November Photo Journal

November was a month filled with a lot of challenges, cold weather, and luckily just enough fun experiences to keep us hangin in there before Thanksgiving.

We enjoyed a party at my friend Ajulu's house. She is from Ethiopia, so we got to eat lots of yummy African food!

Dallin had a book buddy at the party.

We played with the chalkboard for a few days.

Did lots of playing in the basement.

This kid is so cute!

The boys mopped with Jeremy.

Tanner made this robot, but was not pleased with it because according to him, it didn't "look right."

I took the boys to the St Paul Children's Museum with my friend Stacy. We loved it.

The day of the Children's Museum marked the first day Jeremy was gone for two weeks. First, he went to St Louis for work. He got to go to this hockey game.

He came home for one evening before heading off to Sacramento for Grandma Ginny's funeral.

He grew this beard for almost 3 weeks as part of the No Shave November challenge with some friends at church, but he isn't happy that he can only grow a neck beard, so he shaved it right before the funeral.

He got to meet our baby niece for the first time. I was pretty jealous.

Meanwhile, my boys kept busy.

Here is a family shot at the funeral lunch.

Jeremy played in the leaves with our twin nieces.

Meanwhile, the boys rough housed indoors at our place. No going outside for us with all the snow storms we had. 

We had Leighsa's girls over one day.

Dallin also got some reading in.

We pampered my friend Leighsa with hand and foot massages.

My little Love Bug.

After the funeral, Jeremy flew straight to Orlando for a week. He gave two presentations at the big company conference there. I think this is behind the scenes of the stage he presented on.

Back in MN, I decided to take the boys outside because the temperature was above 10 degrees. It was our first time in the snow this season! Dallin was mesmerized by his new mittens. Lots of screaming and crying from both boys while I tried getting them into all their snow gear.

As soon as we got outside, everyone was happy.

We lasted 15 minutes out in the cold, which is longer than I thought we would last.

Back in Orlando, Jeremy was enjoying this view from his hotel room at Sea World.

I guess it was boring for him to sit through more presentations.

But he got to enjoy a day of golf! Is that a crane?

Hormel used Jeremy's Plinko Board for some kind of game/competition.

And here's another great view he got to enjoy.

We really, really missed Daddy. Things were especially challenging for me with Tanner. He has been having a lot of issues with anxiety, especially since Grandma Ginny passed. I'm going to see some specialists this month to help me figure out what kind of help we can give him. The short story for now is that having Jeremy gone also made Tanner's anxiety high, and my patience with Tanner was tried more than ever before. I also had a bad fall down the stairs while holding Dallin and couldn't really move for two days, so that also really sucked.  I'm glad that Jeremy gave me a blessing before he left because it gave me the strength I needed to hang in there.   

Jeremy's flight home was, um, cramped.

Tanner perked up with Jeremy's arrival and he got in a cleaning mood.

Someone was a little too eager to get in the tub!

Pajama day! I didn't think we would need to be staying in our warm jammies all day so soon in the season! November brought a lot of cold days.

We had our Thanksgiving Pie Party! I made apple pie...

pumpkin pie...

and chia seed pudding pie that was gluten free, sugar free and sort of dairy free.

We invited 8 different families to the party. But the turnout was sparse. That didn't keep us from pigging out, though!

This little Love Bug has gotten in the habit of putting his hands down my shirt. He's been doing this ever since we stopped breastfeeding. It may seem gross or weird to everyone else, but I think it's endearing. I'm gonna have to ween him from this habit soon, though!

In November, I finished teaching a 10 week session of Preschool Music and Movement classes at a local preschool. The music class was for families with kids ages 0-5, so it was something our whole family got to enjoy every Thursday evening! Also lately, Dallin has become very interested in drums. 

My little rascal turned 18 months old in November! He has been learning a lot of things so quickly, including finding more and more ways to get into things. He pushes the kitchen chairs all over the kitchen so that he can get into all of the top cupboards. Even though he climbs all over the place, he never falls (knock on wood).

And Dallin still sneaks into the garage when I forget to lock the door. I took a short break from unloading the groceries, and just a few minutes later I got freaked out when I found Dallin ready to drive away! 

Halloween 2014

I'm a little behind on this post, but better late than never!

During the Halloween week, we made pumpkin milkshakes.

We also made mummy dogs

and banana ghosts

and a carrot jack-o-lantern.

I made and assembled our costumes. I was really happy with how cute they turned out!

 Tanner really wanted to be a lion for Halloween, so I figured out a way to make a family costume theme revolve around a lion AND include Jeremy in the theme without making him wear much of a costume (Jeremy hates dressing up).

So... Tanner became the Cowardly Lion. I made his mane and tail and used lion colored clothes that we already had.

Dallin was the Scarecrow. I used shirt and overalls that we already had. I made a straw collar out of burlap and a hat out of fleece scraps.

I was Glinda the Good Witch. I wore my pink high school prom dress and then made the crown out of posterboard, jewels and puffy paint. My wand was part of our living room curtain rack.

Jeremy was the Tin Man. All he had to wear was a grey hoody. I also convinced him to wear the heart watch that I made to look like the one in the movie.

We went trick-or-treating inside of the Hormel corporate offices. We got to see Daddy's work area.

Here's us before going out to a few neighbors' homes.

Waiting at the first door!

Then, we went to my friend Leighsa's neigborhood to join up with her family to make our Wizard of Oz cast a complete one!

It was really cold, I think 20 degrees. So we were able to trick-or-treat to about 10 houses before we lost all feeling in our fingers and toes. Even though he was freezing, Tanner was really excited about his stash of candy! This is his and Dallin's bucket combined. Most of the candy has been used for bribing techniques.