Goalie Training

Morgan went to goalie training on Wednesday night and they were allowed to wear costumes. They also played some fun games for Halloween!

Halloween Dances at DPDC

Avery's dance studio does little Halloween shows for the parents every year. The kids learn a short dance and the parents can watch during the last 10 minutes of their class time.

Here's Avery's Acro dance. She's dressed as Grape Fanta. Not that you would recall this, but her jazz class last year used this same song!

Here's the lyrical dance. All of the girls planned ahead to wear green tops with baggy pants. Their dance teacher's name is Guillermo and they call him Mr. G. For Halloween, they all dressed up as his gangsters and made up names for each other like G-Money (Avery), Little G, LL Cool G, etc. They thought this up during their break between dance classes last week! We had to get Avery a green shirt and hat because we don't own anything green. I guess she'll be set for St. Patrick's day now!

The lyrical dance class picture:

Avery's jazz dance:

 

The jazz dance class picture:

Pretty much the same group for Lyrical and Jazz and most of these girls are on the dance team, which has rehearsals after these classes.

Wrapping up soccer and softball

On Sunday, Morgan was triple-booked! She had her last soccer game for the 2012 Select team, a basketball game with the park district and a softball game all scheduled at the same time! She went to the soccer game because it was the last of the season! Her team ended up winning 3-0 with all three goals scored by Ellery!

She played goalie the first half and it was pretty uneventful. In the second half, she had some great passes! 

Here she is running down the ball.

And then making some fancy footwork to kick the ball back through the opponent's legs and towards the goal!

Team picture after the game:

Front: Sydney, Ceili, Nora, Elle, Lauren, Josie
Back: Lynnea, Mina, Jules, Morgan, Emily, Clara, Gia, Ellery

I think the girls finished 3rd in their league (out of 6 teams).

The basketball team won, but the softball team lost. Her softball team finished 1st in the regular season, but didn't make it to the final championship game in the playoffs. They were pretty disappointed. Morgan was really disappointed because she didn't get to play in the last game due to the soccer game.

Soccer Saturday

Morgan played on the 2011 Select team on Saturday. They ended up winning 9-1 and it was a very boring game for her when she was at goalie the first half!

Avery had a blast playing with some puppies that were being fostered by another girl's family. They were cattle dogs and about 9 weeks old. Adorable!

Halloween Fun!

We kicked off the Halloween week with some fun activities with friends! On Saturday morning, the girls went with their friend Lizzie and her sister to paint windows in downtown DG.

Then, Saturday night, the girls had a couple of friends over to carve pumpkins, have pizza and make s'mores!

Matt got the pumpkins ready for the kids

Getting the guts out!

This is Avery's least favorite part - ha!

They turned out super cute!

We ended the night with some flaming marshmallows!

Soccer Sunday

Morgan played for the G2011 Select team on Sunday early evening. She played goalie the first half, but didn't get too much action. She played attacking mid-field for the second half of the game. I didn't take many pictures, but I did get a video of her shooting a penalty kick and scoring a goal! Her team ended up winning 4-0!

Basketball

Morgan decided at the last minute to give basketball another try this fall. So, we got her signed up on the Whittier girls team. They have a combo of 5th and 6th graders this year.

Dragon braid = game day hair!

On our way into the gym

She got to do the jump ball to start the game.

Here she is trying to steal the ball.

Launching the ball cross court on a throw in! Her coach was back there pointing to the girls open on the other side. Unfortunately, the girl she threw it to caught it with her face instead of her hands! It was a nice idea!

Fast break on a steal!

She made the basket!

Her team ended up winning by a lot! Morgan had so much fun!

Block Party

Last night, the street where a friend of the girls from school lives was having a block party. We walked down for a bit and the kids had a blast.

The kids were dressing up in Halloween costumes, so Avery and her friend Lizzie wore their Fanta costumes!

They had a few pinatas for the kids to do. This was the last one. Each kid got to hit once or twice. Morgan was the tallest, so she went last.

Avery gave it a big swing!

Morgan went with the hit to the top and split it in two.... out came all the candy!

Later, the kids played ghosts in the graveyard for a while.

They had to accessorize with glow sticks, of course!

There was also a chili cook-off for the adults. They played movies on the side of their house for the kids. And they had a huge fire pit in the street, which was nice because it started to get pretty chilly!

Growth Spurt

This is the result of two girls with big growth spurts! So many clothes that no longer fit! Yikes!

We will definitely need to go shopping for pants! I think we ended up with 10 garbage bags full of clothes! My mom takes these to a few friends of hers and they all split them up, so they will go to good use!

This girl

Morgan wanted Burger King for lunch so we stopped in and picked something up. Of course, she had to get a crown! She cracks me up! :) She contemplated trying the purple Addams Family burger, but went with her regular - chicken nuggets!

In the afternoon, Morgan had a soccer game for the 2012 team. Her team was down a few players and they had two girls from the 2013 team help them out, but only had one sub. They were playing the 1st place team, who were undefeated. They did really well, but lost 0-1. So bummed! Morgan had some great saves at goalie! There's currently a 3-way tie for 2nd place in their league!

6th Grade School Pictures

Here they are... 6th grade! They are wearing the Hawaiian shirts from the first day of school, a tradition for 6th graders started a few years back! :) 

Softball game

We wrapped up our Monday with a softball game at O'Neill. It was chilly! Avery and I took Milo so he could hang out with Rosie. At first, Rosie wasn't so sure about Milo (he is a little crazy!) But, she warmed up to him and they even played together a bit.

We went with the orange/black bubble pony for today's game.

The cutest cheering section!

Morgan pitched an inning and did pretty well. She struck out two people, walked three people and only allowed 3 runs to get in. Considering this is her first year playing and pitching, she's picking it up pretty fast.

The team lost 12-19. It was only their second loss of the season. We're getting towards the end of the season. There is one more regular season game and then the playoffs. We'll miss the last regular season game because it conflicts with a soccer game this Saturday.

Orthodontist check-up

Our next appointment on our day off was to the orthodontist. Both girls got pictures and x-rays taken and then we talked with Dr. Neal about next steps. The girls always get a kick out of looking at their pictures throughout the years we've been going to the orthodontist.

Avery still has six baby teeth to lose! So, she's got at least another year before getting full braces. She already had an expander and the first round of braces. They basically gave her an overbite to make space for all of her teeth to come in. So, she has to deal with the big overbite for another year. I don't think she loves that, but I think she's a little happy to not have to get braces yet. I told her the sooner you get them, the sooner you get them off!

Morgan has lost all of her baby teeth and her permanent teeth are in. So, she's ready to start the process. She hasn't had any work done yet since her mouth was already wide enough for her teeth to come in. She has a small overbite, but her teeth came in pretty straight. She's going to start out with the new version of headgear, which is basically a bar in your mouth on the top that connects to a brace on the bottom by a rubber band to move the teeth back. She'll wear that for 3-6 months, then get full braces. She should be all done within two years, so hopefully before high school starts.

12 year old check up

Since we had Monday off of school, we booked a bunch of appointments for the girls, starting with their annual check-up with the pediatrician. They dread this appointment every year because they hate having blood taken and getting shots.

Both girls are healthy and growing like weeds! Morgan is almost 5'4' and Avery is almost 5'1". They are trending toward being 5'10" and 5'8", respectively. We'll see how it ends up!

Here they are after getting their fingers pricked, holding their hands above their hearts to stop the throbbing. Ha! I said you don't have to hold them up SO high, but whatever.

We do the appointments at the same time, so everything is one right after the other. The nurse who did all the initial work ups says to me "man, they really feed off of each other's energy!" I think they were pretty amped up about the appointment and just going back and forth talking non-stop to each other and me and her! It was a lot if you aren't used to them. Ha!

We got into the room with the doctor and she went through the standard checks. They each had to get two shots. They survived! The doctor asked them if they got along and they both answered "NO" without skipping a beat. Typical. One day, I hope they will say "YES!"

The doctor said they both were healthy. She said Avery needs to eat more vegetables. No surprise there. I don't think there is a vegetable she likes. Morgan will eat most foods, at least once!

The end of an era?

Do you notice what's missing???

Yep, that's right. Our playset is gone! It's moved on to it's next home in our neighbor's backyard. They just had a baby boy and said they would love to have it. Matt and another neighbor helped him get it to his backyard, which is literally just over the fence. We did move the largest piece over the fence, but the rest was just carried around. It took a few hours to move and they finished up in the dark.

I'm not sure who missed who more!

Milo is always super clingy coming home after a few days at boarding. The girls also miss him when we're away! There are lots of cuddles!

Soccer tournament

Morgan's team had a soccer tournament in Iowa this past weekend. It was at the TBK facility in Bettendorf, which is really nice! We stayed at the Cambria Hotel, which is right across the street from the sports complex. Around the hotel, there were all kinds of bar/restaurants/etc so we didn't have to drive anywhere all weekend!

We drove there on Friday night, checked into the hotel and grabbed dinner nearby at Twin Span Brewery. They had gigantic pretzels, so the girls were super happy!

The hotel had a nice bar area and outdoor seating area. The kids hung out for a while, but had a curfew of 9:30 PM. On Saturday, we grabbed breakfast at the hotel and the girls all discussed the hairdo for the game. It was decided they would do bubble pony tails.

The first game was at 9:30 AM. They lost 1-4. I didn't take many pictures of the games. Morgan played goalie the first half and in the field the second half.

There was a company taking pictures at the tournament, so here is one that they took of Morgan playing goalie.

After the first game, we all went back to the hotel. The girls and I grabbed lunch at Subway. Matt went over to Twin Span with some other parents to grab lunch and watch the Iowa game. Then, they ended up at Oscar's watching the game. They had $5 Bloody Mary's and were raffling off prizes at the end of each quarter. After lunch, I dropped the girls at the hotel and met up with them at Oscar's.

You get a raffle ticket for every drink you buy. So, before halftime, the guys decided to buy shots! I did not do one (it was Fireball, so um, no thank you!)

The shots worked, because Drew won the Iowa gloves. At the end of the game, someone in our group won the Iowa blanket and gifted it to Drew!

Then, we headed back to the hotel for the afternoon game. This was the best picture I got. Morgan played goalie in the first half and in the field the second half. Their team won 2-0! :)

Since we weren't far from the hotel, the girls normally walked to the game. But, on the way home they all piled into Clara's car for the ride back!

On Saturday night, the girls played at the Dave & Buster's like arcade, bowled and had dinner. One of the moms had brought s'mores and they made those at the firepit outside of the hotel. I think they may have swam a bit and ran around the hotel together. They got to bed a little later than 9:30!

Sunday morning, we had a game at 8:00 AM... so early! We grabbed a quick bite at the hotel before heading to the field. The girls lost this game 0-4. Morgan got hurt in the first half while playing goalie and ended up sitting out some of the game. She played in the field the second half. They have some good chances, but just couldn't get a goal.

We didn't make it to the championship game, so we were able to get home by lunch time. Everyone relaxed in the afternoon. We picked Milo up from boarding at 6:00. He was really excited to see us.