August got off to a quick start with school and soccer beginning. We also celebrated Abigail’s birthday this month. Here’s the recap:
School started on August 1st! Brooklyn has been a mix of nervous and excited leading up to her first day of middle school. She couldn’t eat much dinner last night or breakfast this morning because her stomach hurt. She does have a friend in a couple of her classes this 9 weeks, which will hopefully help. I suggested that she could walk with us to take Savannah and Abigail to school this morning to help burn off some nervous energy, and she agreed to do that.
We tried to leave the house as close to 7 am as possible so we could drop Savannah and Abigail off and walk home to get in the car and drive Brooklyn to school. Dropoff at Mill Creek went very smoothly, and both girls were excited to go inside. Abigail saw her friend Sadie in our neighborhood who is also in Mrs. Pride’s class this year, so they walked inside together. Savannah also walked the girls to Mrs. Pride’s room like a sweet big sister! She saw Harper going upstairs so they walked together to the 4th grade classrooms.
Abigail said she had a good day and made a new friend named Victoria who didn’t speak English. She said she went on the swings with Sadie at recess and also got to talk to Isla on the playground, her best friend from kindergarten. I loved seeing the pictures of Mr. Wilson, the principal, with Mrs. Pride’s class! :)
I didn’t get any pictures, but Savannah also had a good day and said Mrs. Davidson was nice. She sat with a girl named Lily today at lunch and found some friends on the playground to play with. They mostly did “get to know you” games and learned about the class rules. They didn’t switch classes today, but I think they are planning to switch for a few minutes tomorrow.
Middle school drop-off was an adventure. Travis rode with us. We left the house around 7:44 am. It’s normally a 7 minute drive to Journey with regular traffic. Well, there was a train stopped on the tracks this morning blocking Sullivan Street, which caused traffic to back way up on Mill Road. It was well after 8 am before we even pulled into Journey’s parking lot, and I heard the bell ringing as Brooklyn finally got out of the car around 8:13…they are tardy at 8:15, although they don’t count tardies at the beginning of the year while everyone is getting adjusted to the new routine. I was trying not to stress out about almost making her late on the first day of middle school! All of a sudden, when she was getting out of the car, I just felt this wave of emotion, and I could barely choke out a goodbye. It just doesn’t seem right that she is old enough to go to middle school, and I worry about negative influences there. But hopefully she will make some good godly friends and have a positive experience there.
For the afternoon pickup routine, I walked to get Savannah and Abigail and then took them home and left a few minutes later to drive to get Brooklyn. The start and end times are staggered between elementary and middle school. Abigail was not happy that I was almost immediately leaving to go pick up Brooklyn. I think it will take all of us some time to adjust to the new routine. Travis was working from home, and she was able to sit with him in his office chair for some of that time. Savannah wanted to ride with me to pick up Brooklyn. We left the house around 3:05, and the traffic wasn’t bad getting to the school at all. But the carline was backed up all the way out of the parking lot and onto the road. It started moving at 3:20 when school gets out, and I think we finally got home around 3:50. Whew. It was a lot.
As for Brooklyn’s day, she came to the car with a smile on her face, so that was good. She had a good day overall. She liked her teachers, especially Mr. Milligan (her social studies teacher). She was happy to have Victoria in advisory and Scholars Bowl and Paisleigh in AVID. She also said a girl introduced herself to her in social studies. She did say she ate lunch alone today, which made me sad. I think she wasn’t sitting completely alone, but she was sitting with kids that she didn’t know well and didn’t talk to. Hopefully tomorrow will be better in that aspect! I was thankful that it was still overall a good day. She found her way to all of her classes and was watching for us in the afternoon car line. Yay! Our girl is growing up! And as if that wasn’t enough, Brooklyn lost one of her last baby tooth (maybe #19 if I counted correctly) that evening after school!
Savannah and Abigail burned off some steam after school on August 2nd by pulling each other in the wagon around the backyard ;)
Playing the Frozen version of the game Trouble :)
Savannah was invited to Gabriella’s birthday celebration on August 3rd at Bridge Street. They played games at Main Event, rode the carousel and train, and enjoyed lots of treats. The girls all dressed in patriotic colors since the Summer Olympics were going on :) Savannah had a blast!
All grown and making her own toast!
Abigail is blessed to have several sweet and silly friends at church :)
We got into a pretty good groove after the first couple of days of school where Travis and I would split up the morning drop-off duties. He would either walk the younger girls to Mill Creek or drive Brooklyn to Journey, and I would do the opposite. On August 5th, I took Savannah and Abigail to school :)
Abigail shared her “All About Me” bag with her class that day :)
Remembering school routines, like punching in your lunch number in the cafeteria, takes a few days to get the hang of again.
After trying out the afternoon carline for the first two days of school, we decided to try having Brooklyn be a “walker” instead (like old times!). We don’t live close enough to the middle school for her to walk home, but we started having her walk to a nearby meeting spot where I could just park and wait for her. Sarah started doing the same thing, so Brooklyn was able to walk with Kate and Olive in the afternoons. Other than it being hot at the beginning of the school year, I think it has been a nice way for them to get a little fresh air and exercise since they don’t have year-long PE (and no more recess) in middle school.
Group work with new friends on August 6th
August 7th – Abigail and her friend, Sadie, on the playground during recess
Abigail has several classmates from other countries, including one from Japan. I love that!
Swinging after school on August 8th
Cici gave me some lunch notes I could include in the girls’ lunch boxes for school (which they love!), and sometimes the girls like to use them to write notes to each other. I liked Abigail’s note for Savannah on August 9th: “You are as smart as can be. I love you.” :)
Savannah had an appointment that morning, so she got to check in late at school. She was a big helper loading the dishwasher with her extra time.
Mrs. Pride is really good at encouraging the kids to show kindness to others, and Abigail decided to make Sadie a card and take it to school :)
Little sisters waiting on the middle schoolers to walk to the car after school :)
Abigail has been asking if we could help her learn to ride a bike without training wheels lately. She has outgrown her old one, so we got Savannah’s old bike ready for her to try. We practiced a little bit on Friday, August 9th after school and several times on Saturday. To be expected, she was pretty wobbly and unstable at first. We tried letting her ride in the grass in case she fell. We got back out there again on August 12th after dinner, and something clicked and she got it. She was riding up and down the sidewalk in front of our house. Still a little wobbly, but doing SO well. She has even figured out how to get herself started pedaling without help. Super proud of her! She was very determined to learn how to do it, and it didn’t take long at all!
We ate at Tyler and Alisha’s house for lunch on August 11th after church, and the cousins played Century together. It’s one of their favorite games!
“Watch how strong I am!”
The girls enjoyed a lot of outdoor play time on August 12th…
Brooklyn was really excited about an elective she was taking called AVID for the first week or so of school. One day her class made and painted “worry stones” to help them if they were feeling anxious. Unfortunately, her teacher resigned after the first week or two of school to take another job, and the class wasn’t the same after that :(
My Mazda 6 sedan that I’ve had since I was a senior in high school finally reached the end of its road on August 13th. It got stuck in 3rd gear a couple of weeks earlier and needed the transmission repair module fixed before we would even be able to tell whether there were additional things wrong with the transmission. It wasn’t worth sinking almost $2000 into the car and not knowing whether that would even fix everything, so we decided to take it to a local junkyard called Pick Your Part. It was like a blast from the past cleaning everything out of the car that I hadn’t gone through in many years. I found a ton of old CDs (of illegally downloaded music…whoops) and even an old atlas that I’m sure my parents gave me before I went off to college back before the days of GPS. We had to jump the car off because the battery was dead, and then I followed Travis in our other car over to the junkyard. He couldn’t accelerate much at all, so it was a bit of an adventure to get it there. It shut off while it was idling in the junkyard parking lot and wouldn’t crank again, so I feel like we were lucky to get it there ourselves. They gave us $420 for it instead of $300 if they would have had to tow it from the repair shop. It was sad to think about it being reduced to a heap of metal after its parts are sold, but it served us well over the last 20 years! Lots of memories made in that car!
I enjoy our walks home from school because they give me a chance to hear a lot about the girls’ day. They also enjoy spending a little bit of extra time with their friends who live in our neighborhood.
Abigail had a jamboree soccer practice on August 15th to kick off the fall season. I always love watching her play!
August 16th was Abigail’s birthday, and the girls decided they wanted to scooter to school that day. It also happened to be House Sorting Day at Mill Creek where all of the new students would find out their house color. This year is extra special because Mrs. Pride is Abigail’s teacher and her house mom. The girls both said they had a good day!
Abigail opened a few birthday gifts that night with just us at home. I loved seeing her reaction to the gifts she got from her sisters. Brooklyn made Abigail some Perler bead creations, and Savannah worked really hard on a sweet card. Abigail also received some craft activities, Bluey books, and pool goggles and diving toys. She was excited!
Abigail was also super excited about her friend party the next day at our house. We had originally planned the party to be just for Abigail, but her friend Liv’s birthday is 4 days after Abigail’s and it just made sense to celebrate both of them at the same time since they would have been inviting mostly the same girls to their own parties. We rented a bounce house/waterslide with a big unicorn on top that Abigail picked out (before we decided to do a joint party). We technically rented the slide from 1-6 pm on Saturday, but they actually brought it on Friday night! The girls could wait to try it out that evening (without water). Abigail also worked really hard on some homemade party favors. She made little boxes out of paper and drew pictures of birthday cake and included Starbursts too. She spent a lot of time on them, and I thought that was so sweet.
It was extremely hot and humid on the morning of the party–so humid that we basically stepped outside and started sweating immediately. I was a little worried that the party would just be miserable for anyone not getting wet because it was so hot. We also had the girls’ bedroom furniture delivered that morning that we’d been waiting on for several weeks. Story and Lee only delivers to Madison on certain days of the week, and this was the only day we could make work before soccer games started. The delivery guys didn’t finish until close to 1:30 pm, so it was very tight. But they got it done! Around 1:45, it started to rain pretty hard, so it was raining when most of the guests started to arrive. We sent the kids upstairs to play for a few minutes while everyone was getting there, and then we decided to let the girls open presents first while we made sure the weather was clearing up. Abigail had great facial expressions and was so excited about her gifts. She gave each person a hug after she opened their gift…it was so sweet.
After that it was time to SLIDE! The rain actually cooled things off and the humidity was MUCH better…it actually felt very comfortable outside. I couldn’t believe it! The kids had a blast! It definitely kept them entertained for the rest of the party. I was glad we rented one with a bounce house because a couple of the girls didn’t love the slide part, so at least they still had somewhere to play. It was fun to watch the kids come up with different ways to slide down and splash at the bottom. Our grass got a good watering that day because the water splashed out of the pool almost every time someone came down.
We served unicorn cupcakes and homemade vanilla ice cream with toppings after that, and then the kids continued to play. and we made homemade vanilla ice cream with toppings. Liv’s mom, Catherine, also brought some watermelon slices. The kids also played “Pin the cherry on the ice cream” 😊
Abigail and Liv both had a great time, and Liv declared it was the best day of her life. I was so glad! Savannah made me smile because she spent more time on the waterslide than anyone else. She was the last one to finish sliding well after most everyone had already left. She decided she has more fun at other people’s parties than at her own…I told her it’s probably because she doesn’t love being the center of attention. Brooklyn also had fun, even though she was embarrassed by the unicorn 😉 Even the boys loved it. It was extra special to see a rainbow in our backyard right after the party ended!
After most everyone left, we ordered pizza for dinner with Paw and Rae Rae and the Bares crew. Paw and Abigail blew out candles on a cheesecake for the second dessert of the day. We had to celebrate the birthday buddies, of course! (Abigail was born on Paw’s 70th birthday). Abigail was super excited to get a bunch of new earrings, Bluey stuff, an earring holder, American Girl gift card, and craft stuff. It was a great day!
The next day, August 18th, we celebrated Abigail’s birthday at Cici’s house for lunch after church. She requested “chocolate graham crackers” as her birthday dessert, which is her daddy’s favorite ;) She again had the best facial expressions when she was opening her gifts and was so excited to receive some nail polish, sticker books, and a big package of Oreos! :)
That afternoon, I took Brooklyn to her friend Lucy’s birthday part at Urban Air Adventure Park. It was our first time going there, and Brooklyn had a lot of fun!
One of the downsides of having an early-in-the-school-year birthday is that parents aren’t allowed to come for lunch for the first two weeks of school. So I came in for lunch on August 19th instead and brought a sprinkle donut for Abigail to eat. We were just extending the birthday celebration, I guess ;)
The girls started soccer practice the week of August 19th as well. Abigail is on “Coach G’s” team (The Dragonflies) this fall with all new teammates except for one girl she knew from a previous season named Emily. She is playing 8U this season again. We were sad that Liv had to move up to 9U though. By the end of the first practice, you wouldn’t know that she was new to the team. I loved seeing her make friends so quickly and confidently.
Savannah and Abigail rode bikes after school on August 21st. It was amazing how well Abigail was riding all by herself in just a few weeks.
The kindergarteners at Mill Creek always celebrate Color Days at the beginning of the school year, but the entire school is invited to dress up along with them. August 22nd was Green Day. It was also Hat Day as part of the school reading challenge/fundraiser that was going on ;)
Brooklyn sent me a picture of an island that she helped make as a group project for her AVID class. I loved how it turned out!
On August 23rd, the girls and I headed down to the greenway for a little creek time. The water was mostly dried up in the creek bed, but the girls still enjoyed swinging and exploring. We also scootered over to the new playground at the Sunshine Oaks park nearby. I loved that it is accessible from the greenway and has a nice bathroom setup too!
August 24th was the first soccer Saturday of the fall! Abigail’s game was up first at 8:45 am at Dublin 4. She played great! She had to sit out about 1.5 quarters today, which she wasn’t thrilled about, but she was full of energy when she was out there. She made a couple of assists to her teammates who scored! She also had some big booming goal kicks that went over everyone’s heads…haha. The game was a high scoring affair, and I lost count, but Abigail thought it ended in a 5-5 tie. She knew several girls on the other team from school.
Savannah played next at 9:45 at Dublin 9. Abigail and I walked up the hill to her game after Abigail’s ended. They hadn’t gotten started yet, so we had good timing. Savannah played every quarter but the 3rd today. She played defense at first and then midfield after that. Her team is the Purple Panthers, and Coach Chris is her coach. We were disappointed that she didn’t get placed on Coach Bob’s team again, but hopefully it will still be a great season. She is excited that Gabriella and Alexa are on her team. Savannah played hard and had an amazing goal in the 4th quarter. Gabriella took a corner kick and it went right to Savannah in front of the goal, and Savannah kicked it with one touch into the back of the net. My favorite part was seeing how excited she was after she scored, and Gabriella and Alexa ran up and gave her a big group hug. Her team won 4-1. Abigail was happy to hang out with Mia during the game.
Meanwhile Brooklyn was over at Palmer 10 playing at 10 am. Travis took her to her game. She played the whole game and was pretty tired by the end. She mostly played defense, and Travis said she played really well and stopped the other team from scoring several times. He forgot to take any pictures, but that’s okay 😉 Thankfully it wasn’t as hot as it has been some during this month!
We enjoyed some Jeremiah’s with Cici as a special treat after the games were all finished :)
Abigail was determined to knock out several bingo squares in the school reading challenge bingo sheet, so she read a book in the tub to her stuffed animal while wearing sunglasses and using a flashlight…haha.
Gabriella’s mom came to eat lunch with her on August 26th, and they invited Savannah to sit with them. She was happy about that!
It’s hard to get too many pictures of Brooklyn now that she’s in middle school, but I tried to snap a quick one as she and her friends were walking toward the car after school. I’m glad they are able to walk together!
August 27th was Pink Day, and it was also a PJ day as a school-wide reward for the reading fundraiser.
August 28th was Black Day :)
August 29th was Picture Day at school, and I was excited that Abigail chose to wear one of my favorite dresses for the picture. She looked super cute!
On Thursdays this season, Brooklyn and Savannah had back-to-back practices at Dublin Park, so Savannah would bring a book or homework while she waited for her practice to start.
August 30th was the first House Day of the year where the kids all met with their house families for character-building activities (and usually a snack too…haha). They also got new house shirts this year! Yellow House represents “respect” and Red House represents “caring”.
That evening, we went with Cici, the Loveless crew, and Uncle Gary and Aunt Vicki to see a livestream of Sight and Sound’s performance of Daniel at the movie theater. We didn’t realize that we’d actually be watching a live performance on screen until we got there, so that was kind of neat. We all enjoyed the show and their take on what life must have been like for Daniel and his friends.
Abigail’s game on August 31st was supposed to be at 8:45 am but got postponed to 9/9 during her normal practice time because her coaches were out of town for the holiday weekend. So we didn’t have to be up and ready quite as early! Brooklyn played first today at 10 am at Palmer 7. It was hot, but not quite as hot as we expected because the sun stayed behind the clouds most of the game. Brooklyn played defense for the first half of the game, and it stayed tied 0-0 even though the other team didn’t have any subs. This was my first time to see Brooklyn’s team play this season, and her team is definitely on the young/inexperienced side. Coach Theresa put Brooklyn at forward or midfield (not sure) in the second half, and Brooklyn was able to score two goals and had an assist on the third goal. The other team scored 2 goals as well, and the final score ended up being 3-2. Brooklyn’s team won. We were proud of her effort and good example in hustling all over the field today.
We went home briefly before Savannah’s game at 12:30 pm at Dublin 3. Her game was HOT. We were sweating profusely just sitting in our shaded chairs because the sun was out in full force and the humidity was high. Savannah scored 2 or 3 goals today (I lost count) and had several other opportunities to score that didn’t go in. She also played really great defense today! Her team won 7-1. Super proud of her!!
August 2024 Notes and Quotes:
- 8/1/24 – Savannah: “Do elephants kiss each other with their trunks?” :)
- 8/6/24 – Abigail, speaking to Travis at bedtime: “Wow! You have huge muscles. Look at those fatties! Your elbows are so pointy!” Haha. I think we need to work on her tact ;)
- 8/10/24 – We were helping Abigail clean up and organize her room. Travis picked something up and asked, “Where does this go?” Abigail replied, “It goes nowhere. It’s just on the loose!”
Thanks for reading!!
