September 2020

Here’s a recap of what we were up to over the month of September. It started out pretty hectic with virtual school for the first week (which I covered in a recent post), but as the girls transitioned into school in person, everything got back to a more normal pace.

Why wear your own rain boots when you can wear your big sister’s?

We were still doing virtual bible classes from home during September, and this was Savannah’s drawing for “Jesus Heals the Lame Man”.

I love daddy-daughter reading time :)

Abigail is starting to try to get dressed all by herself. Anything she CAN do, she wants to do without help ;)

September 4th – one of our virtual school days at home :)

That afternoon, we walked down to the greenway for the girls to play in the creek for a few minutes. Somebody didn’t make it the whole way before she fell asleep!

Brooklyn and Savannah still had fun at our little spot while Abigail napped though…

She did wake up in time to scooter part of the way home, at least!

That night, Travis’s cousin April got married at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens. I didn’t take very many pictures, but it was a fun evening. The girls were happy because our table was close to the desserts…haha.

Abigail was looking so cute that night! We enjoyed seeing some family that we don’t see very often these days and even an old friend from college. We were glad we were able to be there!

The girls LOVE their stuffed animals!

We went to the neighborhood pool for last time in 2020 on September 5th…

We had the pool to ourselves the whole time. It was really nice! Savannah enjoyed jumping off the side and swimming to the steps.

I’m pretty sure this was Travis’s first time to ever swim in the neighborhood pool…almost 3 years later after we bought our house ;) We very rarely swim on the weekend, so most of the time he’s busy working when we go to the pool. It was fun having him there with us!

Labor Day was on September 7th, and Tyler and Alisha invited our family over for breakfast that morning. Everything was delicious, and the girls loved having extra cousin time.

September 8th was a BIG day for Brooklyn and Savannah – the first day of school IN PERSON!! Yay!! This first week, the kids were split into A and B groups. We were in group A, so the girls went to school on September 8th and 10th and did virtual school at home on September 9th and 11th.

Of course, Abigail wanted to be in a picture with the big girls too :)

All last night and this morning, Brooklyn was dreading school and saying “School is boring and too much work”. Savannah was nervous and excited to go this morning, but she acted cool as a cucumber all morning and when we got there. The girls scootered to school, and we walked with Brooklyn’s friend, Madison, and her parents most of the way there.

When we got there, we had to wait a few minutes until 7:30 when the kindergarten parents could come inside. Brooklyn and Madison were ahead of us walking inside (Travis and Abigail had to wait outside), and Savannah’s mask came off right when we got inside the rotunda. By the time I got her mask fixed, Brooklyn and Madison were already most of the way down the hall. I never got to tell Brooklyn bye or give her a hug :( Mrs. Borys said she cried a few tears (which surprised me) right when she got into the classroom, but after a few minutes, she was laughing and enjoying being with her friends. Brooklyn said there were 4 boys and 4 girls there today (it was only half the class). She ended up having a great day. She said they did a math activity with Skittles and got to eat them afterward. She enjoyed playing “6 feet apart tag” during recess and at PE they walked around the track outside. They got to take their masks off outside, during lunch and snack, and for another mask break. She had fun playing with friends and said it wasn’t too much work after all. I was so glad she came out with a smile and she said she can’t wait to go back on Thursday.

Mrs. Borys sent me a picture of Brooklyn’s first day of school “evaluation”…haha. I loved it!

I was allowed to walk Savannah to her classroom and stay for 5 minutes this morning. (Only kindergarten parents. were allowed to do that this year due to the pandemic). Mrs. Curry had decorated their desks like construction vehicles…so cute! We found her desk and locker and put her backpack/lunchbox inside. She acted so calm and never cried at all…not even when I left.

Sweet girl :) I can’t believe she’s big enough to be in kindergarten!

Savannah only has 12 or 13 students in her class this year, so you can see how spread out their desks are in the classroom for social distancing. Definitely so different than normal…Brooklyn was sitting at a table with several other kids when she was in kindergarten…but I appreciated how Mrs. Curry tried to make it as fun and inviting as possible with the desk transformations and decorations.

Speaking of Mrs. Curry, she was wearing her hard hat too! :)

Mrs. Curry offered to take our picture together before I had to leave, so of course I said “yes”. Despite the strange year, I still wanted to document the occasion!

Savannah said the only time she thought she might cry on the first day was when she was doing a worksheet and didn’t understand what to do, but she said Mrs. Curry helped her :) She said it was hard to stay in a line when they were walking in the halls. She also said she didn’t have time to finish her apple or Oreos and brought them home. I was proud that she was waiting to eat her dessert until after she ate all her lunch…just like she does at home. She had food all over her face underneath her mask this afternoon :) She said she had a fun day and is looking forward to going back Thursday.

Savannah didn’t initially come out with the other walkers that afternoon. I think she must have been a little late getting to the 1st grade hallway where they all meet up, but one of the teachers brought her out a minute or two later :) Savannah held my hand as we walked home and told me all about her day. She even asked what Abigail had done during her day of school…so thoughtful. I love her sweet heart!

Travis even got to join us on our walk home that afternoon–one of the neat benefits of him teleworking!

So how did Abigail enjoy her first day of being an only child? As soon as we got home that morning after taking the girls to school, she asked: “Mommy, where are Brooklyn and Savannah?” Haha! She then proceeded to talk my ear off all day and follow me around…just as I expected. I guess she missed her sisters and needed some attention ;) I did convince her to play upstairs for a few minutes, but mostly she stayed near me all day. Travis said she made up for the lack of noise from the other girls with her loud, non-stop talking…haha!

September 8th was a big day for Savannah–not only was it her first day of school in person, but that evening she also had her first soccer practice ever!

I wrote this about her first practice: “Savannah had fun…she looked a little lost out there at times trying to do the some of the different drills, but she tried her best and ran hard and said she had fun. She looked over at me a lot for reassurance. Her coach seems nice and like he’s coached before. Hopefully it will be a fun season!”

On September 9th, the girls had a virtual day at home while the group B kids went to school in person, and then on September 10th, they were back to school for their 2nd day in person!

This was Savannah’s first time to walk into school without me. Brooklyn helped Savannah find her classroom before going to Mrs. Borys’ room, which I really appreciated! They both said they had great days. Savannah didn’t realize I packed her lunch, so she “bought” her lunch in the cafeteria. (Lunch is free for all kids right now because of a grant from the USDA). She said it was good! They are eating lunch in their classrooms for now but going through the line to pick up their lunches at the cafeteria. Savannah said they got to play on the playground today, and she played with Lilliana on the slide. She also tried to walk with Brooklynn on the track at PE, so she is trying to make friends! I’m seriously so proud of Savannah. No tears all week. She’s stepped out of her comfort zone and done amazing. I couldn’t be prouder! It goes to show that I shouldn’t put her in a box and think that I know how she’ll react just because of her personality…she has done so much better than I ever imagined!! Brooklyn earned 6 more Class Dojo points today for following directions. She said Mrs. Borys is a great teacher…not too hard and not too easy ;) Brooklyn said they played more “6 feet freeze tag” during recess. Savannah asked again today what Abigail did during the day and wanted to know what she had for lunch :)

Overall, the girls came home happy both days this week and everything has gone so well. From other moms I’ve talked to, their kids are just as excited to be back at school too even though it’s different than a normal year. Masks and plexiglass and all…they are just thankful to be there.

Abigail told me today that she enjoyed being an only child…haha. She is a much easier child when it’s just her!

Friday (9/11) was another virtual day at home. Savannah had to draw a picture of herself on the Seesaw app for her science activity that day.

Abigail fell asleep sitting next to Daddy on the couch right after lunch. The other girls were amused! I guess she was exhausted by the virtual school day too ;)

That evening, we went on a scooter ride/walk around the neighborhood…

…and then we lit a couple of sparklers on the driveway when we got home. Random fireworks in September…haha

The next morning, September 12th, Savannah had her first soccer game of the season!

Her team had only had one practice, so I was interested to see how everything went ;)

It took Savannah a while to figure out what she was supposed to be doing out there. I don’t even think she realized the point of the game—to try to kick the ball into the other team’s goal and keep the other team from kicking it in your goal.

But slowly she started figuring it out! She kicks the ball hard and runs hard! She even fell down a couple of times and got right back up. I was proud of her for trying. She said she had fun! They decided their team name was the “Fast Foxes” :)

Savannah’s team never scored…it seemed like most of the girls on the other team had played before, so it wasn’t very competitive. But Savannah had fun, and that’s all that matters! She also enjoyed the snacks afterward, of course ;) Also, this is how you “shake hands” during a pandemic…by standing 15 feet away and waving/clapping for each other…haha.

We had Sunday lunch with Baugay this month at Tyler and Alisha’s house. The girls always enjoy going over there and playing.

As a bit of an aside, you might remember that Cici gifted us with our very own caterpillar habitat back in August…but not knowing much about caterpillars, we thought the caterpillars were dying when they weren’t moving much, and Travis decided we should just let them go in the backyard. Alisha and her kids really got into caterpillars around that same time, and most of theirs made it all the way to the butterfly stage with no issue. I guess Cici felt sorry for us because she gave us 2 more caterpillars so we could try again…haha. I think she brought them over on Friday, and on Sunday when we got home from Tyler and Alisha’s, we discovered that one of the caterpillars (nicknamed “Squirmy”) had escaped from the habitat!! We looked on the kitchen counters, all over the floor in the kitchen and breakfast area, and couldn’t find him…so we assumed he wouldn’t live (because he left all his food behind in the habitat). The other caterpillar lived a few more days and then shriveled up and died. We thought we were done with caterpillars again, but little did we know. The story keeps going…stay tuned ;)

Savannah’s drawing of the Sermon on the Mount for her bible class

The week of September 14th was the girls’ first full week of school in person. They were excited, and so was I :)

Abigail was my little helper at Publix that morning…

Our crape myrtle was really blooming and looking beautiful!

Savannah had another soccer practice on September 15th. I liked how Coach Matt always had them end their practices with a fun/silly activity like crab crawling.

On September 16th, I went and picked up Luke and Barrett and brought them back to our house for a few hours to give Alisha a break. Carter was still doing virtual school at home at that point, and I figured I could help her out and give Abigail some playmates at the same time.

We walked down to the neighborhood playground, and the kids had fun playing for a little while.

It was fun to watch them playing together without the bigger cousins/siblings bossing them around ;)

We walked back to our house after a few minutes and had a mid-morning snack…

…and then they watched their bible class video from Mrs. Gina. It was funny to see how little interest the boys had in coloring their coloring sheets. Abigail was the only one that really did any coloring.

They had fun dressing up and playing in the playroom. Luke and Barrett wore our Wild Kratts vests and gloves, and Abigail was a princess :)

Before long, it was time for lunch…

…and then we played outside with tricycles and scooters for a little while.

It was a fun morning, and Abigail was sad to see the boys go!

Another drawing for bible class: The Centurion’s Servant

I wrote this toward the end of that week of school…

“School is still going really well! Savannah is apparently very quiet at school (no surprise there)…Mrs. Curry says she can tell that Savannah is taking it all in. My hope is that once she becomes more comfortable, she will open up and start talking to other kids/trying to make friends. I’m sure all the precautions this year aren’t helping the kids get to know one another…the environment automatically makes it more difficult to socialize. But Savannah has come home happy every day this week and said she had a good day. She says her favorite classmate so far is Peyton because he picked up a glue stick for her that she dropped and he helps her find where she is supposed to be going :) Brooklyn loves Mrs. Borys and is having a great time at school. No complaints about masks or anything else. She made a new friend, Amani, this week and says she is her new best friend. Brooklyn said she saw Savannah yesterday for the first time during the school day and got really excited ;)”

Getting ready for school this year involves an extra step–making sure the kids have a clean mask on their lanyard ready to go for the next day.

I wanted to take Abigail’s picture while she was building a big tower…

…and then she told me she wanted to take my picture too ;)

Savannah had her 2nd soccer game on September 19th.

Savannah was definitely making a lot of progress by this point and seemed to understand what she was doing out there more than last week. She scored her team’s only goal today…and the Fast Foxes’ first goal of the season! She kicked the ball from fairly far away and it just kept rolling right into the goal. I’m not sure she even realized she was the one who scored, but all the parents started cheering! Wish I’d gotten it on camera.

Savannah was excited and said she had a lot of fun playing. She said she likes the games more than the practices…and “not just because we get snacks at the games…I just like the games better.” :) One funny thing we realized pretty quickly was that all 5 girls had the same hair color…so it was tough to tell some of the other girls apart at first!

This is embarrassing, but Savannah got an American Girl gift card for her birthday, and it took us months to have her pick out stuff online to order. So it was September before her gifts finally came. She really enjoyed this art kit with a canvas that could be “painted” with water to reveal color underneath.

On September 20th, we celebrated Luke and Barrett turning FOUR. It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago that Alisha was pregnant with twins, and now they are getting so big.

Abigail always loves any chance to sit with Cici and look at a book :)

Savannah’s drawing of the Parable of the Sower

Mrs. Borys is really good about sharing a few pictures from school just about every week in an app called Class Dojo. I love having a glimpse into Brooklyn’s day since parents can’t be inside the school this year.

Brooklyn was loving art class every Monday, especially when her friend Avery was there. The Langstons didn’t come every week, but did come a few times in August and September.

This year because of social distancing guidelines, only 2 classes are allowed on the playground at at time. So when it’s nice outside, most recess days are spent playing in a designated grassy area on school grounds. I know the kids enjoy getting out there and being able to take their masks off and just run and play for a little while.

Ice cream sandwiches are messy but so yummy!

Apparently this was the month for falling asleep on the couch and other random places ;)

Savannah’s soccer team practiced every week on Tuesday, and most times I took her by myself and the other girls stayed home with Travis.

Mrs. Curry’s class celebrated Johnny Appleseed Day during the week of September 21st. They did a science experiment to see what would happen to the apple slices in different kinds of liquid. Savannah was excited to tell me all about her predictions and what really happened.

They also got to try different types of apples and see which ones they liked best.

“Jairus’s daughter is raised”

Most mornings we had been trying to walk to school because the girls enjoy doing that, but September 24th was super rainy so we had to do carline instead.

Abigail and I had to make a quick stop at Kroger that morning, and it was still monsooning. She was looking so cute in her raincoat!

“I want to take your picture too, Mommy!”

It wasn’t quite October yet, but the girls were already ready for Halloween to get here :)

The girls were supposed to wear their favorite team’s colors on September 25th. Brooklyn had declared herself an Auburn fan at some point last year but didn’t have an official t-shirt…so she just wore orange and blue instead.

All of the Auburn fans in Brooklyn’s class :)

Any math activity involving food is always fun :)

Savannah had fun stamping with apples…

and building with apple pieces and toothpicks. I loved all the creative things they did with apples this week!

The girls asked me to bring their rainboots to school that afternoon so they could splash in the puddles on the way home. Such fun to be a kid!

I caught Abigail singing along with her Frozen sing-along book, and it was so cute :)

Savannah’s game got rained out on September 26th, so the girls decided to have their own indoor soccer game instead–complete with stuffed animal spectators…haha. It was very creative, and even Mommy and Daddy played for a bit.

Sunday lunch is just plain exhausting!

Travis gave Abigail a foot rub that evening, and she thought it was hilarious…

Another drawing – “The Death of John the Baptist”

On September 28th, we were eating dinner at the kitchen table when all of a sudden we heard a flapping and fluttering sound. We thought it was a fly or some kind of bug stuck in the blinds, but we couldn’t figure out exactly where it was coming from at first. Finally, Travis realized it was coming from the top of the blinds on our back door. He got a step stool to see what was going on, and there was Squirmy…he was a butterfly now!! He had escaped the habitat and crawled all the way across the kitchen floor and up the back door to make his chrysalis on top of the blinds. Unfortunately, one of his wings got stuck and tore when Travis tried to free him. Squirmy flew out of the blinds but fell to the floor because only one of his wings worked :(

Brooklyn was initially so excited until she realized that Squirmy was hurt and wasn’t going to be able to fly…

Travis cleaned out all of the chrysalis remains out of the blinds, and then we talked about what to do with Squirmy. The girls wanted to keep him inside, but we told them that Squirmy wouldn’t be able to live without any food…

They finally decided to put Squirmy in our flower pot on the back patio. Squirmy was still there the next morning when we went out there to check, but by the afternoon he was gone. I guess he either crawled away to find food or got eaten by a bird or something else. Poor Squirmy! I’m just glad the girls didn’t find him dead out there. It was a traumatic end to our caterpillar days. We had no idea he had made his chrysalis and been up in the blinds for 15 days!! Apparently the Loveless family has all the luck when it comes to caterpillars because we sure didn’t have much…haha

Brooklyn drew a picture to remember him by :)

…and here was Savannah’s drawing of Squirmy!

Abigail thinks she’s a big kid now that she has figured out how to work some of the buttons on the remote!

She also did such a good job coloring in the lines on this picture :)

This year, there was no fall book fair in person at school, but they did have an online option for ordering. The girls each picked out some books and were so excited when they finally came!

Savannah’s soccer practice on September 29th

I cracked up at the note Brooklyn left me in her lunchbox before I made lunches that night: “Please give me pudding.” :)

Luke and Barrett came back for another morning of playtime with Abigail on September 30th. We mostly did all the same things that we did a couple of weeks before. I guess they liked our routine ;) On our way to the playground this time, they were all admiring our neighbor’s Mickey and Minnie Halloween decorations and wanted to take a picture with them :)

I think they were pretending that the playground was a pirate ship :)

It was a Wednesday again, so we watched their next bible class video from Mrs. Gina. Luke and Barrett still didn’t care anything about coloring…haha

There was plenty of time for playing with toys…

Somehow the boys got confused and kept referring to Uncle Travis that day as my dad…haha. So they got to eat lunch with Aunt Erin’s dad…a real treat! ;)

After lunch, we had scooter and tricycle races on the driveway. They loved it and kept wanting to do ONE MORE race…pleeeeease. We had a fun morning!

Notes and Quotes from September:

• 9/4/20 – We walked to the greenway this afternoon, and on the way back, Savannah needed to sit down on the walking path to get a rock out of her shoe. It was a very hot day, and after she got up, she said, “My booty was firing!” (I think she meant that her bottom felt like it was on fire….haha!)
• 9/7/20 – Abigail has started really doing well with potty training in the last week. She is telling me when she needs to go teetee and doing it easily now. She is keeping her Pullup dry and even wearing big girl panties sometimes. All it took was HER deciding that she was ready. Definitely wasn’t worth pushing it with her personality. She is still not happy about pooping in the potty, but she will do it (with some resistance) if I catch her starting to go in her Pullup.
• 9/7/20 – Brooklyn started art lessons last week. Last week Avery and her sisters came too and they painted pottery! This week, Brooklyn was actually the only student in class, so she got a private lesson! Today they worked on shading with soft pastels. Brooklyn said she was having so much fun that she forgot I walked next door to Kroger to get groceries during the lesson. She is really enjoying it so far (way more than she ever enjoyed soccer). It seems right up her alley!
• 9/17/20 – Abigail has worn big girl panties several days this week and kept them dry all day! She even slept in her panties during her nap one afternoon and kept them dry (I completely forgot to put a Pullup on her). She is really doing well! She still doesn’t like pooping in the potty and it seems like she is holding it for days until it finally comes out. She’s clogged the potty twice in the last week because it’s so much. That girl!
• 9/20/20 – Abigail (after going potty): “This time, I want to flush. No mommy flushing allowed!”
• 9/29/20 – Abigail: “Did I get a new brusher?” (She was talking about the new toothbrush we opened up this morning…haha.)
• 9/29/20 – Travis: “Do you always have to be talking?” Abigail: “I don’t have a problem!” :)

Thanks for reading!!