September Days . . .

 

I love September! And with Molly playing High School Tennis and Kate playing CYO Volleyball, our days are full - and oh so fun!

Sunday morning, Cinnamon Crunch Muffins fresh from the oven 

always make the house smell like fall . . .

Let's see the squirrels stay away from my pumpkins this year . . . .

Early morning drives with Molly to Saint James Academy 

have given us the most spectacular sunrises . . . 

Mike joined Kate for "Take your Parent to PE Day!"

Love Kate's volleyball team - and they are so fun to watch!!

Friday night double header . . .

I LOVE getting to watch Molly do her thing in tennis this fall . . . She is so hard working and her effort has certainly been paying off with lots of wins in singles and doubles both this season!

Moving her score on up . . . 

Her backhand is FIRE.

Mike and Molly volunteered last Saturday night at Uplift - feeding the homeless downtown. Kate is not old enough to go on these van trips yet - so we stayed in together and did "skincare masks" (her idea) and watched "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret." :)

Anna came to cheer for Molly at one of her nearby matches one day . . .  love that even though they are at different high-schools they still support one another and are still close friends!

Kate had to build a hurricane house for school using scraps around the house - 

she cut pieces of our boxwood shrubs for tiny trees - so creative!

More volleyball . . . 

After dinner bike rides are beautiful this time of year . . .

Bear likes his sunset walks too . . .

Our 17th Anniversary Weekend!

 

It was a fun weekend celebrating our 17th Wedding Anniversary!! Started things off Friday afternoon when Grandpa Don came in town to watch the girls play their Friday night sports!

I picked some fresh zinnias from the garden . . .

Molly had a tennis tournament on Friday afternoon, so Dad and I went to watch. It was a GORGEOUS late summer day! Not too warm - just beautiful! One of those days you want to be outside forever so it was fun to watch her do her thing! 

She played well!

Then, it was off to Kate's volleyball games that started at 6:00 p.m. up at Cure' of Ars - home gym advantage!

Lots of friends came to cheer the team on!

Friday Night Lights! She won both games in her home opener!

I drove Molly to her first high school football game - St. James at Bishop Miege!  She met lots of friends there, including her dear friend, Anna who now goes to Miege!  

They have themes for every game - Miege was dressed in construction gear and SJA was dressed Hawaiian.

Grandpa brought us LOTS of delicious tomatoes from his garden! I was in heaven!! We made a capers frittata Saturday morning with his tomatoes and basil from my garden! It was so fresh and good!

Dad joined me for Body Pump class with weights! It was fun to do together! Then, off to watch Kate's tennis lesson . . .

Saturday night brought a Date Night for this cutie and me! We hopped to a couple of restaurants and then saw a movie later on! It was a beautiful night and was fun to hop around al fresco. I love that we got married in early September/late summer as the weather is always spectacular!

Sunday - our official anniversary - we celebrated with the girls at the Royals game! We LOVE our baseball team and it's so fun to go cheer for them as a family! The girls know all the players and are very into the games as well . . .

Slugger walked right by us!!

A beautiful day at the K!

Molly's 1st All Day High School Tennis Tournament

 

Molly played in a match earlier in the week and did well! But yesterday was her first ALL DAY multi-school tournament. It was at Mill Valley HS and 8 schools participated. St. James Academy got FIRST PLACE among all the teams at the end of the day and Molly played doubles and she and her partner got FIRST PLACE in doubles for the day!  It was so amazing to watch!  

The winning team of St. James Junior Varsity!

Family Fun Weekend!

 

After the craziness of back to school, try-outs, back 2 school events, work and more - we needed the long weekend to just have some family time the 4 of us! Molly had a couple school events to attend but other than that - we were all together, cozy at home  and it was wonderful!  

Our first project together of the weekend was to put together Molly's new bed, take down her old one and put her old one in Kate's room!  Kate was so excited to get this bed that Molly has had since she was 2.5!  It's really cute in Kate's room and same size as her old one (a double/full) so her mattress and bedding worked just fine. It's a little higher on the ground, which she loves!  

Saturday morning, we bought Molly a new queen mattress to go with her new bed - it's' beautiful! We promised her new paint on walls and new window treatments so will wait to show the whole room when we have finished updating it! Work in progress for now . . .

Kate's "new" bed - (Molly's old one) really is adorable.

To celebrate all the moving of furniture and sore backs - we went to the brand new ice-cream shop just 1 a few blocks from our house - Betty Rae's - it was DELICIOUS! I got the double chocolate brownie with chunks of real brownie in it. I have a feeling we will be there a lot in the years to come!  

The girls dog-sat for 4 dogs who live in Apple Valley over the holiday weekend - and LOVED doing it! To get to earn money while playing/taking care of dogs - best job ever for them! One of the dog owners has a backyard pool so we were able to use it over the weekend too which was nice to have a pool all to ourselves!

Bear even got in, thanks to Molly's sweet encouragement.