Trick-or-Treat... It's Halloween!

Again this year, Halloween arrived and we had non-stop Halloween activities for two days straight. We started Friday at the Indian Lake Halloween Parade. I have to say, this is by far one of my favortie events at Indian Lake Elementary. The parade was FANTASTIC! We saw some very creative costumes! Mary Grace was dressed as a witch! She looked great! After the parade, we headed inside for Mary Grace's 1st Grade class Halloween party. The kids had so much fun decorating Halloween picture frames and eating yummy treats. Then we headed home to get ready for Carleigh and Tucker's annual Halloween party. Mary Grace was happy to put on her witch costume for the second time and Carolyne was excited to get ready in her cat costume. The girls had tons of fun! They decorated pumpkins, played games, and trick-or-treated through the candy line. Mary Grace even braved the haunted house... twice! The next day we dressed up again and headed to the Pumpkin Festival at Moss Wright Park. This was our 7th year to attend the Pumpkin Festival. The girls always have so much fun! After a trip down the trick-or-treat trail, we headed to the Hitchcock's house to trick-or-treat through their neighborhood. We were excited to be joined by the Smith family. The girls had so much fun going door-to-door with Carleigh as Sleeping Beauty and Tucker as Darty Maul. It was a great day! We were exhausted, but the girls loved every minute!

Seven and Skating!

Mary Grace counted down the days till her birthday for months! She planned and prepared and could not wait for her big day to arrive. About a month before her birthday, she decided she wanted to have her party at the skating rink. I have to say, this made me smile, bringing back memories of my own 7th birthday party at the skating rink. So, we started going on Saturdays to Wee Skate at the Sumner Skate Zone to let her practice. She wanted to skate on roller blades, instead of the traditional 4 wheel roller skates. Surprisingly, she picked it up right away. By the end of the first Saturday, she was skating on her own. We continued to practice for the next three weeks... a couple of Saturdays at the skating rink and a few afternoons on the park trail. She quickly became a huge fan of roller blading. Her birthday party date arrived and we headed to the skating rink. Most of the girls from her class and a few other friends joined us for the big day. The girls skated to fun songs by Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers, and Taylor Swift. Then they enjoyed pizza and cake before heading back on the rink for the Hokey Pokey. Mary Grace had so much fun!!

Back to School!

As always, summer ended, and it was time to get back to school. This year Mary Grace's school kicked-off a "year round" schedule... which means little more than starting one week earlier, ending one week later, and having three long breaks during the year. It did push the start date back to the first week of August. Fortunately, Mary Grace did not mind summer coming to an early end... she was ready to get back to school with her friends and get started in 1st grade. She was really excited to show her friends her new earrings.... oh yes, Mary Grace got her ears pierced the week before school started. She was thrilled to start this school year feeling like a big girl! This year she is in Mrs. Engle's class. We LOVE Mrs. Engle! She is fun and creative, but also very challenging. She means business, but she has turned out to be the PERFECT fit for Mary Grace. Mary Grace is really enjoying first grade! This year has introduced us to unit projects, chapter books, accelerated reader, accelerated math, spelling tests, and nightly homework... not to mention one extra hour of school each day. But, so far, so good! She is having fun..., learning and growing by leaps and bounds!

Carolyne also started back to school in August... 4-Year Old Preschool. She was thrilled to get Ms. Rachel as her teacher. Rachel taught Mary Grace's 3-Year Old class, so Carolyne was already very familiar with Ms. Rachel. That made for such an easy start to the year... no tears and no worries... quite a change from last year's first day! The 4-Year Old class introduced a couple of new things to the preschool routine... the removal of a daily nap (oh my!) and the addition of computer class! Carolyne was thrilled to welcome both things into her weekly schedule... she was especially excited to learn she would be skipping naptime! She really loves computer and is continuing to learn many new things in Spanish, Discovery, and Music. Ms. Rachel is an awesome teacher and is really helping the kids get ready for Kindergarten! It is hard to believe that this time next year, Carolyne will be in "big school" every day. I am not ready for that!

Not-So-Lazy Days of Summer

It has been a long time since I have had a chance to sit down and blog about our family. The last four and a half months have flown by. It seems like we have been swimming through life for a while now and tomorrow I will officially come up for air. We have experienced a lot in the last months... a summer full of softball tournaments, swimming, and travel... the first day of 1st Grade and 4-Year Old Preschool... our first concert... a birthday party... Halloween... the list goes on and on. So, I will try to play catch-up here... it may be long, so bear with me. I will post a few highlights and fun pictures and get ready to ease into the last two months of this year.

So, like I said, it has been a busy four months. We kicked off our summer with Mary Grace joining the Goodlettsville "Storm" 6U Softball Team. She was beyond thrilled to be picked for this team. And, even more thrilled that she would be joined by two of her favorite "Lightning" teammates... Carleigh and Makayla. This was our first experience with "travel" softball. Fortunately, the "travel" part was fairly easy with most of the tournaments being somewhat close to home. Mary Grace had a blast playing for the Storm. She made lots of new friends and enjoyed challenging herself to play a new level of softball. Carolyne enjoyed the tournaments too! For her, every weekend was an exciting new adventure! The team had a great season, winning 1st place in 3 of the tournaments.

Softball was not our only summer activity. The girls joined Ms. Dana and Ms. Daree again this year for a week of swimming lessons. It is amazing to see how far they have come in the last year! Mary Grace finally learned to swim on her own... not that I would throw her out in the deep end unsupervised... but she has the confidence and ability to keep herself afloat and enjoy being in the pool... without an arm wrapped around my neck! Carolyne did great too! She loves being in the water... and I mean "IN" the water... face down, under water, holding her breath for as long as she can. To practice our skills, we joined the Hendersonville YMCA! The girls enjoyed swimming there all summer... 3 or 4 times a week. We will definitely be heading back to the Y again next year!

With school out for the summer, we were also able to do a little traveling. In addition to our short weekend softball trips, we made trips to Atlanta, Auburn, and Gulf Shores. We love visiting Atlanta, home of two of Jason's close friends from college, Matt and Benji. We have made it a tradition to visit these families every summer and we are always blessed to be hosted by Matt and his wife Elizabeth and their three beautiful girls... Avery, Emily, and baby Ashley. As of our trip in June, baby Ashley had yet to arrive, but our girls had a blast playing with Avery and Emily. The girls are all very close in age, so it is always an adventure to have 4 lively girls together in one house for a few days. Following our Atlanta trip, we headed to Auburn to visit Jason's grandparents. It is always fun to relax for a few days with Grandaddy and Gran. The girls love going to Auburn to explore the town where GiGi and PawPaw (Jason's parents) grew up and where Jason went to college. Who knows... maybe one day they will go to college there too... although I am secretly hoping for them to attend college a little closer to home! Our last trip of the summer was to the beautiful beach in Gulf Shores. This was our second summer to visit the beach and it is quickly becoming one of our favorite traditions! The girls had so much fun swimming in the ocean and digging in the sand. We were so excited this year to be in Gulf Shores at the same time as our friends, the Smiths. The girls had so much fun playing with Carleigh and Tucker. We went on a crab hunt, took a trip to Alligator Alley, and enjoyed a day of hunting for sea shells. I was sad to see our week at the beach come to an end! I am already looking forward to next year's beach trip!