November Photo Journal

Here's photos of our life during November!

The beginning of the month finally brought us red leaves on our trees! It seemed like all the other trees in the neighborhood had changed colors and fallen before ours even started to turn. But luckily, the weather was still warm enough to play in the leaves a little bit when they all fell down.

I worked really hard to get our rooms looking nice, and decided to take pictures to remember what they look like when they are clean, since a perfectly clean room is a rarity at our house. Notice the art work above our bed? I designed those myself using google images and PowerPoint.

Here's what the boys' bedroom looked like at the time. We have since then gotten them matching sports bedspreads. Someday, we plan to get a bunk bed, but for the time being, we all really like having their mattresses on the ground. Tanner's bed is on the left.

I put some wall photos at Dallin's eye-level because no one was looking at them when they were up higher. Now, Dallin looks at them everyday.  

We turned our changing table into a home for stuffed animals. It actually works really well. The painting on the wall is Tanner's. It's a house on a hill on a farm.

Here is a painting that Tanner made probably in the summer. I can't get it to be vertical, but if you tilt your head you might be able to tell that it's a playground with a slide and jungle gym.

One day, the boys had their animal pj's on and figured it was warm enough to play outside without a coat. They were right! 

Oh yeah, Tanner didn't feel the need to wear shoes, and his feet didn't get cold! We had some really warm days in November.

Tanner had his first ever visit to the dentist!! I had him come with me to my appointment at the dentist, and then the following week brought him for his own. Seeing me in the chair I think helped him know what to expect, but he still had a meltdown before getting in the car, and did panic breathing all the way into the office. As soon as the hygienist called him back, Tanner stopped panicking and suddenly became a sweet child. HA! What a punk.

We went to pizza ranch to help raise money for the Kindergarten Center where I teach music. The boys love Pizza Ranch, so it worked out nicely.

Dallin helped Jeremy fix our shower door. The new one is amazing! I love it!

We took a little friend with us on some adventures to the park and Nature Center so that her mommy could rest before the new baby arrived.

Dallin loved collecting sticks.

He refused to hold hands even though she kept asking. Holding sticks is much more important, I guess.

Look what our boys figured out how to do! There are times when Tanner plays with Dallin so nicely. They were non-stop giggles when they figured out how to do this!

I attended an awesome Christian conference for moms in Rochester called Hearts at Home. It was a really great experience. 

I got to be with some great friends. Kellie and I drove to and from together on both days and had a blast!

And I got to meet Gary Chapman, the author of The Five Love Languages! He is also an excellent speaker.

We took some pictures before Jeremy left on a week-long business trip to Arizona.

Tanner's owie on his eye is from a rug burn when he was rough housing with Jeremy.

Jeremy had a great time at his work conference, including getting the best at this golf challenge.

Meanwhile, we had lots of fun at home. Dallin loves his Kazoo.

We got our first snow storm of the season!! It was fun to have my "niece" play in the snow with us.

Tanner took these pictures of Jeremy on Saturday morning before going out in the gorgeous snow.

Jeremy pulled them all over the yard and around the loop on our street.

At the end of sacrament service at church, this is what our pew often looks like.

Tanner colored this picture and was very proud of his work.

We made these sculptures in the family music class that I teach. I have been loving working for MacPhail Center for Music. 

And here is Tanner as a Ninja Dinosaur Superhero!

Everything Halloween

We had such a fun Halloween time this year! Our family dressed up as the Zavoral Safari. Dallin- monkey. Tanner-tiger. SarahLynn- zebra. Jeremy- the tourist. 

Figuring out the Halloween costumes was an answer to prayer, or as some of my friends like to say, a God story. One afternoon, I was trying to find some accessories for a rabbit costume to go with my original family theme idea, but I was getting discouraged by the outrageous prices and the amount of prep work it would take. After about 20 minutes of getting nowhere with online shopping and struggling to come up with alternative ideas, I finally turned away from my computer and offered a very specific prayer. "Father, I need to know what to do for Halloween costumes this year. I don't have any time to do my original plan. Help me to accept that. Help me to think of something that is cost effective, creative, easy, has a tiger in it (Tanner's request), and will allow Jeremy to not have to dress up that much (his request)." When I finished my prayer, I immediately remembered that I had zebra pajamas, which I suddenly realized is pretty much a costume. My train of thought started having a clear path, I knew what to look for online: tiger pajamas. I found them, and for a decent price considering they would be useful all winter long. I didn't know at first what Dallin could be, but quickly found lots of monkey pj's. It was made clear to me that Jeremy could be a simple tourist with nothing but normal pants, shirt and binoculars around his neck. Everyone was super happy with the costume arrangement and everything that I asked for was answered! I know that God is aware of our everyday needs and is ready and waiting to help us, if we only take the time to ask Him for help. (Matthew 21:22 and 3 Nephi 27:29).

We went to a fun party at my friend Sheila's house. She had all kinds of adorable crafts, games and food for our kids. We all had a really fun time and the boys talked about it for days.

The weather was warm enough to carve our pumpkins outside this year! The boys were not interested at all in touching the guts of the pumpkin, which I was dissappointed about. The guts are my favorite part. But then I put my hand in the pumpkin and understood why they didn't want to. Our pumpkins had been outside for a few days, and the guts were cold. Note to self, keep the pumpkins that we want to carve inside until it's time to carve them! We managed to scoop everything out with spoons and tools. This jack-o-lantern was a group effort!

At one of the schools where I teach music, the classroom teacher had the students make these pretty prints to decorate a poem that I taught them!

Dallin cracked us up with all his funny ideas and games during Halloween season. He cracks us up every day regardless of the holiday.

He dressed up like a good knight a few days in a row to be like the good knight on Little Einsteins, his favorite TV show.

We taught Dallin how to trick-or-treat a few nights in a row before Halloween. Jeremy and I would stand behind different doors in our house and pretend we were in a neighborhood (we did this with Tanner when he was this age, too). At first, the boys would knock and rudely ask for candy. It was a good chance for us to teach proper trick-or-treating etiquette: Don't grab the candy! You have to actually say trick-or-treat! Say thank you! Ugh, so many things for a kid to remember when getting free candy, LOL. But the practice paid off cuz our kids did so well during real trick-or-treating.

One night for dinner we made Mummy Dogs!! The boys LOVED them.

Tanner's Mummy Impression

Then we decorated cookies.

On the day before Halloween (Friday), we got to visit Jeremy at his work. We were there to trick-or-treat around his office with all of the corporate employee's children. The boys loved looking at Jeremy's office stuff, they almost forgot why we were there.

The boys got a good amount of candy! But luckily not too much.

That same night, Jeremy and I enjoyed a fancy dinner with the grocery marketing department. By the end of the date, I remembered why I usually do not wear high heels.

The next day was Halloween! Unfortunately, Dallin was running a 101 fever and didn't wake up from his nap by the time we left to go on our adventures. So Jeremy and DJ stayed home.

We brought our sweet friend with us. She's like an adopted niece, so I'm just gonna call her my niece from now on.

The grandmas and grandpas at the senior living center were really happy to see us and all the other kids. They each gave us candy!! I wanted to take the boys here as our families way of remembering Grandma Ginny. She passed away in Sacramento last year, just a few days after Halloween, and one of her last happy experiences was being visited at the nursing home by some of her great-grandkids in their Halloween costumes. 

Next, we went to Patty Mae's house! She is a sweet friend from church.

After that, we met at the Ekin's house to trick-or-treat in their picture-perfect neighborhood.

No one could contain their excitement!!! 

The only thing missing was Dallin.

We had a super fun time going from house to house. The kids didn't even need coats this hour, so different from last year's weather here. We went up and down several blocks and then went our separate ways. Tanner and I stopped by our own neighbors' homes before coming home.

We arrived home at about 6:30pm, thinking we were all done. Dallin was awake and full of energy. When he saw us, he said "Oh, we go trick treating?! I wan get my monkey costume!" So we decided if he really wanted to go, we had no reason to stay home, even if he did have a fever. So we set off for another round, this time with our whole family.

We went to several homes in our own neighborhood, which was kind of scary because we have no sidewalks. But funny enough, we ran into a bunch of friends, some that we had started trick-or-treating with earlier! Dallin LOVED it. He talked about it for weeks. I'm so glad we took him. His fever was gone by the next day and gave us no issues, what a blessing.

Here are the happy kids at the end of the night!

Here are the happy parents! 

Watching the boys eat their candy was not only fun, it was actually joyful. It was odd at first to be feeling so happy watching my kids eat candy because usually I'm angry when they do that! But there was something magical about coming home after having so much fun together, and sitting together in peace and quiet, and seeing them get excited by the simplest candies. Maybe I liked it so much because they were quiet with their mouths full, haha. What a Happy Halloween!