November

Here's Isaac's school picture. We didn't pay for them this year because we got professional pictures of the whole family and knew we'd be putting up individual pictures of the kids from that photo shoot. The school sent these little copies of the pictures, so they're up on the fridge. Bummer that Lucy somehow didn't get hers home in her backpack.

Sweet Brooklyn's picture. She says she thought she was smiling more.

Isaac showed how to draw Stupendous Man, a super hero he made up.

Our first snowfall was on November 3rd. It didn't snow again until Christmas eve!

Corban's cute 8X11 picture.

Our family picture. We blew it up on canvas two times so we have one in our piano room and one in Doug's office.

This was so much fun! I went with Dennese Mahoney, Bonnie Kramer, and Cheyenne Hayes to Time Out for Women. I loved my adventure climbing a fence to Walmart with Cheyenne, the spiritual messages, especially the song "She Put the Music in Me" and the memory of getting no sleep that night because Dennese and Bonnie snored. Earplugs are in my friend-trip future.

The boys and I had to hang out at Olympia Collision Repair to get an estimate of how much it would cost to fix my car after the fender bender. It was over $4,000 and I had to wait for a month until they could fit my vehicle in to their schedule. Shane plugged some holes in my van so it would be safe enough to drive to Utah for Thanksgiving.

The blessed act of boxing clothes and putting the next size up in all drawers and in the closet. I am so thankful for this inconvenience. Thank goodness for hand-me-downs.

My check engine light is still on, and this is probably the culprit. I've had this problem since November. I've had two repairmen get it to go away temporarily.

For some reason, this shirt invites this baby behavior. Cason used to do this as well.

After Lucy's soccer game kind of close to Northwest Wildlife Trek, we went to the zoo. I loved seeing this.

And we discovered a fisher! We didn't know such a cute, furry animal existed.

This was on a gorgeous Sunday walk when I thought about how my kids were feeling about school and finally decided to post my concerns on Instagram and Facebook, and then write to their teachers and principal afterward. As I mentioned before, Brooklyn has been fine, but Lucy has been sad about not making great friends with many people at school. She doesn't know who to play with, and feels excluded. She plays games with other kids but feels self-conscious and I know she feels wistful. She loves laughing and giggling with friends, and just doesn't feel loved in her class. Isaac has been called mean names and hasn't made great friends, either. His whole class yelled at him when he told them Santa Claus is real. I hope that things will be happier for my kids when they go back to school on Tuesday after a long and wonderful Christmas break. 

This cool cormorant was blocking my way as i was driving home one day. So cool!

My mom flew to Washington, went birding for a day (stayed in Forks, where Twilight is centered) and then drove with me back to Utah. We'd planned to have Doug drive with me, but he felt like he needed to stay there longer for work, so my mom was our hero. The drive was uneventful and the Utah trip was so fun. One of the things we did was rummage around for badmitton equipment in the girls and boys locker rooms at Mountain Ridge. It cracks me up that my dad teaches his PE kids how to fish.

Tanner going in to the girls locker room.

I went on a gorgeous run at Highland Glen and of course saw deer on my way back. So lovely.

We went to the aquarium with my grandma and it was so fun! Of course, Grandma was frazzled because she couldn't find her purse or her aquarium card, so I had to explain that Mom holds on to those things, and the aquarium was nice about giving Grandma a pass since she is a member. I'm just bummed that my pass will expire soon.

Making Thanksgiving dishes with Mom and Peanut was just wonderful. River was working on a dessert as well, so it was just a great kitchen. Corban smeared Haven's lotion all over her carpet and was SO pleased with himself. I made Mom's famous cinnamon rolls and brought them to Jessica's house for Thanksgiving. How do I not have any pictures from Thanksgiving dinner? We were at Jessica's and so were Trish and Derek and their kids and Kayla and Dave. It was really wonderful. Trish's sweet potatoes were to die for.

My cute little baby in his t-shirt borrowed from Haven after he smeared her lotion all over himself.

Corban and I took Jet for a little walk to the park.

This was Friday, the hardest day of the trip for me. Mom and I had a misunderstanding about Grandma's KitchenAid. I ended up crying and feeling terrible, but nothing was meant to hurt me. I missed out on family fun feelings and was reminded of how I get emotional when I'm sleep deprived. I wish I didn't. Making ginger bread houses was so fun. My kids and Doug thought orange was a nice festive color for our ginger bread roof. The worse part of the trip was that Cason decided to poop in his old bedroom. He'd been doing so well with potty training, and then this happened. He did it maybe three times when we were there and it was truly disgusting dealing with it. He seems to be back on the "choose the right" track as a potty trained boy.

I was on the treadmill and texted my family about Cheyenne playing racquetball against a guy who had just destroyed me in my first game of racquetball in years.

Lucy won a "leader of learning" award in her class with another boy. She picked a beautiful dress for that day. I love that she cares about details.

Lucy posing for the camera with a hairstyle she'd created.