November 2021

The changing weather is keeping Lily inside a little 
more and nobody is complaining about the snuggles!

6th Grade Bowling with
Extended Day

 If you know our family, you know we are not Clarkson University fans.  But, Daddy won some season tickets to Clarkson hockey so he and Claire-Bear have been to a few games.  One Saturday Stella and I tagged along.

 House League Basketball is keeping us busy!  Practices on Monday and Wednesday evenings, and games every Saturday.

 

We took our chances at the last minute and were able to schedule an appointment for Stella to get the COVID-vaccine.  Claire had been a little stuffy that week so didn't come along.  Stella did great, and the employees running the clinic were great!

Watching Hannah's performance in
"All Together Now"

More basketball! For one weekend, the Potsdam gym wasn't available so Randy and Joey arranged for the league to move to Brasher for the day.  Stella enjoyed the opportunity to help run the clock!  

We celebrated Thanksgiving at Mom and Dad's.  The Hooley's visited for a few days and we made cookies, went ice skating, played games, and the younger girls did nails.

Turkey Leg!

With Thanksgiving behind us we are ready to shift gears to the holiday season!  While we didn't get our tree up in November this year, we did help decorate at church with friends!

October 2021

Claire Turns 10!

It's hard to throw a party during a pandemic.  Last year we did a drive-by thing but this year Claire really wanted to have friends over.  We ended up hosting an outdoor party, and thankfully the weather didn't spoil the fun!  The kids decorated pumpkins and made slime, and played some outdoor games.  

Thanks to Aunt MJ for making Claire's
cake idea come to life!

 

We've been talking about getting a trampoline for a while and when we tried to rent a bounce house for the birthday party with no success we caved and bought the trampoline!  Daddy put it together in time for the party with help from Stella and Ayisha!

Papa grew a giant pumpkin so eDecorating Pumpkins with cousins:

Mom & Dad's Road Trip

In 2019 we went to Detroit to see Angels and Airwaves play live and had such an awesome time.  We planned to go again in February 2020 but the show was cancelled, and then COVID cancelled all live music.  When the band decided to go on tour again we were all in!  Thank you to Grammie and Papa and The Williams Family for helping us with the girls so we could take this time away!

A video link below captures pics of our adventure, with a recording of live music from the Detroit Show.  Our trip included Angels and Airwaves, House of Blues Boston, Stay Pinapple Boston,Yankee Inn Bershires, Moxcy NYC Time Square, Magic Hour Rooftop Bar & Lounge, One World Trade Center, Virgil's Real Barbeque, Angels &  Airwaves, Manhatten Center, the Hope Sculpture on 7th Avenue, and lots of other good eats and drinks in between!  We took the Mini Cooper and were fortunate to have some beautiful weather and enjoy the convertible one last time before putting it away for the winter!

Trip Video Collage

Halloween was busy at our house this year!  Stella and some friends dressed up together and went trick or treating around the neighborhood. Daddy twinned with Claire and took all the kids out with Mrs. Austin while I stayed home with Suzanne and some other parents to hand out candy!

In other news this month - Stella-Bella got braces!

She's done great with them so far and we are looking forward to seeing this tranformation two-years from now!

September 2021

 After an entire year of not being able to attend school regularly, school has reopened for everyone!  This has made our family so very happy!

Getting back into a routine has felt good but we certainly feel much more busy now with school, tumbling, piano, Girl Scouts, Trash Busters and Extended Day.  Despite the business of it all, we are feeling very grateful to have a schedule that feels more like it should for middle school kids.

Yogibo - newest addition to the family room!

Trying out Smoothie Bowls at Foster the Plant - which Stella didn't care for but Claire sort of enjoyed:

Trying out Mumkins:

Saturday afternoon hike:

A visit to Fobare's Fruits with Aunt Patti, Skye, and Grammie:

 

Pranking Daddy as we welcomed him home from a weekend away playing golf:

Finishing up a project for the GS Bronze Award: partnering with our local food pantry to provide Halloween "party in a bag" kits: