Saturday, September 28, 2019

Wrapping up September

Here are a few things we have been up to in September!

Soccer

Colton has enjoyed a great soccer season this year.  He wears jersey #1 on the royal blue team with coach Chad.  He has three games left.  I love watching his enthusiasm and hard work on the field!  He missed his soccer pictures this year, due to being in Michigan for my Grandma's funeral, but Daddy got some pictures of him in action.










Larkyn enjoyed entertaining the crowd as "Larry the Cucumber" dressed up in one of our lawnchair bags.  It was pretty funny as she jumped around, and when she tipped over, she couldn't get up!

Apex Fun Run

Every year, Southview Elementary does a fundraising run, where the kids get pledges for each lap, and then they have a schoolwide run.  Parents can volunteer at the water station or "ticking" off the back of students' shirts each lap, and Igot to help hand out water at Larkyn and Colton's run and tick the back of shirts at Summer's run.  It was fun to see Larkyn running this year, as she has attended the past 4 years as a volunteer/cheerer!

Larkyn

Colton

Summer and Katie

Larkyn Running

Colton Running

Summer running

Colton and best friend Adrian
 
Larkyn's kindergarten class

Summer with closest friends Katie and Violet

Larkyn with some of her new kindergarten friends including Esther, Cora, and Willa

Larkyn with friend London (in a different kindergarten class, their older sisters are friends!)

Me (tye-die shirt) marking off T-shirts!

School Fun

One of my favorite parts of my week is going to volunteer in the kids' classrooms and have lunch with them!  I get 30-45 minutes of time in each class per week, and I get lunch with Larkyn once a week, because she has an early lunch.  Summer and Colton's lunch don't start til after noon, and with my work schedule, I can't make it regularly for their lunch, but when I have a workshop day like I did this Friday, I was able to come over and have lunch with both of them (Bonus: it was Italian Dunker day!).


(I am SO sad I forgot to get a picture of Summer and me when we had lunch together!)

I also got to come volunteer on a special Kindergarten day, Johnny Appleseed Day, and help the kiddos make applesauce!  I am close to getting all of Larkyn's classmates' names down!



The girls got their school pictures back (Colton had to pass on his school pictures as the bee sting on his eyelid was still SO swollen!  He will do retakes in October)



We had fun with Homecoming week at Eastview High School (mom's school) attending the Homecoming football game.  The kids really enjoyed the amazing dance team performance and marching band performance, as well as learning more about the game of football while cheering for the Lightning.



Larkyn's Bible presentation

Each year, on graduation Sunday, the new kindergartners each get presented with their own Bible in front of the big church, an NIrV (New International Readers Version).  Unfortunately, graduation Sunday was the weekend we were out of town for my Grandma's funeral, but they did a special little presentation in Sunday school the next week for both Larkyn and Isabelle, a friend who was also absent on Graduation Sunday.  Larkyn and I have been enjoying reading from her new Bible each morning before school during her Mommy-Larkyn Bible time.  We are reading through the book of Matthew together, alongside an Adventures and Odyssey devotional we used with both the older two kids when they got their first Bible.

Apple Picking

We went apple picking as a family this weekend, one of my favorite things to do in the fall!  This year, instead of just getting our favorite kind of apples, we let the kids taste different ones and each pick one kind to get!  Then we walked all over the orchard finding each of the kinds the kids chose.  It was really fun and it might just be the start of a new tradition!








 Happy Fall! :)



Saturday, September 14, 2019

Remembering Grandma

The first Friday of the first week of school, we took off and headed to Michigan for my Grandma's funeral.  It was a bittersweet time.  It was hard saying goodbye to the era of having Grandparents on my dad's side, and all the sweet memories of family gatherings and trips together.  I have so many amazing memories.  It is hard to say goodbye.  However, it was so sweet to see all of the family gathered together, and the funeral weekend felt much like a family reunion at times.  It was wonderful to see cousins who came from as far away as Colorado and Rwanda to remember my Grandma and be together.  A huge shout out to my mom who took amazing pictures to help us remember this weekend.
My Grandma was buried at Fort Custer with my Grandpa, a WWII veteran.































We will miss you, Grandma.  Thank you for the fantastic memories and for creating such a strong legacy of family-togetherness and love.