Happy 8th Birthday Avery And Morgan!

It definitely was a different birthday this year... no big party with friends, but we did try to celebrate and have as much fun as possible!

We started off the morning with presents... it feels a little like Christmas around here!

We always decorate the house for their birthdays! Morgan LOVES Spirit Riding Free and Avery loves sparkles and rainbows!

They got so many fun presents... here are the ones Grandma Marcia and Grandpa Richard sent them!

Morgan's doll got a new cowgirl outfit!

Avery's doll got a unicorn onesie and a blue hair clip for her hair!

A couple of AWESOME 8 YEAR OLDS!

I rented a yard card birthday sign... which turned out to be gigantic! The kids loved it!

The boys stopped by in the afternoon to check out the sign as well!

 We finished off the ice cream cake and sang another happy birthday to the girls!

Kicking off the birthday celebrations!

On Sunday, Grandma Ruth came over and we celebrated the girls' 8th birthday with her. The girls loved all the gifts Grandma got them! Legos, Frozen dolls and new PJs! We are REALLY into Legos these days!

Last night going to sleep as seven year olds... 

Belated birthday gift

If you haven't watched Cobra Kai on Netflix and you grew up during the Karate Kid era, you should check it out! We watched it... and Erin got this for Matt for his birthday. :)

Ballerina Hair

We experimented with a new hair do for ballet class this week!

 

Young Actors Club

While Morgan has soccer practice on Monday nights, Avery has been going to the Young Actors Club through the park district. We've done this workshop before and the girls have always had fun. This session, they are having the kids wear costumes from home instead of sharing costumes from the club. This week was Fairy Tale week, so we pulled out the Elsa costume we were going to take to Disney. Since we now have officially canceled our Disney trip (still so sad about this!), Avery was glad for the excuse to wear the costume.

Tried to find a matching mask... this was as close as we could get in our collection of masks!

Softball

Since softball was pretty much canceled, we have been getting together with the other girls and practicing at the park with the dads helping out. We also have been practicing for fun at home and the park by us.

Over the weekend, we did some batting practice at Lester with the girls.

At the softball practice this week, the weather was a little chilly. Avery thought she should bundle up and wear her ear muffs. It wasn't THAT cold! :)

Hello October!

We all love October around here! It brings a month of birthdays, the Sammy Fund, Halloween, pumpkin patches and cooler Fall weather!

And in other news, the school board has come up with a "Return to Learn" plan to get the kiddos back into the schools. The plan is for the kids to go back 2.5 hours in person each day and then do 2.5 hours at home. They are breaking the kids into two groups, where Group A goes from 8:20 to 10:50 and Group B goes from 12:20 to 2:50 each day.  I have so many conflicting thoughts on this. I really do think it would be good for the girls to get back to some sort of normal and being in a classroom would be a good start to that. But, we are really getting into a good groove with the remote learning schedule. The girls know what to expect and even though they aren't super fans of doing school over Zoom, they are doing it. And of course, we have our nanny Anneke, who is doing awesome keeping the girls on track with school and they just love her. If we mess with our schedule, what happens with her? Ugh... TBD on what we decide to do.