The Journey of Parenthood…

Monthly Family Recap: November 2020

Monthly Family Recap: November 2020

This month was super busy (as is clear by the fact that I’m supppper behind real-time with blogging). We kicked things off with my birthday and Katie came over to also kick off our Oscar moving watching season. Totally one of my absolute favorite yearly traditions is watching movies together with her!

We also had book club and met downtown for a food truck night. It was a smaller crew, but just as much fun 🙂

I also got to attend my first drive-by event in honor of Cole and Gabi’s new baby on the way. We did the Parker Family Baby Shower as a drive-by and the weather was beautiful for it, as was the new mama!

Zach worked hard on Treehouse 2.0 and it’s coming along nicely!

We had our family pictures this month with Lindsay and the location was so perfect and I loved all the leaves changing in the background…the kids LOVED the leaves and it was distracting from our ability to actually get the dang photos haha! You can see the family pics here and the pics of the kids here. I LOVE how they turned out…Linsday is so amazing at what she does 🙂

Downtown Hahira had a holiday preview event to kick off the holiday season and it was the day of Spear’s birthday party. Mrs. Charlotte, Courtney and Casey were so sweet to include me and it was fun doing a bit of window shopping together!

I loved my hair stylist, Angel, for YEARS and I was super pumped to hear she was coming back home. It was great to be back in her chair and catch up and we went a little shorter to help my hair get healthier as I work on fixing some breakage damage!

Even though things look differently at school this year for the kids, the aren’t slowing down on the themed dress up days 😉

I love that even in middle school they have some dress up stuff for the kids and that Kye was so into it! They had a “mathlete or athlete” day and all three big kids were SO excited to dress as “nerds.” We had fun coming up with their looks! Kye’s was my fav and it is so cute to me that he isn’t too embarrassed to get a pic with Mrs Robyn at school 😉

Kye was a little less pumped for decades day and went with something simple – a Star Wars shirt with an 80’s vibe to it. Britt went head to toe tie-dye (which I’m sure was the most popular choice this year) and Tessie really wanted to do something different so we hunted her closet and found some 50s pink lady style clothes for her!

Every year there is a “twin day” dress up at school and this was the first year that any of my kids really had a twin to twin with…and shockingly BOTH Kye and Tess had a “twin” and Britt didn’t. Britt is my little social butterfly with countless friends so it was surprising that Tess and Kye were the “twins” and she wasn’t.

I was very sensitive to the fact that Britt might feel left out so I had Tess match with her and they got to be each other’s twin on the bus and then during the school day Tessie matched with the sweet friends in her class!

They also had a Hawaiian dress up day as well as kicked off the holiday season with their Christmas outfits too.

This month we worked on redoing a lot of Kye’s bedroom. He’s had the same football theme since he was five and he’s really only ever played one season of football so it’s kinda a theme that doesn’t really suite him so we’re excited to redo it to fit his style more. He got new sheets for the first time in 6 years and was super pumped about it 😉

He lost a molar tooth this month…getting closer and closer to be ready for braces life. Poor kid said he wishes he could have ’em this year since it’s the year of mask wearing anyway!

I love that we’re raising a reader and he has always been the kid I’ve caught reading all day, every day, every chance he gets!

When Kye started middle school Zach and I really encouraged him to try EVERYTHING. It’s a great year to test the waters on anything that may be of interest. He was the most pumped for all the club and after school activity options associated with middle school life and he signed himself up for just about everything.

He tried out for wrestling which we’re really proud of him for doing but did not make the team. However, he really found a sport he’s super interested in through archery.

He would stay after school for archery club practice and had the ability to participate in archery tournaments that help decide who makes the actual archery team.

I know absolutely nothing about archery and didn’t even know it was a sport until this year but it’s quickly become something we all enjoy watching and that Kye seems to have a natural talent for as well as enjoys.

It’s been amazing to see how quickly he’s made progress with it too! I went to watch his first 3D tournament (where they shoot animal targets) and he didn’t make a single arrow on the ram but by the second 3D tournament he not only hit the ram on every shot but he also made TWO bullseyes!

It’s such a blessing to have so much family come support him and we love cheering him on from the stands and are excited for this new adventure for him!

They have a leader board to check scores and within the first month of tournaments he’d already made the leader board for both target and 3d!

Zach and Mr Rusty built new buck beds for the grandkids at Big Papa’s and G-Mama’s house which was SO GENIUS. Now that there are TEN grandkids it’s great to have a room devoted to them and the boys had a sleepover night to test ’em all out together.

Since the boys had a G-Mama’s house sleepover the girls at our house had their own sister sleepover (Tess kills me using a bean bag chair as a bed) and then Aunt Casey had all the nieces for a sleepover at her house a few weeks later. Yay for lots of cousin time together making those sweet memories 🙂

Brave Aunt Casey with alllll the girls. Ella loved playing makeup with Tessie and yall know Tess ate up alllll the attention too.

Britt and Tess had their first gymnastics exhibition this month at their new gym and Britt was especially SUPER excited for us to all come watch them and see all their new skills.

Big Papa and G-Mama came to support too and I loved seeing the girls having FUN. Their new gym isn’t focused on competition and is more geared towards just learning new skills at their own pace and having a fun time in the process.

It’s been a great fit and the girls love that they are able to be in the same class. They are each other’s biggest cheerleaders. So proud of our gymnasts!

I love the bond the girls share. YES they argue and bicker but they are always super quick to make up and are always wanting to do everything together. Anytime I see them they are sitting practically on top of each other, even if they are both doing their own thing.

That sister bond is something so sweet and special and I pray they are always as close as they are now!

Britt has become quite the little author and she enjoys writing stories at school with her friends. I LOVED writing at her age too and it’s really when my love for writing began. I used to write a classroom newsletter for my third grade class.

Britt is very much into the scrunchie trend still and is starting to want to choose her own outfits the way Tess does. Whew it takes a lot for me to be a “cool mom” on the choosing of their own outfits but I’m trying to give them that freedom! As long as things are appropriate it’s good for them to explore their own personal styles.

Tess is ALL about choosing her own clothes and it got to be such a frustration for me that I was picking out clothes for her and then seeing her come down in the mornings wearing something else that I finally just told her to go for it and start choosing what she wanted to wear. Sometimes it’s a little funky and sometimes she nails it with some super cute looks!

Her little thankful tree from school is so cute how she says she’s thankful for “the world” and I always want to remember the way she prays about “the world” and says how much she loves it and wants the world to be healthy and happy.

Tess will love on me and say sweet things that I’ve said to her like “You are a sweet Mommy and you are my JOY” Hearing those words repeated to me really makes me think she’s a words of affirmation person as my words carry a lot of weight with her and I always want to make sure to give her love in the way she best receives it (as I aim to do with all my kids!).

This was my last month having a TWO YEAR OLD. EVER.

Whew crazy.

I love seeing his personality form and he’s starting to really become more of a “big kid” which makes me excited for the days to come! Here’s a few of the pics I took of him for his birthday invitation 🙂

We happened to be matching for church one morning so I asked Zach to snap a couple pics of just the two of us too as I don’t feel like I get pics of just us often enough! I adore my sweet baby boy.

Spear had his little Thanksgiving lunch at school and it worked out where Zach was able to come with us. I can’t remember a time that Zach was EVER able to be there for any of the other kids Thanksgiving feasts as he’s typically swamped with work during Nov and Dec so it was a super special treat to have him there 🙂

I love all the cute projects that come along with preschool. These teachers are saints!

School pics…I obviously didn’t buy ’em but I’m impressed they got him to sit still for them!

I love that Zach got a before and after of Spear getting a haircut. He LOVES a fresh haircut and will tell everyone “I got haircut!”

As we get closer to age three life is getting slightly easier as Spear does better sitting for longer periods of time and loves being a helper and does very well with positive reinforcement and encouragement.

I’ve been so impressed with how well he’s done during Kye’s archery tournaments as it’s a very quiet sport and Spear does so well sitting quietly and whispering – it’s good practice for church too 😉

A video should auto play in this post as a recap of our month!

Emily Parker
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