I feel like I blinked and November flew by. November brought Veterans’ Day, Abigail’s field trip to Devine Acres, an ADHD diagnosis and treatment for her, Thanksgiving, and the kick-off to Christmas! As usual, there are a ton of pictures, so strap in!!
A pop of red is always fun!Going to the Veterans Day celebration is always fun…especially finding my sweetheart on the Wall of Honor.They even used his paper from last year. 🙂A professional photographer got this great picture of Paul. I love it!Showing Dad (Paul went with her) a rock on the field trip.Checking out the livestock.Probably one of her highlights of the trip.Photo op!She loves climbing up onto things like this!She also loves taking pictures in cut outs.Christmas shoes!An awesome co-worker got me these cute earrings.She also gave me these light covers since she didn’t need them any more. I love them!Pictures from Christmases past.I love hanging them up so all can enjoy.Gnomes, birds, and a Grinch to boot!My favorite Christmas sign, a count down and a Santa I made when I was a teenager!A little taste of California in that palm frond Rudolph.A nutcracker I’ve had since I was little.And another one we got last year.Decorating her tree.Decorating his tree. When did he get so big?!The big tree.One of my favorite corners.I love lights!l also really love black and white!Showing off her tree.My piano decorations.Gotta love funny teacher t-shirts!Outside decorations.This is new this year. Paul built the stable for them.We decided to get a cover for the door this year. It was a good idea!My happy place!The Pearl (an old brewery turned shopping area) has the Giving Machines this year, so we went down to check them out. I love downtown at Christmas. The buildings look even cooler!The lights in the trees were magical.Had to get the iconic tower!Abigail loved it!We decided to purchase a……baby goat! Somewhere in the world, a family will now be able to get milk without needing to worry about how to pay for it.It was nice seeing them so busy. It was a good experience for the kids, as well…to see the types of things we take for granted but others need.I love this family!!
Well, we’ve had a busy few weeks. We’ve done all the fun October-y things (Halloween, Trunk-or-Treat, etc.), some fun family things (Six Flags), and all the busy things (work, school, etc.). It’s hard to believe that we’ve only got a couple more weeks before Thanksgiving Break…and then Christmas will be here before we know it!
We had an author visit the school, so I thought it was the perfect day for my Halloween book shirt.A student brought this in for me. His mom made it!I love that there are rides that are good for her at Six Flags.Getting ready to go on the swings. It looks pretty tame, but it actually goes ridiculously high up in the air.I think this is one of her favorite rides.I came across this cute mummy bowl. It was perfect to house treats both at school and at home for Halloween.Joseph’s fall concert. They could wear costumes if they wanted. It’s hard getting good shots of our percussionist way in the back, but Paul got some good shots!“Hi, Dad!”Ward Trunk-or-Treat. Abigail was Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.Joseph was a knight.This has Princess Bride vibes…”Drop…your…sword.” Also, his sword (which was described as “dull” in the description online) was totally sharp. He’s luckily our really careful kid.Getting ready to go on the costume parade.Leading the parade.She saw my steam punk goggles and hat (for my costume) and wanted a pair of her own (she already has a top hat).She was also more than willing to take the extras of my fun trinkets for my students.Trick-or-Treating. No big brother this year. He went to a friend’s house and they trick-or-treated in his neighborhood. It’s weird having a teenager.She was brave enough to get near the arch.The spread at our house.Long story short: Abigail was chewing on a Milk Dud and didn’t realize it pulled a tooth out until she had swallowed both the Milk Dud AND the tooth (“Mom, have I always had a hole here? Why is there blood in my mouth?”). Luckily the Tooth Fairy left a note to explain that she understood, along with some quarters. Also, the next day (or maybe the day after), she lost ANOTHER tooth. She had been wiggling it with her tongue and it came out. She was showing me with it still on her tongue and the first thing I yelled out was “Spit it OUT!” 😀At the author’s visit, she mentioned a book that was one of her favorites growing up. It was so intriguing that I ordered a copy.First you read the book all the way through in one direction……and then you flip it upside down and finish the story by reading it the other way.I love that my countdown does both Halloween and Christmas.This guy has been busy with two Texas trips in one week. One to Dallas and the other to Houston.She wanted a steam-punk photo shoot, so I obliged.I love this goofball.It’s fun having a mini-me (most of the time, haha).One with goggles on hats. These are the best moments.
I cannot seem to remember to get on here on a weekly basis any more. Between family stuff, work duties, my church calling, and just life in general, I find myself not taking that many pictures and our life is kind of in a repetitive cycle of work/school, sleep, repeat. We did get to get out of the house a couple of weekends ago, though. We went to Buc-ee’s (which we kind of regretted after seeing how many school groups were there on their way to games, band competitions, etc…but we got our Halloween shirts!) and Black’s BBQ (which we decided was good, but B. Daddy’s right here close to home is just as good. Other than that, it’s been a pretty standard month. The kids are busy with school, I’m busy with school (report cards are finished and parent-teacher conferences are ALMOST done), and Paul is busy with work and LP stuff (thank goodness we’re approaching the end of election season). So here’s our month in pictures!
We have a resident squirrel. He has figured out that we keep the bird feeders stocked, and while he can’t get at the bird seed in them, he is more than happy to collect what is dropped on the ground. He also likes the acorns in our trees, I suppose. The top of the swing set makes for a nice bridge for him between trees.One of my sweet students knows I love Nightmare Before Christmas, so she made me these bracelets. Aaalll the heart eyes with this one!Here’s our cutie foraging for some seeds. I just hope he doesn’t try to get into our house when it gets colder! General Conference was at the beginning of the month. I love listening to our church leaders and I love getting the chance to bake (I don’t have a ton of time to do that any more). General Conference tradition is cinnamon rolls. I didn’t want to make a full batch, so I made half regular dinner rolls and half cinnamon rolls.Joseph saw me pouring on the icing and said it was torture having to wait for it to set and for the rolls to cool down more. Abigail doesn’t care for cinnamon rolls, but she was excited for the dinner rolls. It makes me excited for the holidays.I almost forgot that we also made a trip across town to IKEA (which we don’t do often since it’s 30 minutes without traffic…and there’s hardly ever a time when there isn’t traffic) and we got this cube unit for my classroom. Paul put it together and then we got permission to go to the school on a weekend (one perk about being in the portables is that since I don’t have to access the main building, all I need to do is clear it with admin) so that he could bring it in for me. It’s sooooooooo much better than what was there before (which was just two student desks with stuff piled on top of them and other stuff shoved underneath).The elementary school fundraiser was an obstacle course. Abigail was totally ready to go. She was literally bouncing with excitement. I was lucky in that 4th grade and 2nd grade happened to be running at the same time, so I got to see her and get a couple of pictures (2nd grade was cheering on 4th and vice versa). Don’t mind the hearts…I was covering up faces of the other kiddos. I try to do that whenever I post any pictures online that have kiddos I don’t personally know in them.In her element running (she’s at the front of all the blue hearts). She loved figuring out the different obstacles.They even glow in the dark!I realized after the fact that we didn’t get a picture with the statue out front. Abigail was super excited to get to see Buc-ee, though.Black’s BBQ. The consensus was: Abigail liked the turkey better than B Daddy’s because it was less spicy (B Daddy’s is a bit peppery all the way through while Blacks is just peppery on the outside, so with the outside cut off, it was just right for her), those that had brisket said that B Daddy’s was a bit better, we liked the mac and cheese at Black’s a little better because we could tell they use real cheese (I love you, B Daddy’s, but I don’t really care for Velveeta, even if it DOES melt better), and the potato salad was a solid tie.I love this little firecracker!
