First Days, Grandparent's Day, and Gotcha Day!

September had three especially noteworthy days- the kiddos' first day of school, Grandparent's Day, and Gotcha Day!!! It was a pretty full month altogether but these days, in particular, left our hearts pretty full.

Soaking up one last day at the pool on Labor Day before school starts!

"Jitter Glitter" the night before!

Priceless first day of school video

of Lilee HERE!

Video of Ollie HERE!

Video of Maelee HERE!

And off they go to school for the first day!!!

Ready for a new school year!

And just like that, our sweet little bun starts Pre-K!

BFFs Lilee & Chloe- so happy to be in school together!

Celebratory ice cream after very successful first days for all three!

And then we had the pleasure of enjoying more sweetness at the end of the week!

Might be hard to read from the cake, haha, but it was a happy Grandparent's Day getting to celerate these two over dessert!

Then toward the end of the month, on September 28th to be exact, we got to celebrate the day we *got* our Ollie boy as our son. Of course in many ways, we feel like he's been part of our family for so much longer, but in other ways we can't believe it's already been a whole year. It has not been an easy road to navigate, but we are so excited to see what God has in store for our family. Ollie has been such a sweet addition to our crew!

Helping mommy taste-test the frosting on his "Gotcha Day" cake!

All good celebrations must include CAKE!

Some of our most special friends to celebrate the joyous occasion with us.

And some pretty special family, too!

Our celebration ended up needing to take place on the 27th, as Steve had to travel on the 28th, but he was able to leave late enough the next morning to enjoy some celebratory donuts with our sweet boy.

Capping off the night of the 28th with ice cream!
We sure like to mark special occasions with sweet treats!

And a sweet three days in September they were!

Rides, Slides, & Smiles

In addition to a quick but super fun detour to Busch Gardens during our visit with Steve & Mava in Gwynn Island, we also got to make a quick but super fun trip to Funland at Rehoboth Beach in August! Lots of excitement packed into two afternoons!

The kids wanted to go on all their favorite rides from our first visit to Busch Gardens back in March, and this time Ollie was a daredevil with his interest in riding the big Battering Ram ride! He only liked it for a moment, and then was a bit unnerved but we were proud of him for trying it! We lucked out again with beautiful weather and manageable crowds and it was another highlight from our summer.

The next weekend, we took a day trip up to DE for a few hours at Funland, followed by dinner with Mary Catherine at Grotto's in Dover. 

The kids had a blast! One of our favorite summertime traditions. They were all tickled over their stuffed animal "prizes" and the best end to the day was getting to spend some time with Too-Mom for dinner. We all miss Too-Dad dearly and are so grateful for opportunities to get together still.

And finally, the Friday before school started, Steve took a day off work and we had high hopes of having a fun afternoon of some apple picking before it got so late in the season that all the good apples were gone (our usual problem!). The weather forecast promised clouds without rain, but as we got within minutes of the orchard, the skies opened up and poured down! The trek was almost an hour away so we quickly searched for any indoor kid-friendly alternative we could find and we came across a little bounce house play space! At the end of the day, we don't think the kids minded one bit.

More pictures HERE!

And that pretty much wraps up our August!  Pics from September to come soon.  One of these days I'll be caught up!