NOVEMBER 2019

It takes a few days to come off of Halloween candy - especially for Dallin this year.  He is already obsessed with candy and sugary treats and I found him trying to climb the fridge multiple times to get to the candy stash.  Luckily he is pretty athletic and has a lot of strength in his upper body because he never did fall.  Dallin seems like he has really grown the last little bit and he is a pretty particular kid about what he likes.  He is a very helpful guy around the house and loves unloading the dishes and getting clothes out of the dryer.  He asks about 5x a day "are the dishes ready?"  He also loves to answer the door if the doorbell rings. One of his other favorite chores is getting the mail out of the mailbox.  He is a fun little boy!

Our 16th anniversary fell on a Friday night and of course Kasen had a basketball tournament that night so we couldn't celebrate too much.  We stopped at a sandwich place on our way home and found Jake, Megan, Mallory, and McKenna eating so it was fun to chat with them for a few minutes.  Jed did come home earlier that day with the prettiest roses and some yummy treats for us all to share. 

ACTIVITIES - Ava had YW in Excellence this month.  She decided to use family history as her project this year since she spends so much time doing and working on it.  To date Ava has found over 900 names.  It might take me 30 lifetimes do all the work for those people at the rate Ava is getting the baptisms done!  At the beginning of the month she went to SLC with all the YW for the weekend.  She had a lot of fun.  She just wishes there was at least one other girl her age.

Kinsley was really into writing this month.  She made her own book Ah! about a cavegirl name Ah and her family.  It is loosely patterned after one of her favorite books Ug.  She was so excited about it she took it to school and her teacher had Kinsley read it in front of the class during story time.  I love teachers like that!

Kasen had another tournament in November in Park City, UT.  We decided to make a fun family get-away out of it and drove down Friday to stop at the SLC temple before it closes for the next few years for renovations.  Ava really wanted  to do baptisms for the dead there so her and Jed went to do that and the rest of us walked around temple square.  The nativity scene was out and we went in to the visitor's center and watched a movie about families and temples.  We also got to see Jesus and all the planets which Dallin really liked - a little too much because it echoed up there.We got there about 3:30 and didn't leave until about 6pm!  It took Ava and Jed over 2 hrs to do 2 names.  Jed said it was super slow and really busy.  He said he was sitting in the baptistry waiting for Ava to come out and Elder Gong walked in and shook every person's hand and right when he walked out and around the corner Ava walked through the door!  So she barely missed getting to meet an Apostle. She said she was in the locker room praying about which names to take to the baptistry, so at least it was a good reason she missed getting to meet him. Luckily the kids and I had walked over and gotten food from the Lion House and we made it to Park City just in time for Kasen to warm up for his game.

Kasen played in 3 games and did so good.  He got hurt in his last game and couldn't play as much, but overall he was awesome!  I'm pretty sure he has already played in more games in two weeks than he did in 2 months with his team in Boise.  The kids did pretty good sitting through 3 games over the weekend.  It gets super boring for them and while Dallin likes basketball he doesn't like being confined to sitting on a bench or being still so there were meltdowns of course.  The games were over by 3pm on Saturday and Kasen's team won every game! 

After the games we drove back to our hotel and relaxed for a bit and then went to eat and shop at the outlet malls.  By shop, I mean Jed went shopping at the Nike store for 3 hrs!  He makes all of us hate the Nike store so much.  We got some things for all the kids except Dallin.  He loves new clothes so much and was so disappointed so Jed quickly pulled out some socks and gave them to him.  He was so happy about his socks he didn't put them down the entire night and even slept with them.  It was freezing, but the kids and Jed went down to the hot tub (which was outdoors!).  Sunday we stopped at Temple Square again and then drove home in time to watch the children and youth Face2Face. (Kinsley took the last 4 pictures on my phone and I thought they turned out great!)

November 23rd we had nothing planned.  Kasen's basketball tournament got cancelled.  Our Manwaring Thanksgiving got cancelled.  Jed, Dallin, and I went to go check some cows that morning...

and I realized that if we didn't plan something Jed would spend the day on the couch watching football and the kids would be watching tv all day too.  It was a pretty nice day outside and so I coerced everyone to go for a little family hike.  Kinsley and Dallin were excited but the rest took a little time to get excited about it.  We drove out to Cress Creek since it has pretty views but isn't too hard.  Rigby HS football team was playing in the state championship game so Jed had the game playing on his phone as we hiked up and back.

The first half up the hike we were mostly in sage brush and had views of the river.  We had to stop at every sign and read it.  We also were on the lookout for bald eagles. When we got to the top we had to take some pictures .

Some closeups of the cute kids.  It is crazy to think that when Jed and I last hiked Cress Creek we were dating and we brought up Abby and Mal with us.  I think Abby was the same age as Kinsley back then and Mal was the same age as Kasen.  The last time Jed and I were here we were dating and we brought Mal & Abby who were the same age as Kasen & Kinsley are now.  Time goes by so fast!

The second half of the hike  we went into the trees a little bit more.  The first part was going uphill a bit more and Dallin was such a big boy and did so good hiking.  We came back to the creek and we read that the water here comes from a natural hotspring and is always lukewarm no matter the temperature outside. It was a really pretty hike and it felt so good to get outside and make some memories.

The kids had the week of Thanksgiving off from school because it was the end of the trimester. They all came home with straight A's which we were very proud of.  They work hard and love school and I love that about them.  

We had a pretty lazy Thanksgiving break.  I tried to catch up on school and the kids caught up on being lazy.  It was so cold we just wanted to stay inside and cuddle.  One morning Jed made pancakes and made Ava an octopus pancake.  We were excited to have library books and Disney+ to fill our time, and of course Wacky Six is always a must - a little more distracting with Dallin in the middle just moving random cards around wherever he feels like it.

THANKSGIVING BREAK - The Sunday before Thanksgiving we had a Foster family party.  We met at Loft745 for dinner and games.  Sydnee made the turkey, Abby made the potatoes and corn, I did stuffing, and Josh made gravy and rolls.  Syd also made pies and I made some Magic Bars.  Ava made sugar cookies the kids could decorate.  It was so delicious and we were all so stuffed.  I have to say I was pretty impressed with how good everything turned out!  We played some games with the kids and then played an adult game of Secret Hitler which was new to most of us and really fun. Jed organized a game of Duck, Duck, Moose with the kids.  Notice who ended up winning the run around... I think he rigged that one.

 

Syd and Abby came over to help me take some videos of the Black Friday doorbusters for the store.  They did such a great job.  I was all pumped to post some live try-on videos and had talked myself up about it and then when it came time to post them I chickened out.  I'm not sure if this online store is working for me or better said I'm not sure how I'm working out for this online store.  I have such a hard time putting myself on social media for it.  I feel like I'm too old to be doing "clothes try-ons" and also have been wondering how important it really is even.  I mean how many clothes do you really need??  There are definitely days when I just want to throw in the towel with it, but then I talk myself out of that because it's only been 4 months and I feel like I'm just quitting.  I don't know what to do with it yet.  But I was so grateful for Abby and Syd and their support and Ava's too - even though she was not at all excited to do it.

Thanksgiving day we went to Ericksons.  It was a small gathering compared to usual.  Just us, Trena's family, Johnny's family, Jordan's family, and John and Coleen.  We still had a lot of fun and lots to eat.  Josh showed me a picture of him as a little boy and holy cow - Dallin looks just like him!

Friday morning the kids wanted to go out in the fresh snow.  Yes Dallin was too small for his snow pants so the next size up are Kinsley's hand-me-downs.  He looked pretty good in pink complemented with Denver Broncos gear and camo.  Pretty soon they had a good sized snowman bottom rolled.  So Jed went out to help them.   They ended up making a 6'8" snowman.  Dallin was insistent on calling it Booty.  Kinsley wanted Mrs. Snowman and Kasen wanted Frosty.  But when we put it all together it just didn't sound right: Mrs. Snowman's Frosty Booty??  The kids got into a good little snowball fight and Kasen figured out what his first white-wash was.

 

 

Saturday - the last day of November - Ava met her cousins down at the temple to do baptisms.  Jed went in to baptize, Kinsley went with Hailey to her home to play (and then went to see Frozen 2!), so Kasen, Dallin, and I went to the visitor's center.  Afterward we went to Smitty's for breakfast.  Kasen is really looking forward to going to the temple in a few weeks.  We met back out at Ericksons to spend time with family.  Trena got out her supplies to make IV boards for the kids in Dominican Republic.  I swear we made a 100 at least that afternoon.  At least that what my index finger felt like after slicing carboard strips all afternoon.

Then our family went down to watch the Forgotten Carols.  We had invited Coleen to go with us.  It was a really great performance and everyone liked it - even the boys who were not that excited to go watch singing.  My favorite part is when everyone sings "We can be together forever someday" at the end.  November was really good to us!