Thankfully November was a slower month compared to October. We needed a break!! This month, soccer ended…and basketball practices started. We also celebrated Thanksgiving and started getting ready for Christmas. Here’s the recap:
On November 1st, Savannah and her classmates did a math activity with dominoes :)
Our neighbor, Elaina, was taking a photography class through her co-op and came over to practice taking pictures of the girls. I thought this one turned out cute!
When it starts getting cooler in the mornings, we usually drive instead of walking to school. November 2nd was a particularly chilly morning – my car thermometer said it was 32 outside!
That evening, Brooklyn and Savannah had their first official basketball practices, and Brooklyn also had her last soccer practice of the season. At Brooklyn’s soccer practice, the parents scrimmaged the girls for the last 30 minutes. I was so sore afterward I could barely walk…haha. I guess my muscles aren’t used to running full speed in short bursts anymore. I did score 2 or 3 goals though so I guess I haven’t completely lost my touch 😉 Brooklyn scored the only goal for the girls’ team with her left foot. It was a blast…the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Basketball practice went well. Brooklyn is definitely the shortest on her team. She had fun and seemed to catch on to her coach’s instructions pretty quickly. Travis said Savannah’s practice went well too. Savannah recognized a couple of girls on her team from school, and Travis said she did really well for her first practice. He is super excited about them trying basketball since that’s a sport he actually played growing up and knows better than soccer.
On November 3rd, Mrs. Curry invited all of her kindergarten families to come to her classroom in the evening for a “Finger Foods and Fairytales Night”. Abigail and her classmates sang and performed several songs, and Mrs. Curry had several craft stations and activities set up around the room. Everyone brought finger foods to share, and it was a really fun evening. This is something Mrs. Curry likes to do every year with her classes, but she wasn’t able to do it when Savannah was in her class due to Covid restrictions. I’m glad we got to be part of it with Abigail at least!
The area soccer tournament started for Brooklyn’s team on November 4. They had two games, and the first was at 10:30 am at Dublin 6. Brooklyn’s team played a Madison team we’d played earlier in the season. I can’t remember the score when they played the first time, but they have several big tall girls on their team. We seemed a little sluggish out there overall, but ended up with a 2-2 tie. Brooklyn sat out the first quarter, and played the rest of the game (mostly center back and a little forward at the end of the game). Rae Rae, Cici, and the Loveless crew all came to watch, which was so sweet!
The second game was at 2:15 at Dublin 6. We had some time to kill before the game started, and the girls accidentally lost a soccer ball in one of the big drains near the field. They tried to get it out with a big tree limb, but I don’t think it worked ;) As far as the game itself, I’m not sure where the opposing team was from (they had lavender jerseys, so they weren’t from Madison). Coach Dusty said some of them were 13 years old…not sure how that works in a 12U division! This team was full of girls who were big and tall. They could kick it really far and hard, however they didn’t know how to pass to each other very well and work as a team. So we were definitely at a size disadvantage, but our team passed circles around them. It was a pretty physical game, but we managed to pull out the win 2-0. Lilliana scored both of our goals. Brooklyn played outstanding defense and shut down their big tall players. She has improved so much over the course of the season, and we couldn’t be prouder of how hard she plays. We found out at the end of the game that we’d be moving on to the semifinal game at 8 am the next morning! Abigail was worn out after the game just from watching, so we all needed to get our rest that night ;)
Brooklyn was able to play the first half of the semifinal game on Sunday morning before she and Travis had to leave for church. Her team was down 2-0 at halftime. They were playing the Madison team they’d just lost to in the last game of the regular season. Our team was outsized again, and it was just hard to dig out of that hole. Her team ended up losing the game 4-2. We were proud of them for making it that far! Brooklyn’s team had an end of the season party that afternoon at Leathertree Park with cupcakes, and Brooklyn enjoyed running around with her teammates playing tag and just being together. It was a really fun season, and we were so proud of how much Brooklyn learned and improved, especially as a defender!
One nice thing about having older sisters is they can help with your school projects. Abigail had to figure out how to disguise a turkey for a Thanksgiving project, and Savannah helped her turn the turkey into a butterfly. I didn’t have to do a thing to help!
I had to check Savannah out of school a little early on November 7th for an appointment, and she enjoyed going to Sam’s with me afterward before we headed home.
Abigail started bringing home these homework sheets each week to practice her reading and writing skills. It was neat to see how quickly her reading improved over the course of a few months!
Mill Creek held a Veterans Day parade on November 9 to honor Mill Creek family members who have served in the military. This is the second year they’ve had a parade, and the kids make signs and wave flags as the parade winds around the carline loop.
One thing that took some time to get used to about basketball was that there wasn’t a consistent practice schedule during the season. Each week, the girls would practice on different nights and at different gyms, and the schedule usually didn’t come out more than a week or two in advance. It made it tricky to plan other things ahead of time!
This month, our second Sunday lunch was at Tyler and Alisha’s house. It’s always so good to see Baugay!
Abigail blew me away on November 14th by reading this entire book to me!! She needed some help sounding out some of the words, but I was so impressed that she was able to sound a lot of them out without help, including some big words like “favorite” and “probably”! She didn’t even know all of her letters in August, so she has really come so far since then!
I always loved having Gabby sit on my lap in the evenings after the girls went to bed…
I found these matching dresses at Carter’s and really liked the floral pattern. Savannah and Abigail wore them to church on November 15th!
Abigail stayed home from school on November 16 because she was complaining of her ear hurting. This gave her extra time to read at home and while waiting at the doctor’s appointment. She also did a directed drawing of a turkey and pumpkins for Thanksgiving…I thought she did a great job! It turned out that she had a double ear infection, so I was glad I took her to the doctor so she could get on an antibiotic. She rode her bike to school that afternoon to pick up Brooklyn and Savannah, so it felt a little like old times :)
A little chess after supper on November 17 :)
Brooklyn and Savannah had been working on an “Awesome Animal Slideshow” for several weeks, and it was a big secret. When they finally finished, they were ready to show it to the rest of us. They had also been decorating this box in Savannah’s closet, and they turned it into a white tiger costume for Brooklyn to wear ;) Savannah was the trainer who talked to us about white tigers, and Abigail got to ride the “tiger” at the end. Then they showed us their animal slideshow in the living room. It was very creative, and we could tell they’d worked really hard on it!
Travis didn’t coach either of the girls’ basketball teams, but he did take the opportunity to teach them some of the fundamentals at home ;)
The girls enjoyed going through all of their stickers and making some “All About Me” collages.
Abigail drew a picture and wrote a question for me to answer at the top: “Wat can yunakorns doo?” :) My answer was: “They can fly!”
Love these girls (and Gabby)!
The girls had an entire week off for Thanksgiving break, which gave us extra time for taking it easy around the house. Savannah’s friend, Lillian, came over to play one afternoon. Travis and I hung a curtain in the laundry room that Cici sewed for me. We also went to the library one day!
This was our year to spend Thanksgiving with Travis’s side of the family. We all gathered at Allen and Debbie’s house for the day and ate delicious food and enjoyed playing games together, including a new-to-us game called Crokinole. It was a good day, and we were thankful to be able to spend it with the Dvorak clan.
We spent Black Friday just hanging around the house. The girls played with dot markers and rode bikes/scooters up and down our street. I liked the way that Abigail spelled “hooray” on the Christmas sign she made :)
That evening, the girls helped decorate the Christmas tree! They are able to do more and more each year as they get taller and can reach the top more easily :)
The Iron Bowl was Saturday, and Brooklyn was sure that Auburn was going to win ;) She likes to talk a lot of trash like her daddy does…haha. Before the game started, we did some shopping for Kids to Love donations. The girls enjoyed picking out clothes and toys for kids that are close to their age. As for the football game, it turns out that Auburn should have won the game if it weren’t for a last second 4th and 31 miracle. It was an exciting game for sure!
We didn’t know it yet, but this was Gabby’s last Christmas with us. I’m glad I got this picture of her sitting under the tree–one of her favorites places to be during the holidays.
I’ve had the same Christmas decorations on our mantel for years now, and I really need to change them out…especially after Abigail told me that she thought the gold tree was a unicorn’s horn…haha. I’ll never be able to look at it the same way again!
Abigail showed off her new reading skills to Travis on November 26th :)
These two definitely look like sisters in this pic!
Multitasking at its finest! Doesn’t everyone hold a cat while they brush their teeth? :)
Travis started traveling a lot more for work this school year, and he was out of town again the last week of November. It made things tricky when the girls had basketball practice in two different locations on the same night. Thankfully, Cici came to the rescue and helped us out!
I happened to see this Sour Patch Kids “coal” in the checkout line at Old Navy and knew it would make a perfect gift for Rae Rae to give Travis. She once gave him real coal and switches as a joke because he didn’t make a Christmas wish list like she’d requested. I’d never seen this candy version before, but thought it would make a hilarious gift…and one that he’d like since he loves Sour Patch Kids so much!
The girls came up with a new game for our walks home from school…to try to jump over the shadows of the cars that passed us by.
All of the walkers were excited that the city FINALLY extended the sidewalk from our neighborhood down to the walking path on Mill Road. Previously, we had to walk through the grass and/or mud to get from one to the other. It’s nice that it’s now paved the whole way! We got to walk on it for the first time on November 30th :)
We ended the month with more basketball practice! The girls were looking forward to having their first games in December :)
Notes and Quotes from November 2024:
- 11/1/23 – Abigail had strep throat in late October, and her throat is still hurting after switching antibiotics, so we went back to the doctor again this afternoon. Her throat is still red and she says it still hurts “really bad”. Her lymphocyte count is high, so Dr. Dudley said she could have mono or some type of virus on top of the strep. Pretty crazy! She sent off some tests to the lab at the hospital, but it will probably be next week before we have any results. It didn’t end up being mono, so I guess it was some other kind of virus that finally went away on its own.
- 11/12/23 – Savannah: “If I play basketball, will I get really tall??” :)
- 11/24/23 – Savannah: “I thought Black Friday was when all the stores were free!!”
- 11/25/23 – Abigail, during the 2nd quarter of the Iron Bowl: “I wish I could just fast forward to the end of this so I could see who wins. I’m bored!!” :)
Thanks for reading!!
