Sydney & Parker's Birthday Party

We had Parker and Sydney's party together this year at the indoor soccer fields!  The kids got an hour on the field with a party person to help plan games and all, and then they spent an hour in the party room with pizza, cake, presents, etc.

Taylor, Addie and Makayla

Parker and Mason (and another Mason)

Silly Izzy

Collin

Izzy, Sydney and Jordan

Merritt and Parker B.

It was a fun crew and a good time!

Parker is FIVE!!

My baby is five!!!  When Parker was born, I had three children 4 or under.  Now, no one is 4 or under!  Weird.

Five!

Parker turned five last Wednesday!!  He was the final September birthday to wrap up our month-o-birthdays, so he waited for this day to come for awhile.

I got to eat lunch with the birthday boy, and I went back during their snack time to give out some little treats and sing happy birthday!  

We opened presents at home a couple of nights before his birthday, before Stephen left town for the week.

Birthday present time!

Our Parker, who completed our family, has been such a blessing to us.  So thankful and grateful for the last 5 years!  Happy birthday to my sweet boy!

Sydney is NINE!

How and when did my baby Sydney become nine?!

All her birthdays!

Her birthday fell on Saturday this year, so we celebrated at her school on Friday.  Her request?  Glazed Dunkin' Donuts.  I brought them in during lunch and the kiddos enjoyed their treat.

Sydney and her friend with their birthday lollipops from their teacher- these girls are one day apart.

Doing a happy birthday dance.

Opening presents at home.

9!  She's halfway to 18!  Time really needs to slow down...

Happy birthday to my sweet Sydney!

Hurricane Irma

Hurricane Irma has come and gone, and- seeing as how far we are from the ocean- I was shocked how bad it was here.  I can't even begin to imagine what it must've been like in Florida and the Caribbean.

I'm thankful that we didn't have any house damage, but we were without power for 19+ hours (not that I was counting or anything...) and we lost several trees.  I couldn't believe how much the surrounding pine trees bent and swayed.  This is a storm that I know that my kids will remember- they were in awe, watching out the window.  Sydney even saw two trees fall "live"!

Our major loss was six out of our nine Leyland Cyprus trees that we planted not long after we moved in.  I'll have to see if I can find a picture of how little they were when we planted them!  They're to the side of our house that we can't see except from one bathroom window.  Our neighbor called us on his way home from work to let us know.  We walked outside- I couldn't believe it!  Two of our big trees were lying down on the driveway.  The rest of the evening, as the wind continued to gust, we watched as the other four trees slowly lost their fight.

It's more of a pain now... I trimmed the trees a little so we can get out of the garage more easily, and so the kids can get to the backyard.  But those trees are BIG.  Stephen had to leave town the following morning, so we haven't even figured out yet what we're going to do about them.  (My post on our neighborhood message board offering "free 20 foot Christmas trees, first come first serve!" didn't work for some reason...).

We also lost a pine tree that's laying across the back of our backyard (and thankfully missed the playground and the shed) and another tree fell in our back woods.

Anyways, I am thankful we are all safe, but man!  That was crazy.

Labor Day Weekend

We headed up to the mountains for Labor Day weekend!  As crazy and busy (and, besides our awesome trips, pretty crappy) as our summer was, this was our first visit up to the mountains!  Normally we go at minimum Memorial Day and 4th of July, but we had Disney and lice, in that order, for those weekends.  I was determined to get up there Labor Day weekend.

The kiddos and I left after school on Friday to head up to South Carolina!  Stephen stayed home- he had big commitments of doing the lawn and watching college football. ;). Waze took us some crazy backroads to avoid traffic, and we made it up there around 7:30 PM!

Ahhhh, the mountains!  I actually teared up while driving down the familiar mountain road that takes us to the family cabin.  Our rule is that we roll the windows down once we get on this steep road, and we blare the music and sing at the top of our lungs.  It had been a full year since I had driven on those  familiar roads!  And while a year had gone by, the roads were just the same.

We had a blast this weekend.  It was so good to see my people, who (besides my own family) aren't related to me by blood, but are closer to me that some of my blood relatives.  In a year's time, a lot happens- this year, there were marriages and babies to celebrate and meet!

We swam in the lake (though it was chillllllly!), raced plastic ducks down the river, took a mountain walk with my sister, ate at the local diner, took several golf cart rides, had the picnic and square dance, celebrated birthdays, and did the big waterslide!

Here are pics from our weekend:

The view from our walk.

Catching the ducks!

Working on legos.

Picnic!

Square dance fun

We hung out Saturday night with a bunch of the old crew.  This is Parker and Marshall bonding.

The slide!

Parker and "Sweetie Pie" aka Kat.  I swear, I don't know where this boy learned how to flirt.

It was a great way to end our summer!!!

Other Labor Day fun...  we met our friends at UGA Sunday evening for the women's soccer game:

Cal is normally a GT fan, so I had to document him wearing this shirt. ;)

Monday morning we had a birthday breakfast for Stephen and our friend Jason... (Monday was Stephen's actual birthday!):

Stephen and Sydney went to the GT/Tennessee football game Monday night:

...Parker, Taylor and I played at home and later they went to play at a neighborhood friend's house! (I had the house to myself for a bit... say what?!)