Thanksgiving

Our annual thankful tree. Elise wrote her own name on several leaves this year. Sadie wrote out several leaves as well, but she chose to be grateful for more than herself. Some things we are thankful for: house, cousins, airplanes, food, our hearts, coloring, milk, Mrs. Fanning, basketball, music, grandparents, and more.

We had a small Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday night because Daniel was leaving the next morning for a tournament in LA. We had ham instead of turkey because I didn't feel like putting in the effort for just our family and Daniel doesn't love turkey. We had my brother Matt here with us for the break from BYU.

I attempted a 10k on Thanksgiving. I had to walk a mile in the middle of it but it felt good to push myself. It was only about 27 degrees so I got a bit cold, but later on the temperature dropped even more and the wind picked up so I was lucky to get the run in when I did.

 The girls insisted on lunch at noon even though we were going to Daniel's Aunt Sharman and Uncle Jim's house a few hours later. Kids just don't appreciate the good food and baking efforts that Thanksgiving takes.

 We went to Jim and Sharman's house for Thursday's Thanksgiving dinner. It was really fun for everyone. The girls were distracted and excited about all the new toys, especially their dress-up collection. They ran around in costumes, setting spells on people and being loud. It was great for me to get a break from being home taking care of my kids alone. I just really appreciate the Bloods for having us over. I had extremely low expectations for Thanksgiving and it was a good day.

Sadie brought this ring home from their house "by accident". I texted Sharman a picture to see if it was important and she said Sadie could have it. Sadie has been doing chores to earn it. We have had several talks about being stealing and being honest. 

That night I went to a late showing of the last Hunger Games movie with Sharman and Kate while Matt hung out at my house. I loved the movie and only marginally regretted staying up until 1 AM to see it.

Snowball Snowball Snowball fight

If you don't get the blog title reference go here

 We have already had 2 snow storms big enough that the girls could go play in it. The first one was in the morning on a school day. Elise and her friend Madi played outside for an hour after their gymnastics class. I heard loud squealing and looked out to see them having a snowball fight. It was adorable.

 Two days after Thanksgiving we had another small snow storm. Sadie and Elise lasted over an hour outside again. And there wasn't much snow. It was impressive. I like how the swing set is still integral to outside winter play.

Let the games begin

Another basketball season is upon us. 

Their first home game was at 3 PM so I checked Sadie out of school early to go to it. It turned out to be a good choice because when I went to her classroom they were just making paper turkeys the rest of the day. In the picture above you can see Sadie, Elise, Jackson and Leila Unga, and Mia and Malia Stewart (the other assistant Ray's daughters). They like to roam around as a pack during the games, which is totally fine since no one is sitting over there. They were dancing to try to get on the jumbotron.

Sadie was happy to see Cosmo and try to get him to come talk to a scared Elise. As usual, the most fun was playing on the court when the game was over.

Another game was at 11 AM so we brought Elise's friend Madi. Madi got bored by halftime, but she stuck it out for the rest of the game. 

She did not understand the allure of the court. She asked me several times if she could go home. The thing she was most excited for was the plastic pom poms.

Quiet November

The last 2 weeks of October were so fun and family-filled that November has felt very quiet. 

 I have been exercising with some neighborhood friends early in the morning and one day the view from our second floor landing caught my eye. Below is a picture from the top of an ascent on the trail by our house.

 Millie has started to sit at the counter on the bar stools. She is somewhat reckless and falls off occasionally, but don't you worry, she always succeeds in making a huge mess. I should never have let her start because now she refuses the high chair. When I try to put her in a high chair or booster she arches her back and straightens her legs so I cannot put her in. One day she and Lou were in matching outfits and being very cute together.

This big girl is also in a forward facing car seat. She is much happier about going in the car. She can even climb up herself. Before she was throwing a tantrum most of the time when I tried to buckle her in rear-facing. She is in the 97th percentile for height, so while I recognize that the recommendation for turning forward is 2 years old, I made a different decision.

 At Chick-fil-a Camille refused to sit in the high chair and she actually did fine in the booth. This was also the first time she ever used ketchup correctly, which is a huge milestone.

 Lou's preschool picture

Millie slept in until 10 AM one morning. I kept checking on her to make sure she was ok

 A trip to Lowe's Extreme Air Sports for one of our Thursday adventures and the only picture I got was Camille on the little playground.

 One day while I was getting ready Elise came in and started telling me about how Camille loves laundry and she likes sitting in it. I wasn't listening very closely but I assumed she meant Millie had dumped out a basket of laundry and was playing in it. When Lou mentioned something about spinning and asked why it wasn't spinning I became alarmed and ran into the laundry room to find Camille in the dryer. The dryer was on, but without the door shut it wouldn't spin.We have since had a couple good talks with Elise about how we don't play in the washer and dryer.

 Another Thursday adventure to the BYU Bean Museum with Quinn Sullivan. There happened to be a story time where they brought out a few live animals. The kids got to pet a snake and lizard. Camille actually crawled under the ropes of several exhibits, which forced me to then go into the exhibits as well. It was awesome.

 
Millie likes for me to use the front facing camera lens so she can see herself on my phone.

 I took Sadie and Lou to see Tarzan at Lehi High School. My cousin Scotty was Tarzan. He was incredible. Below you can see him swinging on vines around the set. He actually sang while swinging on several occasions.

 
Mills, your bedhead. Woof.

 An organization project partially done. All the papers/homework that were all over the refrigerator and kitchen counter are on these magnet boards in the mudroom. I still want to add some more stuff to the mudroom but my kitchen is feeling much less junky.

At first glance this just looks like a pretty picture, but you can see some big equipment to the right of the center. They have started to put in roads for the neighborhood that will go in across the street from us. We knew a neighborhood would be going in when we bought our house, but it was still a sad day. 

Halloween

Finally....only a month late, we have Halloween. 

I am not one who gets into holidays but kids make holidays a lot more fun. No matter what. 

Sadie went to a birthday/Halloween party and dressed up as a bat/vampire combo. She and I both really liked her hair like this. We were trying to see how many hair elastics we could do- 9. 

At the school costume parade the day before Halloween she stuck with the bat/vampire costume but it was cold so she wore clothes under the leotard. As I mentioned before, both Mimi and Papa were here for the parade. Sadie walked by quickly and this was my best picture. 

Elise also had a school Halloween party where the kids were invited to wear costumes. I am not sure why she was exhibiting this range of emotions, but that's just life with Lou.

On actual Halloween day the girls both decided on different costumes. This is why I don't spend any money on costumes! I tell the girls to find something from what we have, which works fine when you have 25+ costumes.

 Elise decided on Cinderella, which is easy to step up a notch. We added a top knot, blue headband and black ribbon around her neck. Throw on some dress-up gloves and she was good to go. 

Sadie chose our Ariel costume, which is slightly less obvious as to who she is, but it's a cute costume along with a starfish headband.

The Millster was a hamburger. I don't think we ever dressed up Lou in this costume, but Sadie wore it when she was the same age.

 Daniel was a great sport and walked around in the hot dog costume all evening. 

The older girls lasted much longer this year and got a lot more candy. 

I love trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood and seeing our neighbors all around. 

One of Elise's best friends, Madi, was also dressed as Cinderella. I am guessing that may have influenced Lou's change of costume choice. We ended up walking with them for a while and they looked darling together. 

We'll see which costumes they choose next year...

Papa's Quick Trip

 The same day that Courtney flew out of Utah my dad flew in. He came to celebrate his mom's 85th birthday. Millie put Papa to work reading books repeatedly. The next morning he attended Sadie's school costume parade (along with Mimi- Sadie had 2 special guests fly in, lucky girl), and then went to visit his mom. That night Dad took us and Matt to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and we came back and visited at our house for a while.

 The next day we had a mini John family reunion for Grandma's birthday. Many of my cousins were there. It was fun. My dad and his siblings got my grandmother a computer for her birthday. Grandma seemed very surprised.

 She has never used a computer before. I am interested to see if she learns how to use it. I will be so impressed. She did friend me on Facebook, so she already has that going. 

We said goodbye to Papa after lunch because he was catching a flight to Kansas City to see the Johns. Cousin Elliott had his baby blessing and Anthony was called as the Bishop for his ward.
We'll see Papa again at Christmastime so we let him go without too much protest.

Coco & Care Care

We were happy we got to see more of Courtney and Carolyn in Utah in October, even if we weren't happy for the reason they came out here.

Elise immediately put Coco to good use on the swing set.

We went to Kneader's for lunch after Lou had gymnastics and she insisted on wearing her tank top. It doesn't matter how cold it is, if Elise is wearing a tank top she likes to show it off. She was also happy to show off her Frankenstein cookie. 

Sadie came home from school one day excited to show Mimi her spider hat. 

 

Courtney came over and carved pumpkins with us. Both girls were terrified to touch the inside of the pumpkin so I bribed them with ice cream. I just knew once they did it they wouldn't be scared. Sadie took the ice cream bait immediately and stuck her hand in. She was happy to discover that it wasn't scary. Elise was not swayed by Sadie's assurances and below you have one of my favorite series of pictures. 

 

 Once the pumpkins were cleaned out the carving went quickly. Elise chose a pre-made template and Sadie wanted a 2-D shape pumpkin because that's what she had been learning about at school.

Not sure what day these are from, but Carolyn took them on a nice day in the backyard. The nice weather is a distant memory now.

Somehow Courtney got a good picture of Camille. Usually when I show Millie the camera she moves to try and touch it.

Coco did bedtime reading with Millie. And Millie happened to pick a book Courtney bought for us when Sadie was Millie's age. 

 

On Coco's last morning we all had brunch at Jim and Sharman's new house, 5 minutes from us. 

The day before Carolyn left she watched the younger 2 girls while I helped with Sadie's Halloween party at school. I signed up to help without noticing it was during the time Lou would need to be driven to preschool, so Carolyn drove her to school and put Millie down for a nap. Man, how nice it would be to have family closer to help with stuff like that. Below she was helping Elise with her take home reading before her school Halloween party.

Good thing Mimi will be back here in 1 week. We got used to seeing her around here.