November update

Wow! The month of November has come and gone quickly. We celebrated Thanksgiving at our house, just the four of us. I was so thankful to have us all be together for a wonderful meal. It seems like we have all been going in different directions recently. I was truly thankful to have had a quiet day together. The girls had the entire Thanksgiving week off from school. It was great to spend so much time with them.

Along with spending the day watching football, we had a delicious deep fried turkey (one of our neighbors did the deep frying) and we had some hilarious table conversations. I had found some conversation cards online and we took turns going around the table and answering each one. I think my favorite one had to be "if you had a super power, what would it be..." We all came up with great reasons to have powers such as being invisible, flying, duplicating ourselves, etc. It was fun!

November brought more softball tournaments on the weekend for Alexa. However, the big fall state tournament ended up being rained out and rescheduled for January. It was 40 degrees and with light intermittent rain. Those are not good playing conditions (or sitting on the bleacher conditions!!). She has two more tournaments scheduled for December. 

Alexa also participated in some activities for Girl Scouts. She and another girl in her troop organized a day where they were the leaders. They had the girls meet at Laser Zone to play laser tag and then they had a pizza lunch. The girls had a great time! In addition to playing laser tag, she also helped fill boxes for Operation Christmas Child. She, along with her troop, was able to fill seven boxes to be sent to a child in need. What a great cause!

Speaking of great causes, Mackenna has been very active in Key Club. In October they collected money during trick-or-treating for UNICEF. In November, they collected can goods to donate to the Houston Food Bank. I am looking forward to see what their next project is!

Mackenna wrapped up high school volleyball season at the end of October and began her club volleyball season the first weekend in November. She is playing for a club called "Spike Sport." They practice twice a week and have two tournaments (during the weekends) each month. I am excited to see how the club tournaments work. 

As we are heading into the holiday season, I want to thank you for reading my blog! I am so grateful that you take the time to read about how we are doing. Please keep in touch! 

October Update

The girls have had a great and busy first marking period. It's hard to believe one-fourth of the school year is over already!!

Mackenna and Alexa both received all A’s this marking period. We are so pleased and proud of their hard work! 

Mackenna's high school volleyball season has ended, for now. She will continue to work out with the team, as it is one of her classes in school. (Luckily, the 5:30 am practices are no more!!) She will receive a P.E. credit for taking volleyball. She had a great season and got to know a wonderful and diverse group of girls. They all consider each other their family. They are so cute!

This banner was hanging in the gym for the last home game.

This is hanging outside of the gym. Mackenna is in the back row, 4th from the left.

Just as her high school season is winding down, club volleyball season is beginning. She will begin practices this week. They practice two times each week and play two tournaments each month. I can’t wait to see how this goes! This our first experience with club volleyball. (She had to try-out to make the team! So proud of her!)

Alexa is still running in the afterschool fitness program. It meets once a week until the first week in December. The 5k race is being held on December 7. Unfortunately, she will not be able to compete in the race. Also scheduled for that same weekend is a Girl Scout camp-out and a softball tournament. When it rains, it pours...just hopefully not when they are camping!

Alexa is still involved in Girl Scouts and is working on her Bronze Award. It is the highest award a Junior Girl Scout can achieve. She is going to focus on helping the Humane Society. Her projects include helping repaint some of the rooms, building shelving, and making dog treats. 

In addition, she is still playing competitive softball. This year we made a very difficult decision to leave our former team. It weighed heavy on our minds all summer, especially since Matt was one of the coaches. (Our team basically split into two separate teams, one called Venom and one called Magic.) We gave Alexa input into the decision and we decided to have her try-out for another team (the Aces) so as to gain an unbiased perspective. Both of the teams, the Magic and the Venom, offered her a spot on their team...and then the Aces did too! What a great position to be in! Three teams wanted Alexa! She made a very big decision to leave what was familiar and comfortable (knowing half of the girls on both the Magic and the Venom) and choose the Aces. For a quiet and shy girl, we were surprised and very proud of her. She chose the team where she knew no one and where her daddy would not be one of the coaches. (By the way…both teams still want her. The Venom coach was just talking to Matt this weekend's tournament about her coming to play for them. Crazy!)

Softball practices are two times each week (an hour away...yes, an hour!) and we have two weekend tournaments each month. She plays 1st base, 3rd base, and catcher. She loves softball!

Our weeks and weekends basically revolve around sports. It is so fun to watch these girls play!

What happened to September?

How is it already October? Mid-October to be more accurate?!? 

Since the start of the school year, time has been flying by. Both girls have been really busy adjusting to school and the increased expectations, not to mention the increased homework. 

Mackenna has adjusted well to high school and taking four pre-ap/gt (think: honors) classes in her core classes that are challenging. (English/Language Arts, Geometry, Biology, World Geography) She is also taking Health and Spanish II. She's been doing an amazing job and working hard.

On top of her coursework, she is getting up really early and heading to the gym for 5:30am volleyball practices. (Yes, this is before the sun comes up and I am grateful to Matt who gets up to drive her there!) She plays on Tuesday and Friday afternoons and if it's an away game...well, she is lucky to get home before 9 p.m. She's quite amazing. Did I mention she has all As, too?!?

Alexa has been quite happy in fifth grade. She is in the GT (gifted and talented) class and really likes her new teachers. (Although she still LOVES her teacher from last year...she'll be hard to beat!) She has more homework and extra projects this year and has adjusted to that. Her class is also doing more online things and she is using more technology than ever before! She loves learning new things.

In addition to academics, she joined a program called Fit Express. This is a running program that meets once each week after school and helps them train to run in their school's fun run. She is training for a 5k. Also, she arrives at school 30 minutes early each day to help the art teacher set up for the day. And if that weren't enough, she helps last year's teacher (who was totally awesome...did I mention that?!?) two days a week during her recess. Yes, she gives up recess to help her teacher from last year. She loves to help and takes her responsibilities quite seriously!

Just when it sounds like she is really busy, I haven’t even mentioned Girl Scouts or her softball team. More on that in another post…

The First Day of School 2013

The girls had a great first day of school!

Mackenna was up early (6:20 am) and ready to begin her high school career. She had her friend; named McKenna, meet at our house so they could walk in to the school together. Neither girl wanted to walk in alone.

Mackenna and McKenna, IDs on and these freshman are ready to go!

She found all of her classes without any problems. She was a little concerned about finding them because the volleyball team had an away game and she had to leave orientation early…and miss the tour!

Alexa was up early on the first day, too. She was excited for fifth grade. She was happy she already knew several girls in her new class. Her only complaint was her classroom was freezing! Her classes, and all of the other fifth grade classrooms, are in portable classrooms in the back of the school. There are about 1,000 kids in her elementary school!

The crazy part of Alexa’s day came at dismissal. Matt had worked from home and he and I walked up to the school so we could walk home with her. Just as the kids are being dismissed, it begins to sprinkle. (Neither of us had thought to grab an umbrella.) Then, just as the kids were walking across the street toward us, it began to pour!! We ran under some trees for cover to wait it out. It was raining so hard!!!

As we stood under trees contemplating what to do, one of our neighbors (who had seen us walking to the school) drove up and stopped. She put her window down and yelled “get in!” When she saw the rain, she hopped in her car (no shoes!) and drove up to find us because it was pouring. She doesn’t even have kids at this school! We have the best neighbors!

That night, we did have our traditional “First Day of School” dinner of spaghetti. It was great to come together and hear all about the girls’ first day. Also, I made our traditional (now 10 years!) back-to-school cake. This year’s cake was based on the game Words with Friends. I titled it “School with Friends,”used their favorite colors, and listed both of their names, grades, and words about school on it. Yummy!