I start this post off with a goodbye celebration to one of my frequent blog readers…..Great Grandma Reta. Reta (Jean's mom) passed rather unexpectedly at the University of Iowa Hospital from a systemic infection in early September. She was one of the brightest, kindest and most generous people I've known. I am so so thankful that Maddox and Kennon got to know her well over the last several years and were able to learn a thing or two about generosity and selflessness from Great Grandma Reta. She never put herself before others which is one of those qualities you try SO hard to instill in your kiddos and even myself as I type this. The kids always enjoyed visiting Reta each time we'd be in Washington whether it was to count how many Christmas trees there were in her apartment complex, to have an egg hunt on her apartment floor, to snuggle up in her big soft swivel chairs, or maybe to just say hi to the 'floor dog' Harper and get a big squishy hug from Great Grandma Reta. We will miss her dearly but she is dancing in Heaven with her soul mate, Earnie, as the angles sing continually, free from pain and suffering. We love you Great Grandma Reta! This picture was taken the last weekend in July during our last visit with her.
In mid September Eric and I completed another 1/2 marathon. This one right in our backyard with some of my neighborhood running friends. Eric and I technically used it as a training run for our 1/2 marathon in October in St. Louis. It was a super hot and humid day for September and we both struggled, as did a lot of the participants. We are both hoping to do slightly better in St. Louis.
My good running friends Christina, Kim, and Katie…and I'm missing another one named Marie who escaped the picture. Everyone was happy to be done with that tough race.
A couple of Fridays ago we attended the Pleasant Valley High School Football game. Maddox got the opportunity to do a dance camp the Sunday prior with the PV Platinum dance squad. She worked all afternoon learning the dance and then got to show us her moves out on the field that Friday.
It is super hard to see but she is the little girl in the front all the way to the left but not the one with the pink skirt…next to her….. to the right of the pink skirt girl with the streamer bow in her hair. She nailed her grape vine :) made her former dancing mama proud.
All the dance camp participants with the high school Platinum Dancers. Maddox is on the left in the front row, fourth red shirt in.
Maddox is in the very back on the far left.
Kim's daughter Maddie ( the far right) also did the dance camp and showed us her moves that night on the field. Both girls did a great job. What a potentially intimidating event…huge football field with lots of fans in the stands. We love doing 'life' with the Millage family- we tend to have similar parenting styles and Christian family values..... God first, then your spouse, then your kids. We love you Millage family.
Kennon enjoyed the game and the experience while we waited for Maddox's performance at half time.
Maddox is in the back row all the way to the left. White shoes.
Kim attempted to get a selfie of both of our families….that would be 10 people in one shot standing on bleachers… ( I love it!!) …..
…..then she handed over the phone to a fan who happily captured a slightly better shot!! It was kind of a chilly night so the kids were excited to have football game hot chocolate which just always tastes better than the stuff you make at home? We stayed until the band played at the start of the Varsity game and we got to see the Varsity football players run onto the field. The kids had a great time as did Eric and I. I will admit it was sort of scary thinking that in just a few short years Maddox will be a high schooler!! Man time sure does fly.
The weekend of Great Grandma Reta's celebration visitation, and message was sad but nice to have the entire family together. It was a beautiful warm September weekend so all of Grandpa Jim and Grandma Jean's toys got put into action!!
I love both of theses shots!! The warm, setting sun put a nice glow on all their faces and such happy smiles. Lots of love in the picture. I can only think that Great Grandma Reta was smiling down on her great grandkids.
We got to meet a lot of Great Grandma Reta's friends and family and hear great stories about she and Earnie.
Just shortly after Reta's celebration services I celebrated my 40th birthday. I thought maybe I'd be able to let it slide by but my good neighbor friends had a different idea. I woke up to a friendly '40 sign' and balloons that morning. Several friends brought by gifts and flowers to commemorate my milestone day. Little did I know that my good friend Kim had bigger plans to celebrate later in the week.
Kim put together a completely smashing surprise birthday party to celebrate my 40th. I really honestly thought that Eric and I were just going up to the Millage's to have a nice dinner…but little did I know that most all of my good buddies and their husbands from the hood and some of my close running friends were there to greet me with a wonderful Mexican dinner and a ginormous cake from one of my favorite bakeries, Oh So Sweet!! I was completely shocked. Kim had come up with a fabulous team scavenger hunt that required each team to take pictures of themselves doing the activities that were on the list. It was a beautiful night and we had so much fun. I just picked 'a few' of my favorite shots from each team. It was so so fun…a night to remember. Thank you Kim Millage…you are one of a kind!
Some shots from the Red Team… Kim and Tim both wore the awesome athletic socks which certainly added to the night of laughs.
Doing the 'STOP' sign at the Stop sign.
….a bumper sticker…
…a yard ornament…
….a tree with fruit…
…wind chimes with Tim ( Kim's husband) actually creating some wind :)
….an out of state license plate
Air band…
Not sure what either of these two pictures are….
Some photos from the green team ….! Of course Kim had all sorts of props to put on before we headed out into the hood. They were all color coordinated and made for some fun pictures.
Something green…
Something plastic I believe..
This poor guy on his mower was the subject of several of the teams' pictures.
A picture with three kids who aren't any of our own.
'looking at our reflection'….
We made our own wind chimes with various pieces of jewelry.
Blue Team….
Who doesn't need a glass of wine after a night of scavenger hunting :) We have been enjoying the wine from the wine club we joined when we were in California. We just received a shipment a week or so ago. It is nice to open a good bottle of wine to bring back memories from our time together in May.
The day after the big 40 party was Maddox's birthday. I went up to the school to have lunch with her on her special day.
She invited her good friend Avery to join us for lunch.
Random fun pictures.
Birthday pose from Maddox on the morning of her special day.
We don't always have 'apple orchard' on our 'to do' list for the fall but this year our weekends have been relatively free so on a nice Sunday morning we thought 'why not?'. This particular orchard is just south of Orion and a very no frills type experience. The trees were loaded with fruit and we had a fun time stocking up on honeycrisp and Fuji apples.
Family selfie in the orchard. Thank you to the Camp Creek Orchard and family for sharing your love and passion with us.
We always try to attend the Quad City Balloon festival each year in September and this year was no different. It was a beautiful night the Friday night of the festival which is now in Rock Island as opposed to East Moline. It was a bit too windy for the balloons to launch but we still got to see them blow up and participate in the 'dusk glow'. I never get tired of watching these majestic creatures and keeping our family tradition going.
Oh man....this kid........
....and his always posing, theatrical, big sister!
And they are all blown up...about 15 balloons they said this year.
We rounded off this night with corn dogs and pulled pork for dinner and kettle corn for dessert from vendors at the festival. Till next year balloons....
It is pretty safe to say this dress is on the 'must wear weekly' list.... It is adorable on her and is sort of PV colors ( blue and grey) and we have a perfectly matching hair bow. Grandma Jean got this for Maddox for her birthday. She always picks out the most adorable dresses for Maddox.
I try to take advantage of Kennon being home with me for lunch and afternoons before Maddox gets home from school. So quite often we go to a park for lunch if the weather is nice. This is our last year together...can't believe he'll be in Kindergarten next year!
Kennon, much like his sister, is starting to love reading and picking out words that he knows and spelling words aloud. There is a focus in his preschool this year on sight words/word structure and he is learning a lot of good reading skills from his Literacy program at the museum. Kennon also has been learning, by osmosis, from Maddox a fair amount of math concepts. The kid really seems to 'get' math and concept of value. I'm excited to see how he'll do going forward with his math comprehension.
Attending the PV high school homecoming parade with friends.
This is one of Kennon's best friends from preschool. His name is Caleb and he is a fun loving, energy filled boy with a kind good heart. Caleb and Kennon will not go to the same grade school come next year but I'm hoping to stay connected with his family. His mama, Melissa, has become one of my good friends.
Like I mentioned earlier, I've really tried to guard our weekend schedule and keep our weekends for relaxing around the house. When I checked the weather for this particular Saturday in early October I thought it would be perfect to throw in the pumpkin patch. It is nice to keep the weekends open for just random fun activities since our weekdays are pretty packed with activities, school and sports related.
We ventured over to East Moline to our favorite small little pumpkin patch called Shady Knoll. We've been bringing the kids here since they were ages 1 and 3 maybe. I love it as it is very simplistic and just a beautiful setting with farm animals, barns and big old maple and oak trees.
As you can see Kennon is gaining on Maddox in height. I had her measured yesterday and she was 49 1/2 inches and I bet he isn't too much below that. Bring on Space Mountain roller coaster at Disney...I think they have both met the height requirement :)
This year since we 'shopped' for our pumpkins early in the season there were SO many good ones still available. We had a hard time deciding and ultimately came home with 5 pumpkins instead of 4 as we normally do. Although with the warm weather we've had in the last couple of weeks one has already bit the dust, got yucky, and had a date with the garbage can so I guess it's good that we had picked out an extra one.
See the love in this picture....? I know they fight like cats and dogs but deep down I know they care about each other and are going to grow up to be best buddies. They do look out for each other at big events which is sort of nice...especially Maddox. She seems to always know where Kennon is even if we don't.
Not only did I celebrate the big 40 on the 14th of September but Grandpa Jim turned 69 on the same day. We couldn't let his big day slide by. The kids invited Grandpa Jim and Grandpa Jean over to watch their last soccer games of the season. We surprised Grandpa Jim with a hand crafted book ( kind of like we did for Eric). The kids got to draw and design the pictures on each page and tell a story about Grandpa Jim. It was really cute watching them read it to Grandpa. We are so thankful to have Grandpa Jim and Grandma Jean near by to be so involved in the kids' activities and be part of our family. Happy birthday Grandpa Jim…we love you!
The kids and I made pumpkin cookies with brown butter frosting a couple of weeks ago ( there is that dress again!! :). This recipe reminds me so much of mom. I remember she used to make an extra big batch of these and they lasted through the holidays. So yummy!!
A couple of Fridays ago Maddox's school held it's annual PTA fundraiser called Fall Fest. It is this great carnival type event to raise money that 100% of goes back to the teachers to buy items they need/want for their classrooms. It is always a circus type theme with lots of games, jumpy houses, raffles, face painting, a cake walk, food and much more. This year my Colorado family happened to be in town in Iowa so they came over to Bettendorf to join us. As it turns out Aunt Kathy actually went to this grade school when they lived in Pleasant Valley. Too cool! We enjoyed sharing the fun night with Grandpa and Grandma and the Menough family from Colorado.
Aunt Kathy telling Maddox a story.
I'll round out this blog post with another community activity. We had the opportunity to serve with our church friends at a RiverBend Food Pantry event. The food bank brought a huge truck of food and we set up tables at a low income elementary school in Davenport and those in need ( who had signed up in advance to receive food) came to fill their baskets. It was a super humbling event…we are so blessed. I paired up with Kennon and Maddox with Eric. We worked with guest after guest walking the food line with them filling the wagon and then carting it to their vehicle or even the curb for them to walk to the bus stop. I really think it hit home for the kids as we saw one of the guests that had gotten food, walking from the event with no home to go to. Eric and Maddox had helped that particular fella and he had only taken food that that did NOT have to be cooked indicating he did not have a home. Wow!! I was so proud of how the kids worked without whining to cart wagon after wagon of food. What a wonderful teaching opportunity. Our church will hold another food pantry next week at our outreach center. I'm hoping to be able to participate again.
Stacking up the tables in a very systematic way ( as directed by the food pantry staff) with food provided by the food bank.
Waiting for the green light to meet a guest and take them down the line of food.
Blog post complete..! Hope all is well. Next post…our trip to St. Louis for another 1/2 and Halloween :)
