a few fanny packs, binoculars, and hats, and you’re wonderfully tacky!  I didn’t even have to convince any of them…they were all on board!  I love it when a plan comes together.  Drew got ‘into character’ the night before just to make sure he would be perfect and could manage to get all this garb on for the school parade.  They nailed it…they were the cutest by far!

After the school parties – trust me when I tell you, the school is completely nuts on Halloween, we hurried home to get ready for our annual halloween party.  Of course this included putting finishing touches on our Halloween-themed food for the contest!

This has been a tradition for years, and I love that my kids are involved.  Maybe they’ll do this for their kids!?  They all picked out what they wanted to make and sent me to the store to get all the ingredients.  And even though I still have my own dish to make and fifteen billion things going on, I’m so happy to do it because It’s just plain adorable!  I love to see what they come up with. Drew is notorious for picking something complicated.  I love it, Drewy, you keep aiming high bud!  2018 First place winner I might add!

Jake killed it with these bloody fingers..

Morgan made these darling candy corn treats and Reece worked so hard on these donut spiders.  Getting those pretzel legs looking good is much harder than you think!

Our family always comes through with awesome ideas and our table fills with spooky halloween dishes.  It’s a blast!

Morgan had another party to attend so Reece had to take over as the master of ceremonies.  She did a fabulous job…watch out Morgan, she might get promoted into your spot!

Somehow I rarely win and my sister, who barely steps foot in a kitchen, EVER, seems to always be on the winners podium.  She’s finally found her culinary calling…Halloween themed food!  Congratulations winners!

I love this party!!

Of course we made it around the neighborhood for trick-or-treating and we have more candy than should ever be consumed in a lifetime!

Morgan made a quick costume change for her next event and turned into Cardi B…(Cardi B is a rapper/songwriter just in case you’re wondering)

They also took a trip to the Edge of Hell haunted house for a 16th bday party.  UGH – I would never pay money to have someone scare the crap out of me!  It’s clearly a teenager thing!Reece really is picking up on my love of Halloween as she had an outfit laid out for each day leading up to the big day.  Clearly we have a problem here.  No one should have this much Halloween attire!

I also caught her staying up late one night making all of these pumpkins and taping them all over her room!!  They were EVERYWHERE!!

She was working SO hard!!  I finally had to step in and help her or she was going to be flat on her desk asleep the next day at school!  Reece always cracks us up with her cute ideas.

And Halloween would definitely not be complete without carving our pumpkins.  While I was busy making mummy cake pops, these guys were really doing an awesome job!  We decided that sometimes simple designs turn out the cutest.  Aren’t they great!?Just a few days before, Reece got to do a fun Fall outing with her soccer team – they went on a hayride, roasted s’mores, and had a pumpkin carving contest at Shawnee Mission Park.  So fun!  Well, ok, I guess she did fall asleep in the corner on the hayride, but she perked right up when she filled her dinner plate with Sun Chips and 3 cupcakes.  Yikes!

I’ll wrap this up with a couple more tacky tourist photos.  Next to our 80’s hair band costumes, these might be top on my list of favorites!Now excuse me while I pack up all this fun into 2 plastic bins and start my 2 month-long stress filled bender called the HOLIDAY SEASON!

I have the MOST AWESOME bugs in my freezer.  I’m talking about big bugs with all their legs and wings still in tact and I was so ready to hot glue them to foam board for Reece’s bug project.  Except for the fact that they AREN’T doing one this year!!  WHAT!?  Are you kidding me!?  Every year, the third graders at Manchester Park do a bug project and it’s kind of a big deal!  I even had friends catching bugs for me and a perfect stranger at a baseball games caught one for us.  This was going to be the best of the best of the Conley bug projects!  I don’t know who made the decision to call it quits on this science unit, but I am so disappointed.

Instead, they decided to grow gardens in the back yard of the school.  Ok Ok, so that’s pretty cute that they are doing that and Reece has given me so much information each week on how their crops were doing – radishes, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, kale, swiss chard, you name it and these cutie pies have grown it and learned all about it!Honestly, it’s probably the highlight of my after school talk, learning about which class is growing a better garden, the dear tracks they found in the garden, who does the best job harvesting the crops and who needs to take a little better care.  Trust me, if you are not doing it right, Reece will call you right out!  It’s really been hilarious having these detailed gardening conversations.Yesterday was the big harvest day and volunteers were needed to wash the crops at home and bring them back to school today.  Reece very proudly brought me a bag of radish plants and I got her started on washing them.  I had to run out to pick up Jake from basketball practice and when I returned about 30 minutes later, she was still at the sink washing those radish plants!  I think she misunderstood – she thought she needed to wash them until I got back from basketball!  Let’s just say those radishes got a very thorough cleaning!  It was so cute seeing her still perched at that sink!

Today they were going to taste all the crops.  I can’t imagine that goes over super well.  You know 3rd graders are allergic to green healthy stuff.  They prefer goldfish and fruit snacks.  Except Reece is my one kiddo that enjoys salad and lettuce on her sandwiches.  One out of four is fine, isn’t it!?

I’m also proud to report that Reece’s brownies troop went shopping and donated a bunch of food to Harvesters today!Ok so I guess I take back being so mad about the elimination of the famous bug project and I can finally discard all those bugs in my freezer.  Great job farmer Reece!

 

What are the chances that your first competitive soccer tournament ends in a penalty kick shootout, you win the championship, and give the opponent their first loss in 2 years!?  The odds cannot be good.  These girls are only 8 and just started playing together a few months ago.  You would think they were playing for the World Cup…at least that’s how exciting it was in those final moments!  So happy for these girls!

Here are a few other pics I took throughout the weekend.  And a very RARE sighting of my sister and her hubby at the soccer fields!  It’s like seeing a unicorn 😉

It worked out that Jake was playing their other nephew’s team so they got to check off three kids in one hour!  Don’t look to see them again anytime soon – they prefer to travel and go out to dinner.  Can you blame them!?

We will be having a re-match coming up soon with these girls  in our final tournament for the fall season, so let’s hope we can repeat our success!  Go Reecie Go!

 

I have gotten to take Drew to a lot of his out of town soccer tournaments in the past, so it was Brian’s turn.  This was Drew’s first out of town tournament with his new team, so he was pretty excited.  Naturally this meant a special goody bag from mom.  I can come up with any excuse in the world to go buy stuff for a goody bag! I found this soft blanket with TOCA colors for $5.  I’m still so happy about that amazingly lucky find!

When they arrrived in St. Louis, they made a trip up to the top of the Arch and had dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory with the team.

Soccer team dinners always take forever.  If you see a bunch of soccer families heading into a restaurant…run far, far away!

And as it turns out, their hotel was a 40 minute drive from the soccer fields and Drew neglected to bring a SOCCER BALL to a SOCCER TOURNAMENT.  Who does that!?  The boys played hard but it was a rough weekend.  Thank goodness for goody bags, pool and PS4 time with friends!  That’s really what it’s all about.

Even though the results didn’t turn out as they hoped, I’m certain the future is bright for these boys.  There’s a lot of talent in this group and they are fierce competitors.  Go #16!!

I’m catching up here on this cloudy fall day.  I should probably be folding laundry or changing out Reece’s closet for warmer clothes, but instead I’m admiring how beautiful it is in our neighborhood right now!My neighbor, Jackie, cracked me up the other day when she commented on how beautiful my trees are and her trees are just “STUPID!”  Sorry, Jackie, I’m not sure what is going on over there with your trees 😉

One thing is for sure, it wasn’t feeling like Fall at all when we got up at the crack of dawn for the All-City Cross Country meet with Jake late last month.  It was freezing cold and wet!Somehow, Jake just never ceases to amaze me.  He runs long distances like a beast.  And although he prefers a more ‘hilly’ course, he still managed to come in 4th place out of a ton of kids.

And he even had enough energy to make hot waffles afterwards!  I think he has a real knack for cooking, but he does tend to burn himself on the oven quite a bit.  We really need to work on that 😉Wow Jake, congratulations on an AWESOME cross country season.  You’re a natural!

 

 

I think my friend, Stacey, is trying to punish me or torture me or something.  Our first borns are beautiful girls who are now sophomores, their June birthdays are 23 days apart, they’re driving, they love sports and experiencing the high school life together, and their moms obsess over their every move.  Here they are in 2011 and on the first day of their sophomore year, 2018.

Today Stacey sent me an article about preparing for when your first born goes to college.  She’s killing me here!  She’s not even a crier and she’s been falling off the wagon lately.  I AM a crier.  In fact, that leads me to my latest escapade (besides this morning when she sent me that article!).  I embarrassingly teared up in Morgan’s ladies golf banquet Tuesday night when they started talking about the seniors.  I literally do not even know the seniors on the golf team.  Nope, I’ve never uttered a word to them at all.  But for some reason I felt very connected to what their parents might be feeling at that moment.  I had randomly chosen a seat right next to a dad of a senior and talked with him throughout the banquet-he wasn’t 100% sure where she would go to college, he wasn’t sure if she would even pick up a golf club again, and all of this conversation had my wheels turning.  That would be me in 2 years.  Preparing for Morgan to make these big life decisions.  But for now, I’m just so happy about the beautiful young lady that she is, what she has accomplished this 8 week golf season, and holy cow, she lettered in a high school sport at the age of 15.  That’s just plain AWESOME!Ok so this isn’t the first time I’ve cried at a banquet about kids that I don’t even know.  I think I wrote about last year’s basketball banquet when I could not hold it together to save my life!  Well, at least Morgan already knows the drill.  Mom is going to cry at every banquet.  Sorry MoMo.  You are so loved.  Congratulations on lettering in ladies golf.  You worked hard, you accomplished your goals, and you represented your team so well.  Enjoy this special moment!

Oops…this is long overdue!  Morgan and her date, Alex, went to two homecoming dances this year.  One at his high school and one at hers.  This means double weekends of fun but also double dresses, shoes, dinner plans, after party plans, etc.   I think I might still be trying to catch up on my sleep after two Saturday’s in a row staying up super late with hoco kids.  I can’t hang like I used to, peeps, I need some sleep!You probably remember Alex from previous posts.  We like to call him by his first and last name just because it’s fun.  He’s a great friend and they have been “a thing” in the past but we don’t really know what they are?  All we know is he came over to ask her with a soccer ball in hand which won all of my kids over.  Thank you, Alex Dandy, for putting up with our lovely (and by lovely, I mean, crazy, family!)After a quick online search for dresses, we ordered two and hoped for the best!   Get those dreamy thoughts of a fun girls day out with lunch and laughs in the dressing room out of your head…we don’t have time to shop!  We ordered her shoes online too!  I really hope this is not how it goes when we shop for wedding dresses (we’ve already settled on a wedding date for Morgan, 6-3-28, we hope she finds a good husband prospect in the next 10 years).

Everything worked out and they looked perfect and had a wonderful time.  Parents rented a large 15 passenger van for the night and had a scary movie after-party at a friends house.

 

It happened to be Brian’s birthday as well, so we did a little celebration at home.  Sometimes when things are just thrown together, it turns out to be the best time!The following Saturday we geared up to do all of this HOCO stuff again!  This time we had a larger group for Olathe Northwest.  We did pictures in a nearby office park and the after party was at Emma’s.  The girls made tie dye shirts for themselves and their dates, made a banner, and put together an awesome waffle bar!  I surely didn’t do all this when I was in high school, did I!?  You wonder how they have time to pull all this together with fall sports and school work!!  Still scratching my head on that one.

 

Morgan did her hair herself because she’s awesome at it!!  My sister stepped in to do her makeup and we made her nails last another week from the 1st dance.  Doesn’t she look gorgeous!!  Those online dress choices really worked out well (patting myself on the back here)

and she apparently is pretty good at pinning on boutonnieres because she handled that for a few other dates as well.  This girl takes care of business and you can’t help but love her personality.  She even stepped in the following weekend to help our sweet neighbors, do their hair for homecoming.

 

They had the best time!

 

They ate at SPIN Pizza again this year (ordered kids meals of course!) and went to the dance for like 2 seconds before needing a ride back to Emma’s for the after party.  I guess they were just excited about the waffles!?  Who doesn’t love a make-your-own waffle bar!?

 

They are the cutest groovy hoco couple!  But most importantly….WE SURVIVED Homecomings 2018!!

Here we are again approaching my favorite holiday…Halloween is only 9 days away!  We love going to the pumpkin patch and this year we had about 1 hour (including drive time) to squeeze it in between school conferences, a birthday party, and heading out of town to a soccer tournament.  You know, just normal scheduling madness that plagues our family on a daily basis.

Of course it was cold, misty, and muddy and no one brought jackets, so it turns out that having only a little bit of time available was perfect!  Although it won’t go down as our favorite trip to the patch, we made the best of it.  Normally Reece takes a camera and takes a million pictures of pumpkins, Jake and Drew play catch, and Morgan strives for the best fall pictures she can post on social media.

Despite our short trip, we found awesome pumpkins!  I spotted this adorable long skinny one and Morgan grabbed it right up and carried it all the way back from the patch.  Let’s just say that we had a little bit of mud on our hands and clothes afterwards!

As soon as we arrived home, we all went our separate ways.  Reece and I quickly packed up the car to head to Council Bluffs, IA for her first out of town soccer tourney.  She’s been looking forward to it for weeks!  I always get the kids a goody bag for the weekend.  Sometimes more extravagant than others and it’s always more than we need.  I really should tone it down some.  During the 2.5 hour drive, she watched part of a movie, colored, and slept.  Easy peasy!

We got ourselves all settled in to our room and the girls had drawn names to make posters for their teammates.  Reece did a fantastic job on Alexa’s if I do say so myself!  We all went out to eat, swam, and worked on final touches to their costumes.  There was a costume contest component to this tournament and these minions were ADORABLE!

Somehow we didn’t win the costume contest which naturally leads me to believe it’s rigged.  Seriously, look how cute they are!

In between the constant running around the hotel from room to room, eating junk food, cleaning out the arcade at Quaker Steak & Lube of plastic bracelets, and trashing Coach Kayla’s room during movie night, there actually was some soccer being played!

This was the finals.  Reece was having a blast!

These girls took care of business in Iowa!  Champions!And why not commemorate your first out of town tournament with a tournament win and a $45 shirt.  WHAT!?  I need to be in the t-shirt business!And even though she pretty much ditched me all weekend to ride with her friends, I enjoyed every minute of this tournament.  You rocked it Reecie!!

Our room was on a different floor than the rest of the group, but it was newly remodeled and we had a great view of the river.  We called it the penthouse 😉

Go Fusion Academy 2010 Girls!

 

In mid-August the girls high school golf season commenced and as of yesterday evening, October 16th, it came to an end.  Whew!  Just to be clear, and brutally honest, that’s a big sigh of relief!  Don’t get me wrong, I have thoroughly enjoyed watching Morgan this season but it is a time sucker!  Each tournament is a minimum of 6 hours.  It’s not just a 1 hour soccer game here and there, it’s a full day affair.  The varsity girls miss a ton of school and at any given moment they are on the verge of a breakdown because of it!  You would think it would be perceived as a ‘perk’ of being on the golf team, but actually, it just stresses them out and causes them to constantly play catch up with teachers.  However, they do get the opportunity to play some pretty great courses and I’m consistently amazed with their focus and ability to pull it all together.  These girls are so impressive!

 

Morgan had two goals she hoped to achieve this season.  She wanted to be chosen to play in 3 varsity tournaments and she wanted to score under 100.  We believed in her 100% and I’m happy to report that she played in every varsity tournament but 1 this season and shot a 98 in the pinnacle of the season, the 6A State Championship.  Thatta girl!  Despite all the stress, missed school days, last minute trips to the golf store for gear, and money spent on custom fit clubs, it was so worth it.  What an awesome season!

 

 

 

The Olathe Northwest varsity team competed in Regionals at Prairie Highlands golf course on October 11th.  It was SO COLD and there were ups and downs in Morgan’s round, but overall, the team took 2nd place, and secured a spot in the State Championship.

Immediately I was trying to figure out what that meant.  I’m not experienced at this kind of thing!  I’ve never been to any kind of state championship!  So basically, I went to work on finding rides for my other kids and canceling Morgans’ responsibilities for Sunday and Monday and doing just an overall mom ‘freak out!’

2 days later, early on Sunday morning, these cutie pies set out for Salina, KS to get a practice round in.  It was 30 degrees and raining, so they only got 2 holes in and a stroll through the course to familiarize.

and a sweet little gift arrived on our front porch at 1 am Sunday morning (thank you Coad family!)Sweet Reece was so exited she had to make a message on Morgan’s board…can you tell we were all over the moon about this!?By 8am on Monday morning, there was 3 inches of snow on the ground and the tournament was postponed to Tuesday.  Yikes!  That’s another missed day of school (and it’s the end of the quarter), another night in a hotel room, and girls scrambling to tell their families to put the brakes on until Tuesday.Tuesday morning the sun was shining and we changed all of our arrangements and made the 2.5 hr. drive to Salina.  I was amazed how there are usually only a couple parents in the gallery for tournaments (sometimes I’m totally by myself!) but for State, there were lots of spectators.  There HAD to be nerves kicking in on this first tee shot!

My parents made the trip with us, they are golf enthusiasts, and it was a gorgeous day!

 

After 6 hours on the golf course, my stomach was full of nervous excitement because she was on pace to shoot under 100.  She finally did it!  She achieved her goals!  Her smile said it all as she walked off that last green…
Our team placed 7th out of 12 teams, with one teammate in the top 8, and Morgan placed 48th out of 91 girls. She’s worked so hard and it paid off.  She’s gone from nervously trying to even make a spot on the team last year to playing on the varsity squad all season this school year.  You go girl!  Now that’s the way to end the season on a high note!

 

Morgan, I loved every minute watching you play and even though the time commitment stresses us all out, you always handle yourself with such dignity and watching you ‘do your thing’ is so fun!  You’re always keeping everyone’s spirits up along with a sharp knowledge of the rules of golf, keeping everyone accountable.  Love your focus, love your enthusiasm, and love you to pieces!

 

Every year around Jake’s birthday, the sunflowers are in bloom and I love it so much!  There’s a field that I pass by everyday when I pick him up from school that is full of them and it inspired my color scheme for his party this year.  We picked a bunch for centerpieces and prayed like crazy they would stay beautiful for party time.  Sadly, that sunflower field will be replaced by new houses soon 😦

Look at us in 2014 when we went on a sunflower picking trip over by our health club…only 4 years ago but he looks like a baby!Since this is a BIG birthday…becoming a TEEN…I wanted to make sure Jake got to do something fun and special.  He first suggested golf (shocker!).  We decided to keep brainstorming since he had already done that theme twice.  So then he picked “tubing” at the lake.  Well, that’s super tricky when you don’t own a boat and your birthday is in October!  We investigated it fully, but eventually had to settle for a beach party at Lake Quivira.  For the record, he did get a round of golf in!After the lake theme was signed off on by my cute little client (i.e. my handsome son who is now a big 7th grader, has braces, and growing into mens sizes), I went to work on pulling it together and prayed for acceptable weather.

I gave him a few choices on cake and invitations design and I was so happy he actually answered my question.!  That’s really asking a lot of a teenage boy!  I found PPJ shop on Etsy and she created some designs for me that were perfect.  I was super short on time that I couldn’t do it myself.  Between multiple golf tournaments, soccer, baseball, a sick kiddo, and 2 homecomings, I was lucky I wasn’t curled up in a ball in the corner crying out for help!

So the weather was predicted to be 80 and sunny (which would be really lucky this time of year) but that didn’t really pan out for us.  We made the best of it and had a blast!  We ate BBQ (Jake’s favorite), played sand volleyball, and a few brave souls jumped in the lake.

I asked Morgan to take  few pics for me and wouldn’t you know that she would take a bunch of selfies 😉

Jake received lots of funny cards, clothing (he likes to look nice!) and my friends teased me that I need to face the facts that he’s growing up and needs bigger clothes!, and of  course, gift cards for the playstation and Casey’s.  You know…teenage boy stuff!  Plus we got him a new golf bag AGAIN, I swear we just got him one like a second ago!

My family is awesome and helped me set all this up, tear it all down, and my dad chopped me a bunch of wood for my centerpieces…that he now wants to charge rent for if anyone wants them for party decor! 😉 They’re pretty cute!

So happy we had family and friends to celebrate this special occasion with – what a blast!  Except I could’ve done without the bees…they were swarming our party!  And I still had a bee in my van the next day!  Check out this one hovering around Jake’s ear…If you want to view all of my pics, you can access them on Shutterfly with this link…

https://pix.sfly.com/8gGv9q

Happy Birthday Jakey, we love you so much!