Our ward Halloween party was held two days after Halloween this year, which was a fun way of extending the festivities.
Sam's face cracks me up in this picture!
John and his friend Hyrum sporting their vampire teeth.
Sam's been into collecting rocks this fall. He takes them from the landscaped areas around our house, and he'll triumphantly return from preschool with a pocketful of rocks that he picked up from the playground. He had fun painting the biggest rock in his collection.
This was a tree in our backyard on Saturday, November 2nd. I was reading a book and looked out the window and the leaves' beautiful bright autumnal colors were glowing in the afternoon sunlight, pretty much begging me to take their picture, so I went outside and did just that.
Then a few days later it was really windy out and many of the leaves fell off...
And on Saturday, November 9th, exactly one week after I took the first pictures, it looked like this.
What a difference one week makes in the late fall!
Playing on the iPads. What was life like before iPads? I can hardly remember.
I love Brody! Especially when he lays in the sun and his fur is so warm and soft to snuggle into (which he doesn't enjoy me doing, which makes me enjoy doing it even more! Hee hee hee.). #crazycatlady
John was reading for pleasure, and I had to document it! Thank you, Jeff Kinney, for your Diary of a Wimpy Kid books!
Pokemon cards. I still don't get how to play. Can you guess what John wants for Christmas?
It snowed and stuck around on the ground for awhile this time!
Peter got me the prettiest bouquet of pale pink roses and they bloomed beautifully. I love pale pink roses so much that I decided that was the only flower I wanted in my wedding bouquet. I get a little obsessed with taking pictures of blooming roses so I'll probably give these a post of their own at some point!
Sam built a rectangular train track on his own. He was so proud of himself. We're impressed with some of the creative tracks that he comes up with!
Sam only occasionally takes naps anymore, and when he does, it's usually in a random place somewhere around the house, like this:
I think this picture is so funny. He's posed like a newborn baby in a photo shoot. I posted this on Instagram and used the hashtag #newbornfouryearold. I thought that was particularly clever on my part. LOL! (I always hated "LOL" and now I find myself using it a lot...what's happening to me?)
I got these adorable white owls at Target. I couldn't resist their fluffy soft white wings and eyebrows.
Aren't they cu-hoot? (sorry) But really, aren't they?
Sam's turkey handprint from preschool. I love things like this.
There was a lovely sunset the evening before Thanksgiving.
We hosted Thanksgiving dinner for a big group for the first time ever. It was both easy and challenging (if that makes any sense), but it was fun. We had two families over for a total of six adults, eight kids, and one baby.
Peter wasn't feeling well in the morning and he was in charge of cooking and stuffing the turkey, so our food preparation schedule was off to a late start, and then I got tired and laid down for too long, so not everything was ready when everyone arrived. But luckily we had appetizers to tide us over until it was time to eat. I went back and forth about assigning seats and using place cards or letting people decide where they wanted to sit when they got there. I went with the latter but next time I'll go with the former.
John was happy with the way the seating turned out. He got to sit between two of his favorite friends from church, Ellie and Hyrum.
The day after Thanksgiving we went and picked out our Christmas tree. We've gone to the same place to do this since we moved here because it's a great place to get a tree. It has a good selection of trees and a cool needle-shaking machine and netting device that the trees go through, and then they tie it onto the roof of your car for you. There's also a fast, rickety little train that's fun for the kids to ride on, and a little cottage where they sell hot popcorn, hot apple cider, hot chocolate, and baked goods...it's like this little wooded winter paradise in the middle of farmland.
We don't go out and cut down our own tree. That's too much work! We like to select from the pre-cut ones.
We ended up getting the first one I spotted when we drove in. We didn't realize it at the time, but it turned out to be the tallest tree we've ever gotten.
John and Sam riding the train. Sam rode it three times.
Then we got the tree home and set it up.
The kitties always get excited about a tree in the house.
Peter even got the lights strung up that very day. We switch off every other year between colored lights and white lights. Peter and the boys like the colored lights and I prefer the white. This year is a white year--yay! I'll post pictures of the tree and other Christmas things around the house tomorrow. I was going to do a post about our house on Cape Cod tomorrow, but I think I'm going to do that next month instead. (Sorry, just thinking (typing) out loud.)
From fall foliage to Thanksgiving to Christmas trees--that's the nature of November!
