November is when the real Fall sets in here in St. George. I have to admit it is kind of hard for me to wait until November to get out my boots and sweaters when all my friends are talking about that in late September but I am slowly starting to adapt. After a long, HOT summer, we love spending our days outside in the cooler fall weather.
As we do each November, we started off the month with our FHE lesson on gratitude. This is our thankful tree for this year and we were excited to start filling it up with all our gratitude leaves.
This is one of my very favorite things to see. I am very thankful that my children love to read and that they love to spend time together. I walked in one evening to find this scene and had to capture it.
This little cutie is constantly getting into mischief! He is so busy and loves to rearrange everything in the house and drive me completely crazy! Garrett likes to turn on the shower and let it run for a couple of minutes to regulate the temp before he gets in and he didn't see this little guy slip in with his jammies on. Dallas loves taking showers with us and couldn't wait to hop in!
I love fall afternoons and just hanging out with my cute kids and watching them learn and play. I am so blessed to be able to stay home with my children and I am thankful every day that I get to be a mother.
Dallas has been loving the musical instruments lately and has a tendency to pull out every single toy before he is ready to plop down and start playing. It makes for a fun clean up!
Rylynn and Beckett love to play chef in the little kitchen and I love over hearing them playing and making believe together. I love my children's imaginations!
This is my most favorite time of the year because of all the bright beautiful colors. I took these pictures just around our neighborhood as I was walking with the boys one afternoon. God truly is an artist!
Dallas got his first hair cut and he was a very good sport about it! We had to trim off the "wings" as Garrett likes to call them. He has gotten so independent about eating and loves to feed himself with a spoon.
As long as he is eating, he is happy!
We got to visit with my uncle Dennis and Aunt Donna when they came to town for a week. It was fun to have them to dinner and to catch up with them! I am thankful for extended family and the heritage that I come from!
Last month we had a few situations arise in Carter's class that were concerning to Garrett and me. He kept having issues with his teacher and there were even some classmates that were being mean to him. Most of all Garrett and I could tell that he was obviously stressed and emotionally very fragile. He was doing well in school but the confrontations with his teacher were really worrying me. I tried several times to work things out with her through email and then in person at the parent teacher conference but nothing seemed to be working. Garrett and I were very unimpressed with her at the conference because she clearly was all about her agenda and getting good grades and she was not a warm or caring person at all. I was especially struggling because I had originally enrolled Carter in the dual immersion Chinese program at the end of kindergarten but just before summer he said he didn't want to do it anymore. I went back and forth and in the end let him make the final decision. I never really felt at ease about the way we decided that and then when Carter was clearly very unhappy in his class I second guessed my decision to let him choose. Rylynn was a very good big sister and helped Carter confront some girls who had been mean to him in the lunch room and we had several talks about standing up for our siblings. That helped but still there were these issues with his teacher critisizing him in front of his peers and blaming him for things that he didn't do. In the end she actually lied to me so I went to the principal and explained the situation and she agreed that it would be best to switch him to a different class. After our visit I felt very relieved but still disappointed that he wouldn't be able to do the Chinese program. After talking to my parents they suggested I email the principal and just ask if it was even a possibility to switch him into the program. I thought there was no way since it was already a month into the school year but I sent the email anyway. She wrote back right away and said she thought he would do great in the program and that she thought he would be fine to catch up with the other kids. I was so relieved and grateful that a way had been prepared to make up for my poor decision in the past. He switched into the chinese program the next day and has done amazingly well! He caught up so quickly and made friends in his new class right away. Most of all we could see our happy, content Carter again. He was back to his normal stress free self and I was so grateful for the power of prayer and for a Heavenly Father who knows and loves my son even more than I do. Even though it was painful, he prepared a way for Carter to be able to be in a better situation for the next 5 years in this special program. He is thriving and happy and we are so grateful!
Thanksgiving finally arrived and our plans ended up changing three times so at the last minute we were at home and trying to find families to come spend thanksgiving with us. We found two families in the ward that didn't have family and then the three days of cooking began!
Rylynn was a huge helper to me and we had a great time doing all the prep work together!
I called her my little sous chef and it made me think of all the memories I have of helping my Mom for days leading up to thanskgiving. I am so thankful to have a daughter and to be able to share my hobbies with her!
This was the kids table. Rylynn loves setting the table "fancy" so she was in charge of the kids table decorations. We had the Campbells and the Schultz with us for our day of Thanks.
Here's the whole group. Of course I am missing because I have become my mom and am now the meal coordinator, cook, and server so I was bringing out all the food and we had TONS! After dinner we had our talent show and then finished off the night with our thankful candle ceremony. It is one of my very favorite holidays and we were so happy to make new friends this year!
We never got a picture of the food on the actual Turkey Day but this is the leftover spread. We ate well for several days!
We are thankful for our healthy bodies too! We have been so blessed this fall to avoid the sicknesses that have been going around. We had a hard fall/winter last year with illness so we are very glad to be healthy this year.
This was an entry in Carter's school journal and I thought it needed to be included in our thankful post since he is very thankful for enchiladas and requests that they be included in our weekly meal menu every week.
Here are all the things that we were thankful for through the month of November. Truly we are so blessed!!
