Sunday, November 29, 2015

November in a Nutshell

November was supposed to be a quieter, calmer month. Ha!

Charlotte's first (only?) cheer season came to an end with a meet and greet with the Kansas City Chiefs' cheerleaders.

Charlotte loved cheerleading, but boy, it's kind of rough on this mom. It isn't just that cheerleaders freak me out on a personal level, it is all of the layers of social commitments that go along with cheer... sleepovers, parties, extra practices, making banners for the football players to run through... cheerleading is not a sport, it is a lifestyle, and I'm not sure we are cut out for it. 

Daddy was Charlotte's date for the cheer banquet.  He looks super excited, huh? But he was a good sport and they had a memorable evening out together.

Just a few nights later was the Laternenfest (that isn't spelled wrong) at Jakey's Kindergarten. This is a celebration for St. Martin's day when the German children carry lanterns they have made on a nighttime procession while singing "lantern songs." Toby made one in his German immersion classroom as well and knew a few of the songs.

Nearby in the Lautertal area, there is a natural park called Felsenmeer, and somehow we had never gone there before.  We took the kids, and the new dog, on a morning hike one Saturday in November.

The Felsenmeer is this valley filled with enormous granite boulders.  The kids all loved climbing on them and around them. 

It was a beautiful sunny Autumn day.

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This is how Bingo looks when he is smiling.  Did I mention we got a dog in November?  He thought the Felsenmeer was awesome.

The Romans used this stone valley as a quarry for some of their building projects back in the day.  But all the kiddos see is a playground.

 Also in November, I felt a little sick one day.  Lucky for me, I have a house full of nurses. They brought me toast, loaded the dishwasher, and made me cards and paper flowers.  I felt the love.

Also, I had to just take a picture of this drawing Jakey made. It is hard to see from here, but it is a picture of two astronauts, and a few spiders, getting ready to go on a space shuttle. It is really the first time Jake sat down and focused on drawing an idea of his own from his imagination that had fully developed people with arms, legs, bodies, clothing, etc. It was fantastic.

Halloween 2015

Before Halloween we went to a local farmer's stand and picked out pumpkins.
They had an awesome assortment of pumpkins and gourds and the kids loved checking out all the varieties...




In the end though, three of the kiddos chose standard Jack-o-lantern pumpkins.

Toby decided to try out something a bit more exotic.

They turned out cute.  We hadn't bothered to carve pumpkins the past two Halloweens, with Amelie's birth, and then our move to Germany, so now we finally had kids old enough to gut their own gourds!

Even Toby's gourd turned out cute, although the insides were white and kind of spongy and weird.
Our Church held a trunk or treat and Halloween party. I had the privilege of organizing the shindig, and it all worked out pretty well, with a chili cook-off and lots of cute little kiddos- around 150-180 actually.

Amelie was Snow White.

Toby was a BYU football player.  We discussed a few specific players to dress up as- Steve Young? Tatum Mangum? But in the end, he decided to be himself in the future.

Jakey was Thor.

And Charlotte was a woodland fairy.