Tommy's Soccer Season Fall of 2017

Andrew decided to coach Tommy's soccer team for the fall season this year.  We put him on a team with a couple of his friends.  We also had a bunch of the same kids from the last soccer team and the baseball team.  However, we had a few, what we shall call, special cases on our team.  I thought Andrew was going to lose his mind about 676 different times throughout the season, but just when it came to 3 kids.

 However, the rest of the team were great kids and really decent players.  Tommy had an AWESOME time playing with his friends.  He actually looked forward to all the games and practices for the most part.

 He loves playing defense.  That is his favorite.

 He also didn't mind playing offense and goalie too.  He's a big fan of soccer and I love that he's really getting into it!

 Some candid photos from the ride home after the game. Haha! Poor Grandma got stuck in the 3rd row with a horsey and a Charlotte. :)

 Tommy had to play along too. :)

 After the last game, the sponsors, who were one of the players grandparents, threw a big end of season party with a giant bounce house.  Do you see the size of that thing??

 It's massive!! The kids LOVED it.

And terrifying! 

They may not have been the most well-behaved team but they certainly were the cutest! ;-) It was a fun season with lots of "hugs" and drop kicking the ball for no reason.  Goooo Pirates!

The Engagement of Adam and Emily

 Adam had been planning this event for quite some time.  It finally came to fruition at the end of September.

Was there a GoPro involved? Does the pope sh*t in the woods? Of course there was a GoPro involved and it captured these awesome images...

 It was a wonderfully sweet, well-planned proposal that ended with the song, "I Wanna Grow Old With You."

 The following day, friends and family drove and flew in from all over the country to celebrate with the happy couple.  And celebrate we did! You can't celebrate without Flip Cup! (Love my dad's face in this one. :)

 It was flip cup game with Boys versus Girls.

The girls came out victorious. We had a couple of ringer grandmas on our team.  We rocked it.

 The kids had an amazing time.  Emily's step sister has 5 kids and two of them match up with Tommy and Charlotte like amazing besties. We didn't even introduce them.  They found their soulmates on their own. Turns out, Tommy's friend has food allergies just like he does!  Charlotte's friend loves horses just like she does.  Seriously, how did that work out so well?  Oh and did I mention we kept them up ridiculously late? I don't know if it's hard to tell from the picture...

 But this is what they looked like on the way home.

 Even Tommy fell asleep.  He never falls asleep in the car.  These kiddos were exhausted after a super fun mega awesome day.  We are soooo excited for Adam and Emily to get married.  What a huge exciting year to come.  AAAHHH! We can't wait! Congrats to Adam and Emily!

Charlotte's First Field Trip!

 Who takes four year olds on field trips?? Charlotte's school does and I got to go too! The pumpkin patch field trip was the only one I've never been on with this school.  I was so excited!

She was soooo excited too! First Bus Ride! Whoo hoo!

 I had just 3 girls in my group and they were all great gals.  I had to chase them down occasionally but they were all well-behaved.

One of my girls hid in this little tunnel for quite a while and I really had to coax her out of there.  It wasn't Charlotte. :)

I tried to keep them playing all together in the same spot so I could keep an eye on them.  This was one of those few times.

We tried to take a group picture with some of the kids. Charlotte took the opportunity to slide off the pumpkin which started the group sliding off the pumpkin and this was the best picture we got. :)

 This section of the pumpkin patch was just a giant group of massive pumpkins.  Nothing is more fun that climbing on giant pumpkins!

 Oh hey! Here's a better group picture!

 We went on a hay ride to pick out our pumpkins.

 Everyone got to pick one out. Even the parents!

Charlotte and I had such a super fun day.  Too bad it had to end kind of badly.  We all got on the bus at the end of the trip and we noticed one of the kids was missing.  Charlotte's teacher and one of the parents ran off the bus and scoured the pumpkin patch trying to find him.  They ran around looking for him for what seemed like an eternity. Charlotte's teacher was bawling. Finally one of the kindergarten moms from the back of the bus said, "Who are they looking for?" I told them the name.  She said, "Um, I think this is him right here."  The little boy had been put on the bus by his mom who was a chaperone.  She left but told one of the other moms from Charlotte's class that he was on the bus.  That mom forgot that she was told that and instead the teachers were running around like crazy people in the pumpkin patch.  YIKES OH YIKES. I didn't think Charlotte's teacher would ever recover.  The poor thing.  But he was safe and they learned to take different precautions and methods of keeping track of the kids so it wasn't all bad.
At least Charlotte and I had a wonderful day.  Happy First Field Trip, Charlee!

Charlotte's Four Year Old Q&A

Yes yes yes, I know.  I'm only TWO MONTHS LATE on writing about Charlotte's birthday.  But hey, at least it's in the same year!  She had her annual check up.  She is 39.8 inches tall at the 50th percentile.  She's 36 pounds which is the 59th percentile.  I can tell in her class pictures that she's really grown because she's catching up to her classmates who are all older than her.

So I sat Charlotte down for her yearly interview.  Let's see what she has to say.

1. What is your favorite color? PINK! 

2. What is your favorite toy? Fluffy, my unicorn 

3. What is your favorite fruit? Strawberries and berry strawberries (I think she means raspberries)

4. What is your favorite tv show? Mickey Mouse and My Little Pony 

5. What is your fave movie? The My Little Pony Movie 

6. What is your favorite thing to wear? My marshmallow shirt and my new sparkle pants 

7. What is your favorite animal? Horsey 

8. What is your favorite song?  The My Little Pony Theme Song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star 

9. What is your favorite book? My My Little Pony Book. It's about reading words. In my other My Little Pony book is Tempest and I like her songs.   

10. Who is your best friend? Lakynn and Olivia 

11. What is your favorite snack? Veggie Straws. Goldfish. Yogurt too.  YOGURT IS MY FAVORITE THING THAT I EAT.... for dessert. 

12. What is your favorite drink? Strawberry Milk and Water 

13. What is your favorite breakfast? Yogurt and... yogurt, just yogurt.  

14. What is your favorite lunch? Cheese Sticks for lunch.  (Anything else?) Just cheese sticks. 

15. What is your favorite dinner? TACOS!! 

16. What is your favorite game? Care Bears. (Where do you play that?) On the Applebees thingy! 

17. What is your favorite thing to play outside? Tempest and.... I have to go potty. I don't like tag but I do like scooter Mickey Mouse! 

18. What is your favorite holiday?  Halloween because it gives us candy and I LOVE candy SOOOO much! 

19. What do you sleep with at night? Princess Luna (aka Princess Cinderella, the blue pegasus unicorn she made at Build-a-Bear) I slept with her at night and she comes down the stairs with me a little bit but sometimes she doesn't come down with me. 

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? I wanna make cupcakes! I'm gonna make big cupcakes and little cupcakes. I mean I'm gonna be a food chef.  

She got a bit more talkative by the end of the interview. :) If you'd like to read her answers from her first interview, here is her 3 year Q&A.  
It's also interesting to read Tommy's to compare.  They had a lot in common at age three and four  (Can you believe I was 2 months late for Tommy's 4 year interview?? :) Then you can read five and six for fun!

I cannot believe my youngest child is four years old.  Remember when she was four months old??? 

So tiny! 

0, 1, 2, 3, and now 4. 

This girl is such a joy.  She gets more and more hilarious every day.  She loves unicorns, My Little Pony and all the songs from the movie.  I don't know how she picks up the words to those songs.  She LOVES to sing. She loves to dance.  She enjoys practicing her letters and trying to write her name. She loves to play school.   She loves her best friends but she also wants them to stay out of her face.  She LOVES her big brother and wants to play with and be around him all the time.  She is so overly dramatic with her fits.  She will not like something you say and will throw her body on the ground until she realizes it's not working and then she will get up and act like nothing happened.  Her hair is usually pretty crazy but it's beautiful. I can't believe how long it's getting. How is it possible that you are four? We love you so much, baby girl.  Happy birthday! 

Charlotte Turns FOUR!

 Charlotte celebrated her birthday at school.

They took a super cute class picture with Charlotte front and center.

Charlotte chose frosted donuts with sprinkles for her birthday treat.   The class LOVED it.  Charlotte loved being the star of the show.

 I picked Charlotte up early that day.  We went and got our hair done.  Charlotte was so excited.  I actually had to leave her and go around the corner to get my hair done separately.  She did really great though and it got me out of the salon early without being asked to buy products. Whoo hoo!

 I had informed Charlotte of our plans and she was so excited to tell everyone she was going to get her hair done and then go to Chuck E Cheese.  So that is exactly what we did.  She was super excited to ride the horse.

I couldn't believe she wanted to do the roller coaster game.  This game (ride?) was a little rough.  It shakes and turns and you feel like you're on a roller coaster.  It was kind of crazy.  Poor Charlotte's head wasn't quite tall enough to be on the pad so it had to be uncomfortable but she didn't care.  She wanted to ride again.  Not this girl.  I was dunzo.  Barf.  

It is a cool idea though!

 Charlotte rode another one of her favorite rides (?), the mini carousel.  She pretended to be asleep on it.  She is so funny.

Andrew and Tommy met us at Chuck E Cheese.  Then Charlotte and I escaped once again and picked out cupcakes at Gigi's.  YUM!

 The following weekend was Charlotte's party! I did make the invitation but I did NOT mail them out.  I used an app this year.  I am becoming much more of a no muss no fuss mom which is so exciting.  Instead of hand making all the food, cakes, and decorations, I bought decorations online, bought a Target cake, and ordered pizza.  Fantastic!

Here's the beautiful birthday girl in her unicorn shirt!

I took a picture to Meijer of the cake I wanted and they were not very accommodating.  But TARGET on the other hand, basically recreated this fantastic cake from scratch.  Incredible! They even included the paisley design on the side.  Are you kidding me?? (Is it because they practically know who we are because we visit 3 times a week? Maybe. ;)

 Time to blow out the candles!

 I ordered these crazy unicorn horns (yes, people made dirty jokes about them) from Walmart online.  Who would have thought?

 It was time to open presents! Everyone was watching closely. (Just kidding. Cake coma.)

Lovely picture of this trio! :) 

Charlotte loved all her presents.  She got some really fantastic stuff. 

 Uncle Adam had to help put together the Frozen Lego set that she got.  She is so excited to become a master builder like her big bro.

You can bet that as soon as the Frozen castle was made, Tommy jumped in and weaponized it.

She got this amazing mermaid blanket.  Charlotte was a big fan.

She also got a lot of fun books.  I believe this is the exact moment Emily had to read the word FART. :) LOL!

 Hey look, it's Mama and Dada in our unicorn horns and shirts.  We look dashing. :)

The birthday girl and her mama.  

After all the fun, we played outside because of course it was a beautiful September day.

Tommy and many others had fun playing b-ball.

We actually remembered to get a family picture.  Yay!! Another classic!

Happy Birthday to you, Miss Charlotte! We love you so much!