September & October

September and October kept Jade (and us) very busy with 7th grade volleyball and club soccer!

Jade tried out for and made her school's volleyball team! She ended up making the Single A team (B team) which was great for her because she got a lot of playing time! She was captain of the team and played every point of every game! She had the skills to have made the AA team (A team) but that's not the way it worked out for her this year. I'm so proud of her for not giving up this season even when some of the matches were pretty frustrating. Here's a little video of her in action. She had a lot of game winning serves! :)

Jade's soccer club merged with another club this year, but really the only things that changed for her was the club name, new uniform and a few new teammates! She still has a lot of the same teammates and coach as last year. Jade's position is full-back. I made an extra effort to catch her in action during the last game of the season because I never have my phone out during games! She's number 24 in black.

Jemma is keeping busy with her weekly tumbling classes, a fall volleyball league, Student Council and Game Club at school!

Amidst all the sporting events, we found time to go apple picking in September as a family!

We also found time (barely) to visit our favorite pumpkin patch, Bengston's with some friends!

We hosted a trunk at our church's annual fall fest! We went with a police theme!

We enjoyed the changing of the leaves in our front yard, the raking not so much! We also found a few hours for the girls to carve pumpkins with Nate!

Jade had her first band concert of the school year. She also got to play with the 8th grade band as well!

For Halloween this year Jade and her friends were neon construction workers and Jemma was a minion! Both of the girls had a super fun night trick or treating with friends!

Jemma is TEN

 Can't believe our baby is ten! We had a great couple days celebrating Jemma!

Birthday donuts to kick off her day!

After school Starbucks run and opening presents from the Baum Family!

We had to take a quick pause in the birthday fun for Jade's Friday afternoon soccer game! We followed that up with Jemma's birthday dinner pick, Culvers!

Afterward we came home and the sweet, patient birthday girl got to open her presents!

The next day was Naperville's annual Last Fling that happens over Labor Day weekend! The girls both wanted to attend (Jade with friends this year) so Nate and I spent the day hanging out with Jemma! We finally got to sing to her and have her birthday dessert (cookie cake and ice cream) together that night!

Jade had a birthday party for one of her friends the next day, So Nate and I continued the birthday celebrations for Jemma with a trip to the Round 1 arcade and Portillo's for dinner.

The following weekend we were finally able to have her family birthday party! She chose a Hello Kitty and Friends theme! :)

Thank you all so much for spoiling Jemma with Facetime calls and generous birthday gifts!

End of Summer and Start of School

 We had about two weeks left of summer break after getting home from Iceland! Jemma wrapped up her summer volleyball league and Jade did some volleyball clinics to get ready for the 7th grade team tryouts at her school!

We did our annual back to school shopping day and were all super excited to have Grammy join us! Grammy also go to take Jade to her Locker Jam event at school to set up her locker and walk her schedule!

Nate and I took the girls to Chicago to do the 360 Chicago experience at the Hancock. The weather was great, so the views were perfect! We had a lot of fun and enjoyed smoothies at Jamba Juice and a walk down Michigan Avenue afterward.

Jemma had her back to school ice cream social! 

Doctor and nail appointments rounded out our last day of summer break!

We had another rainy first day of school this year! Jemma ended up missing the bus, so I drove her! The girls have always taken the bus on the first day, so this was kind of fun even though we were racing around due to missing the bus.

First day of 7th Grade for Jade!

First day of 5th Grade for Jemma! Can't believe this is her last first day of Elementary!