Keeping Up With The Joneses: Fall Happens!

*Warning*

Long post ahead, but full of cute pictures!

My mom brought to my attention that I haven't updated the blog in a while. I told her I just updated it. To which she informed me that my last post was the home face lift post. I didn't realize that post was way back on September 16th. Our life has been so busy that I have kind of lost track of the days. I feel like days begin and then quickly end. There is so much squeezed into each day and so much that happens that I only remember a fraction of it. I really should make a minute by minute log of my day just to impress myself that I actually keep up.

So, what have we been up to since mid September?

Sydney has been playing a lot of soccer. Two practices a week for 1.5 (+) hours each and at least one game on the weekends. Our little lady loves soccer and is getting to be pretty darn good. I would say she is a strong defensive player, but can hold her own on offense. She is a very hard working player and is always so supportive of her teammates. Always praising the other girls when they make a good play. Actually a lot of the girls on the team are like that. I love our little soccer team...such a great group of girls.

This season Syd has had the opportunity to play with the Academy level team a few times and she has done really well. The difference between Rec level (her current level) and Academy level is on top of 2 practices per week there are 2 games every weekend with travel involved. (We drove to Fayetteville one weekend.) The girls also tend to play one position, but they do switch the girls to other positions sometimes. The price tag to play Academy is considerably higher, of course. The fact that she has had a few chances to play with this team for "free" totally works for us. Sydney just loves to play soccer so when we can get her the opportunity to play a little more we take it. For the next season the question will be this:

Do we take things to the next level and let Sydney try out for Academy?

I just don't know yet. I don't really want to leave our current team since the girls have all developed good friendships. Some of the girls are ready/interested in moving up and some want to stay put. Plus I have gotten to know the parents and enjoy chatting with them at games.

I seem to have a hard time making other mommy friends. :/

Here is a jumble of some good soccer shots taken from this season.

This is her on the way to scoring her first goal of the season...

This is just before she scored!! I was celebrating like a crazy mom and didn't take a picture of the actual goal!

Our beautiful little lady. I'm so proud of her!

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Aside from soccer we have had ourselves some fun in-between the busy. During Fall Break we spent a day with Pop. We went to lunch and then to a fantastic park near his home.

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Amy (my SIL) gave birth to her 2nd child a week early. Little Ezra James was born on September 26th and he is just precious. I'm excited to say I now have a niece AND a nephew! Thanks Jason and Amy for making me an Aunt. My brother's really aren't helping me out in that department. ;)

Only a few hours out of the oven!

We brought Maisie a "Big Sister" gift. Being a big sister is a very important job.

Notice how Sydney has on the same outfit in almost every picture. This is her current favorite outfit.

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Normally I have fair pictures to share with you this time of year, but Jordyn ended up getting the croup so her getting sick messed up our plans a little. My mom and dad ended up taking Sydney and Bryce to the fair while I stayed home with Jordyn. Syd and Bryce ended up spending the night with my mom for 2 nights in hopes of them avoiding getting sick. The good news is no one else got sick. The bad news was Jordyn missed the fair. Since she missed out on the fair fun I bought her a new gymnastics leo to wear at her up coming birthday party. Got to keep things even around here.

Since we didn't hit the fair up as a family we hit up the Wildwood Community Market Fair. Bryce attends Wildwood Baptist Preschool and this event helped raise funds for the preschool. Not nearly as exciting as the fair, but the kids had a great time. We hit this event up for about an hour before we had to head out to Jasper for a soccer game. The bonus is that Uncle Andy was there with his own booth. The kids always love seeing Uncle Andy.

A huge treat for Bryce...he doesn't get to frequent bounce houses often. I'm more prone to letting him use the ones outdoors than taking him into the indoor bounce house places. Those places are crawling with the dreaded "G word".

Syd opted for a tattoo over the face painting since she had a soccer game to play.

Little Beauty.

"Bryce. Do you want to use your last ticket on the bake sale or shooting hoops?" In true boy form...he choose to shoot hoops!

Cheese with Uncle Andy.

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And since the kids come home from school each day and have to get down to doing homework before we rush out the door to activities I decided some after school fun was in order. So, I bought some Halloween cookie cutters and baked the kids some cookies to decorate after school last Friday. They had so much fun and left me a huge mess to clean up, but it was totally worth it. Plus, the cookies were delicious!

And we recently had a visit from Uncle Joey which is rare since the summer started. Joey likes to spend his free time at the lake doing the "I'm a wake boarder" and "I'm a single guy" thing. The kids were so excited to have Joe around. He did an excellent job at wearing them out and I'm pretty sure they wore him out too. Watching him have a tickle fight with the kids reminded me of the tickle fights we had with my dad when we were kids. The whole scene had me dying of laughter. The pictures don't do the fun justice.

Don't mind the mess of a room in the background. Notice a basket full of toys...those are from Bryce's room because he refused to put them away. It's been a week and he has earned 3 toys back.

Joey was flipping Bryce's shorts over his feet so he couldn't move. Classic dad move and soooo funny!

And that is just some of what we have been up too. We have lots of fun stuff planned for the upcoming weeks so I will try to do a better job of keeping the posts current.

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And one more thing:

Someone has a birthday coming up...

That someone is having a gymnastics party...

And that someone is so excited!