Changing Seasons

Yesterday and the day before, the kids spent a good part of their free time jumping on the new trampoline. It has been a lovely way to spend some very pretty fall days as the colors have been changing all around the lake. Jonny has been home from school the past few days, so he and I put this monster together on Wednesday. The directions said it would be a job fit for 3 able bodied adults. Hah....they hadn't intended one very motivated mom and her assistant child to accomplish such a feat. But accomplish we did. Five hours, four cold and tired hands, and a pair of aching knees and one immobile back later, the trampoline was completed....safety enclosure and all.

Today, we woke up to snow on the ground! Just a dusting, but it did not stop the kids from searching and digging out their winter apparel (which I think I had only finally put away two months ago), and run outside to have their first winter's fun of the year. It REALLY was ONLY a dusting, but with the excitement it had caused in our house, you'd have thought it had been a blizzard and they were all home on a snow day, not just an ordinary Saturday.

Laura had her second dance class today, and was happy to try on her new tap shoes. She was pleased to find that tapping with two shoes was significantly better than trying to tap with just one high wedged shoe as she had been subjected to last week. Being "Bring Your Friend to Dance Class" week, she brought her sister, Melissa along. Melissa had a little bit of fun, but opted out of the tap portion and decided that dance just really wasn't "her thing". She spent the rest of the time being an awesome big sister:

Holding her baby sister.

Helping her younger sister take off her tap shoes at the end of class.

Melissa has such a heart for helping others, which is so sweet, especially considering how many people help her. It is fantastic to be able to see her successfully help when she desires it so. Such a good big sister she is!

We bowed out of Melissa's double-header soccer games today. It was 27 degrees, wind blowing at between 20-30mph across the country fields, and holy-moly, just plain frigid outside! I had brought Melissa and the neighbor girl to soccer just on Thursday when it was cold and windy....they were two of only 5 girls on our team that showed up. They never got a break, and were positively freezing (as were Laura & I being spectators under very large blankets). Today, I would have had to bring the baby out in this mess as poor Daddy was stuck at work again. Though this ends her very short soccer season, 2-1/2 hours out there? No thanks! We did our time.

Though still timid around the ball, Melissa enjoyed soccer, as always.

Constant, excited smiles on her face.

And she was the most motivated goalie you have ever seen.

She DID go horseback riding later this afternoon with her new (old) Girl Scout Troop. Now, THAT was a good time, even in the freezing, windy, cold of impending winter.