Family Photo Shoot

A big thanks to Emily Carmack for her photography skills. We love them. And you will have to wait for the family photo til we send out of Christmas cards. I know the anticipation is going to kill you.

Soccer Season

Soccer season is in full swing here. One thing I can say for Truckee is the weather is a lot better for sitting on the sidelines. 70 and breezy most days. The kids both have wonderful coaches. And it is a lot more busy. They play 2 games a week each. Every Monday the girls are both at the same time to it takes some juggling but they have made it to most of their games.  Also I have made a couple friends from all the time we spend on the sidelines.

Eva's cute team the Purple People Eaters. 

Leah's team is, The Girlfriends. I still chuckle every time Dave yells, "go girlfriends."

Ronan plays every Saturday along with 75 other 4 year olds. They go through a bunch of drills and then play little 4 on 4 games. He is much improved from last year when he wouldn't play at all. In fact he has scored at least a couple goals in each game. Last Saturday I took him and he scored 2 goals and he said is was boring and he wanted to score 5 like last game.

Ronan's First BMX Race

At North Star there was a free kids BMX race. Dave entered Ronan in and got all this free bike gear. He was so excited to be in a race. Dave said he was very serious about the whole thing. He was the only little kid to go over the ramps in the race. Then after the 2 laps of the race he kept going and did 4 laps. He took second place and got a real medal.

This is his buddy Ty who took second in his age group too.

Emily's Visit

We had the pleasure of Mrs. Carmack and Griff coming for a visit. It was probably all my lamenting about how home sick I was on the phone. She hopped on a flight and popped up. We road the lift up to the top of the resort.

Here we all are. I am sure Dave will never want another women in his life after all the nagging he got from the two of us.

Down at the lake for quick look and some ice cream. Griff enjoyed his.  

We had some wonderful weather and were even able to go to the beach at Sand Harbor. During the summer these beaches are packed and you cant even get parking. But we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

Ronan spend the whole day climbing on all these rocks.  

We took a couple great walks. And even got a night out to go shopping in Reno. 

And spent 2 afternoons at the pool.  We had to try to keep it hush hush because the girls didn't want to go to school after they found out how much fun we were having.  Thanks Emily for coming to rescue me from my homesickness. It really helped. Oh and wait you all see that family pictures she took for us.

Guess who is 6 months? I can hardly believe it. Time has flown by. But even with how busy we have been I still feel like I have had plenty of time to snuggle this darling thing. This month has been a big month of changes. She learned to sit up, roll over both ways, has starting trying to grab whatever food I am eating. And in biggest news can put herself to sleep in her crib. I feel like a new women. Instead of holding a baby all day I can actually stay caught up on my life. Why can't I just freeze her at this age. She is divine! So far no teeth but she chews on everything so maybe something is coming in.

5 months for Claire was the age of laying on her tummy wishing she could move somewhere. Starting to eat solid foods. And just killing us with her cuteness. Oh and lots of holding.

Always chewing on that finger. Here are some cute ones from our 5 month photo shoot.

First time eating baby food. I had a Leah helper to feed her while I took some pictures. She mostly pushed it back out of her mouth. But after a few weeks she had it down.

A photo montage of her monthly photos for the last 6 months. Click on it to make it bigger.

Some School Field Trips

Ronan's teacher is having a baby. So for a shower we all went to Donner Lake. The kids had a blast and it gave me a chance to get to know a few people.

One of the moms made a cute onesie with each of the kids hand prints for their teacher.

This was a family drive we took on a rainy Sunday. Above Donner Lake is this amazing lookout spot. There is also great rock climbing we are going to have to go back for. And I did forget to mention that Ronan got his first stitches. He fell out of the car in Reno straight onto his head. He needed 3 stitches and luckily they are right in his hairline so it isn't too noticeable. He has asking to go back there to climb around now that his stitches are healed.

Leah's class got to go to Trails and Vistas at Sand Harbor. They had a bunch of different stops as we went along the beach. It was a fantastic field trip.

This was a team building game to get across a pretend river.  

They had a drum circle. It was really quite amazing looking out over the lake as all the kids drummed along to the beat.

Quite a odd stop about the goddess of the lake in Brazil. 

This was a story teller who made up a story about the world all living inside a box. Then she let each of the kids pick a treasure. They were different marbles that looked like the world, stars, etc. Leah got the sun.

What a fun day to spend with my girl. And thankfully she will still hold my hand while in front of her friends.

First Day of School

Leah started the third grade this year. She has Ms. Haddy a veteran teacher who is spunky with dyed black hair. This is her last year teaching. Leah made a good friend the first day. A cute girl came up and asked her if she had anyone to play with. Leah even had a play date with her the next day with her.

Sweet Eva going into the first grade this year. She has Mrs. Lynn and even knows 3 kids in her class. It was pretty lucky since I think she know 4 kids total up here. It was nice to not have to worry about her having someone to play with the first day.

Ronan is starting 4 year old preschool at Church of the Mountains. It is the basement of the Methodist church up here in town. He LOVES it. It is very old school playschool sort of setup. They have a ton of toys and spend lots of time play, doing art, and playing outside. There is a circle time where they learn about the cultures of the world.