Practicing for her next belt test

Morgan will be testing for her orange belt soon. They have been practicing a lot in class! She's nervous because this is the first belt they start testing for outside of class. Before this, they just evaluated the kids during class. But, now she will come in on Saturday and test with all the higher belts.

New bed

So, we brought out Milo's new bed. He still sleeps in the crate at night, but eventually this will be his bed. He wasn't too sure what to do with it at first. I think he thought it was another new toy for him. He kept trying to chew on it. He also likes to "dig" in it. Luckily, we got this bed from a place that guarantees indestructibility! Erin gave us the recommendation after trying many beds for Sofie.

Christmas tree

As is our tradition, we always pick out our Christmas tree the weekend of Thanksgiving. We like to have my Dad's help while he's up here. It was slim pickings this year due to COVID, but we still found a gorgeous tree! 

Leaves

We finally got a chance to rake up the leaves and let the girls play in them.

 

Milo watched from inside and REALLY wanted to play with the girls, so we let him out.

He didn't quite understand why the leaves were flying around and tried to eat them, but he had a blast!

 

He's buried in there somewhere!

Afterwards, the girls moved the leaves to the slide and had fun sliding into the pile!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! My parents came up to celebrate with us and Ruth came over. Erin was hosting the Wilken family at her house and Brett spent the holiday with Sandi's family. But, were able to get the cousins together on Friday. Erin set up a camp at the Double JJ for all the kiddos so the ladies could shop and the guys could play some Top Golf and watch football. 

My parents had been watching Nolan and Calvin, so they got to hang out with us on Wednesday afternoon for a bit.

Avery was a big help in the kitchen making pies with Mama!

Again, on Thanksgiving, Avery helped out with the cooking. She even donned her unicorn chef gear for the occasion!

Papa taking his pre-Thanksgiving meal nap! :)

Avery taking a break with her turkey headband!

The table is ready!

Milo was a mess! He just didn't understand why everyone was at the house and in the kitchen! Avery tried to calm him down.

Matt spatch-cocked the turkey and cooked it on the Green Egg again. Yum!

Dad carving the turkey... all the food is ready to go!

The girls give the food a thumbs up! Avery even ate turkey this year!

Avery also had a lot of "kid" wine! Ha! :)

Avery and Papa with the peanut butter pie they made... it was delicious!

The girls with Mama Ruth!

We went over to the Wilken's house after our meal. They had a bouncy house in the backyard for all of the kiddos over there. The girls loved it!

The bouncy house took a lot of punishment with all those kids!

I think it's because they were fighting inside... they would all stand in the corners and yell "fight" and then attack each other! Surprisingly, there weren't more injuries! Natasha had the right idea and just stayed out of it!

 

Amy had crafts for the kiddos to do... Avery jumped right on this!

On Friday, the kids spent some time at the Double JJ with the animals! Since we had so many kids in our group, we had our own camp day!

The ladies all had fun shopping and then we grabbed lunch at Uncle Julio's!

 

Milo's ready for the holiday!

Milo went to see the ladies at Canine Corner to get all spiffed up for Thanksgiving! They are a groomer, but also let the dogs hang out like a daycare for the day when you take them for a grooming appointment. So, they aren't hanging out in crates. Milo loves it! And he always comes home fluffy and smelling nice!

 

Soccer

We've been participating in a winter indoor soccer league. The girls practice on Wednesday nights and scrimmage on Sundays. Matt is coaching the girls team for the scrimmages. The league is run by a local soccer club at the Darien sportsplex. It was actually kind of expensive and I attributed that to the soccer club being involved. But, after being a part of this, we think it's overpriced. Ha! It's not as great as we expected. At least it's a chance to play soccer in the cold weather, but I would have expected more than what we got.

When we got home from today's game, Milo was full of love for Morgan! :)

Vaccine #1 down

The girls got their first vaccine at the clinic the high school in our area had. The clinic was run really well. We had an early appointment and got through pretty quickly. They had the kids sit in the auditorium for 15 minutes afterwards to watch for reactions, while watching a Bee Movie clip. They had water and lollipops, so the girls were happy about that. They both were sore at the shot site, but that was about it for the reaction to the first shot. They get their second one in 3 weeks! Here's to being fully vaccinated! Now if we could just stop having to wear these stupid masks everywhere... ugh.

The Headband Shop

Avery and Morgan set up shops again in the house. They make things for us and ask for actual money! :)

Avery had a headband shop... she even made a commercial for us! I got a few new ones for my collection!

Doggy daycare

We started sending Milo to doggy daycare to get some of his puppy energy out. He seems to have a blast and comes home totally exhausted. I get to check in on him during the day on their app and he's always playing!

 He still loves getting snuggles from him favorite girls no matter how tired he is!

Zoomies

Milo sometimes gets the zoomies and it's hilarious! We gave him an ice cube this time and he went nuts! He ran so fast that he slid across the floor on the doormat! :)

Brownies field trip

The Brownies took a tour of the town's water treatment plant. I tagged along with her. It was a really yucky day and most of the tour was outside!

Just a girl and her dog