NOVEMBER

BAND CONCERT

Crystal had a band concert the beginning of the month. This is her second year playing trumpet and the entire band has made great improvements this year. They were almost fun to listen to this time. Haha. I love watching her continue to grow this talent of hers. It helps that she has great friends in the band too! 

BOYS ACTIVITIES

Ty and I are activity leaders in our church ward. This month we had a coding and a thankful activity. Both activities were tons of fun! We are going to miss them when the new year comes!

THANKSGIVING

I didn't take even one single picture of our Thanksgiving shenanigans. We had a friends' pie night Tuesday night, family pie night Wednesday night with my family, and Thanksgiving (and yes more dessert) with my parents, since Ty's parents are in Chile. My parents watched the kids for an hour or so while Ty and I checked out Cabela's black Friday sales. Nothing too crazy. We just didn't make it there earlier in the week and didn't want to fight crowds on Friday. All in all I think we had a good day!

JAY AND ANGEL

Angel doesn't love Jay ... in fact it's probably safe to say that she doesn't even like him. But every once in a while he scratches in just the right spot and she tolerates him for a short time. During those moments he generally begs me to take a picture for proof. Haha.

ANGEL AND I

I love this cat. I love her so so so much. But for reals. She is NOT helpful when I'm trying to work! When she decides it's time for her to sit on my lap, its time to empty the lap and let her sit there. Seriously, I often find myself literally fighting her for my own lap and I always fail. Haha. Doesn't matter if I'm working with my computer on my lap, or folding clothes, or more recently wrapping presents. If I can't do it with her on my lap then it doesn't need to be done. Haha. 

FALL LEAVES

We went to check on Grandma and Grandpa's house today and the kids found HEAVEN. They had so much fun in all the leaves. They were astounded at the amount of leaves on the ground. We took slowmo videos and everything jumping in leaves! 

VERY RANDOM PHOTOS

I was cleaning up this week and took pictures of a bunch of old photos and some newer ones just to make sure I don't lose them. Here they are!

 

BEFORE MEXICO, LILY'S PREBIRTHDAY, HALLOWEEN WEEK

FALL SOCCER

ANGEL 

My kitty loves me. I hate that she's getting old! It's getting harder for her to snuggle me!

MOUSE

Jaime caught a mouse at work. We let it go on the other side of the fence. Hopefully it doesn't come back. Mice don't get to live in our workspace.

SCHOOL CARNIVAL

I'm so proud of this girl. She has really stepped it up this year. Being the oldest class in the school the 5th graders have been given a lot of opportunities not given to the other age groups and Lily has taken full advantage of it. She gets to help in the office, reads to the younger kids, and gets to help with the school newspaper! I followed her around the carnival while she took pictures of all the rooms and people playing. She had her little press pass and everything. It was fun! 

LILY'S PRE-BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY

Since we are going to be in Mexico for her birthday we celebrated a week early with everyone else! She once again chose Fuji's for her birthday dinner! We had ice cream cake with family.

GARAGE

We got the sheet rock up, work bench in, and fridge/freezer moved just in time to pull the truck in the garage before the first snow storm. Good timing!

AFTER MEXICO

BRANDON MULL came to Idaho Falls this week on his book tour for his last Dragon Watch book. We all LOVE Brandon Mull in this house. Ty and I met him years ago when the kids were just little. Dragon Watch is one of Crystal's favorite series'. She wanted to go so badly, but she had a church activity and since we didn't think ahead and go get in line before it started, I knew the line would be long. Ty and I were still mulling over going and checking it out when I had this bright idea that we could get her the book and get it signed for her to give to her for Christmas. So she went to her activity and Ty and I went to the mall to stand in a very long line. The line when we got there crossed about 10 store entrances. I decided to walk ahead and see about paying for a book while we waited. Right before I got to the store, I was shocked to find the line dipped into the entry way (pictured below) and continued to wind back and for before it went into the store. The line was SO much longer than we thought. I went back and told Ty we wouldn't even make it to the front before it ended so we had to scrap that idea. We went inside to see if they had any previously signed books but we had no luck. As we were leaving, I heard my name and turned to find our awesome neighbor standing toward the front of the line! I ran in and bought a book and she got it signed for us while we got ourselves a Jamba Juice. Haha. She saved us!!! YAY! Now I just have to keep Crystal from getting it from the library and reading it before Christmas! Haha.

CARVNG PUMPKINS

Ty tried to talk his way out of carving pumpkins this year. His exact words were "can we just wait and do it next year?" which is what he said last year too! It worked last year and they resorted to painting pumpkins, but the kids wouldn't have it this year! Haha. They are older now so it was a lot easier this year that it has been in the past. Dad still helped quite a bit with finishing touches but they did a lot of the work on their own. Jay made a cat, Crystal made a ghost, and Lily (with Dad's help) made an M-Bot plane from the book we listened to while on our vacation a couple weeks ago. They had a lot of fun with it! Oh and Lily decided she likes pumpkin, even raw. Yuck! BUT we did get a lot of yummy pumpkin seeds from it all (cooked of course).

NEIGHBORHOOD HALLOWEEN EVENT

Every year our neighborhood does our own little event before Halloween. Last year I decided I wanted to do something more than just hand out candy for it. So we started a little haunted house in our garage. We are hoping to just add a little to it every year. I took a few pictures but the video .. that I will probably never post because it's too much work ... is much better. Anyway it all turned out great! Ty and I went around and visited with some neighbors. We met some new people and got to know some of our neighbors a lot better! It was so nice! 

SCHOOL HALLOWEEN PARTIES

These are pictures of the kids before school on Friday! Jay couldn't wear his mask so we tried to paint it on. Haha. Lily lost her cat ears on the bus so she had to improvise on Saturday and be something else.

HALLOWEEN TRUNK OR  TREAT

Saturday night we went to our ward trunk or treat. Lily was a Spider instead of a cat, Jay got to wear his terrifying mask, and Crystal was a green m&m which matched her friends, Kennedy and Brooklyn. Ty and I were farmers. Ty loves his tractor and had the bright idea to use it instead of our trunk this year at the Trunk or Treat. It was pretty smart of him. Haha. The kids all had friends to go trick or treating with this year. Jay even got a hug from his friend when they parted ways at the end of the night! Oy. It has started already and he's only 8!!! Haha!

After the trunk or treat we of course continued our Halloween tradition of going to Grandma Gordon's for Halloween dinner. Grandma even went above and beyond our usual pizza this year and make all sorts of Halloween foods to go with our sandwiches. Crystal like the witches fingers so much that she took the whole bowl! Lol. It was so fun! Uncle Tyler clearly had too much candy. And Max was exhausted from entertaining all the trick or treaters that night. Haha. The kids did a little regular trick or treating in Grandma's neighborhood before we called it a night and headed home.