November Wrap Up

A few highlights from November:

We slept over at the Haderlies for Halloween and were able to hang out the next day and play and go for a walk. 

We watched Juniper for Matt and Brooklyn so that they could have a date weekend. Lucy and Juniper loved playing together. 

Austin's bike was broken so we got him a new bike and it is awesome. 

It even started a bike race with all the kids lining up for a race down the street. 

Lydia making her own "peanut butter oatmeal" that she loves. She really loves when she gets to make things in the kitchen especially when she can do it all on her own. 

One night we found Lydia asleep holding this book. She loves to read and it was so cute. 

One day we found the kids just snuggled together under the couch. 

Playing in the leaves! The funny thing is that our tree does not shed its leaves until the spring, so we don't have a tree in our front yard, but someone all the neighbors leaves blew right into our yard and we had more leaves than anyone. The kids did not mind this one bit. 

Austin snuggling Lucy. 

Shantel had stake baptisms, so the kids and I hung out at home together and built the tallest tower ever. We got it so tall we even had to take off a few blocks so it could fit, but it went right up to the ceiling. 

This is my favorite because you can see Lydia ducking for cover as it comes tumbling down on her. 

Snuggling together. 

When we did our yard clean up we decided to bring the trampoline inside so it did not get too damaged/rusted in the winter. We were thinking to move it to the basement, but we still wanted the kids to have a ton of room to play down there. Our living room as been sitting without furniture since we moved couches around once the basement was finished. So we decided to just try the trampoline out in that room. The kids have been loving having a trampoline in the living room!

And last: My favorite pictures. Shantel, Lydia and I snuggling on the couch one Saturday reading books. It was the perfect thing to do. 

Visitors

November was tricky with the Governor's mandate for refraining from gathering in small groups. We didn't see much of anyone for most of the month. However, we did have a few visitors and that was such a great thing for us. 

First, My Mom. 

We had been planning a "taco-birthday-party" for my mom since March when she gave Caleb the book "Dragons Love Tacos" and her birthday just happens to be the date circled on the calendar for their taco party. We were so bummed that we weren't going to be able to actually follow through with the taco party, so instead of hosting a big party - we convinced my mom to come and stay the week with us. I snuggled with her in her bed and we watched Korean dramas until 1 am every night and she talked and read books and hung out during the days. We celebrated her birthday with tacos for dinner while she read Dragons Love Tacos to the kids. My mom is wonderful. 

(Screenshot of the Korean drama we were watching, Start Up, I loved this little dining room nook.) 

She left on a Friday and the very next day our next visitor arrived: 

BRUCE! 

He drove in from Colorado to spend Thanksgiving with our family and we loved having him stay for the whole week. We played games. He bribed the kids with fruit snacks. We played more games. He played with the kids. It was just a great week. Our favorite game of the holiday? Pandemic. Ha. 

I'll blog about this in December, but to add to our Visitor tally - the very next day after Bruce left, the Haderlie kids came for us to babysit for a week! All in all it was a great month for visitors. 

Christmas Shopping and Prep

We had gotten into a nice rotation for what we do visiting family for holiday. With the pandemic, that will be a bit different this year. We have not been able to visit my parents, except socially distanced outside since the pandemic started. It would be our turn for Walker Christmas, but Shantel and I discussed and she was kind enough to make it so we can do Christmas at my parents house this year. I am so grateful for Shantel. Doing this will be sacrificing time with her family and I appreciate the love she shows my family. My Mom loves Christmas and to not have her family with her on Christmas would be so hard. The plan is to do a full 2 week quarantine prior to going there which means that starting December 6, we will be fully quarantined. This also means we want to have almost all of our shopping done by then since if we are missing something we won't be able to get it at a physical store, it will all be online. So we got an early start on our Christmas shopping. We are super close to being completely done and should be able to wrap things up before the 6th. 

Shantel had to make a run for groceries to Sam's club and they found the toy section. It worked out awesome because they had some things that were really good for the kids that we are going to end up doing. 

We also have been doing a ton of online ordering. We have not been ready to open things up yet because we don't have a place to hide all the presents. This has meant we have just been collecting a huge pile of boxes. There is pretty good representation from Amazon, Wal-mart and Target in this pile. 

The kids have also been saving their money for sibling gifts. Austin got Lucy this year and has been so excited. As soon as he had his money saved up he wanted to wrap his present for her. He got her a little stroller and doll, but none of the boxes we had fit, so he and I had to take to boxes and build a bigger box. It was perfect for him since he loves that. Then we got it all wrapped together. 

The Christmas shopping and prep is coming along great. 

Church at Home - November

Here are a few of our favorite pictures from church at home from November. 

The kids playing with blocks while we watch church on the TV. 

This is the sweetest one of them all. One Sunday while we were watching church Caleb was in the kitchen and it looked like he was trying to get a drink. The next thing, when we looked up, he had gathered 5 cups and filled them with water and bread that he had broken. Caleb was trying to prepare the sacrament. It was so touching to see that he had been watching for the last 7 months as I prepared the sacrament and wanted to make sure that we had the sacrament. While we could not use that bread and water for the sacrament, it was a sweet moment and we let him share his testimony. 

A few weeks later when Bruce was here we had a lesson about the Jaredites and talked about crossing the great sea. We talked about how Heavenly Father will help lead us to the promised land if we have faith. Then we carried the kids in blankets (ships) to the promised land.