November (in one post!)

Finn loved seeing this sign in Walmart.  He asked me nearly daily, "How many days until Christmas?"

Bree loves making pink scrambled eggs.  And this day she was eating them with her pink Frozen yogurt while dressed as Tinkerbell.  Love my princess!

I think I can cook some pretty good dinners.  This one tasted as good as it looked.  Yum!!  That's quinoa under the stir-fry.  It all went together perfectly!

Kai's co-scout leader was out of town one Tuesday early in the month (the 10th) and so I was asked to sub.  I got to bring all 3 of my kids and we watched the scouts learn about the military from a veteran and then make robots from recyclables.  This is Kai with his friends Ezra and Marcus and their robot.

Bree and Finn had their last joint well-child check on the 11th.  It snowed that morning and so Kai had a 2 hour delay.  The roads were scary slippery.  I saw at least 6 cars off of the road before I ever made it to the interstate.  Needless to say that by the time we checked in at the pediatrician the 2-hour delay had changed to a closure.  Making the best of the situation, I asked if I could throw Kai into the appointment for a flu shot (there was a flu shot clinic going at the same time in the office so I figured we could jump it).  They were great about it and got all three kids lined up for a flu shot.  Kai wasn't prepared and was an emotional mess over the whole thing.  Finn had gotten nervous and upset in the car on the way to the office when I told him and Bree...what can I say.  She's a tough princess.  I sang the "time for a check-up song" for her (from Doc McStuffins) and told her she needed one shot.  She volunteered to go first out of all three kids.  I placed her on the table and she laid down and was super brave.  Not one tear or even a whimper.  I was SO SO proud of her.  And then it was her brothers' turns and that involved pulling crying boys out of corners of the room and pinning them down while they screamed.  I wish they had followed their sister's example or at least set a better one for her.  

November is always my favorite sale at the grocery store.  They normally have all the canned goods on sale for great prices and so I try to stock up for the year.  This is one of three counters' full that I got at the sale.  It was $300 worth of food for under $150.  The receipt was over 4 feet long!

The night that Bree fell asleep on the couch at 5:30pm.  This whole trying to drop her nap phase is hard!

I was excited about 5-8 inches of snow.... (this was 2 days before the storm)

Bree's favorite thing to do in the snow is make snow angels.  We had a little bit of snow left over for an earlier storm and so we found her a place in the yard with enough snow left to make a great angel.

By Monday morning that 5 to 8 inches of snow had turned into 8 to 18 inches of snow!  Kai headed to school in the morning with his boots and winter coat even though there was no storm in sight.

At noon it was still warm enough to ride a bike without a coat and this was the lone pile of snow left in our yard that Finn could find.  

By 12:30 the storm was clearly on it's way.  And I was headed to school to drop off Finn.  By 2:30 the snow was sticking and email had come out from the school saying that we could come get our children early if we would like.  I had gone to lunch with a friend and didn't get the email until after I was at Wal-mart shopping and there was only an hour left of school, so I decided the kids would be fine heading home on the bus an hour later.  As I was getting Bree ready to head out to the car to get the boys at the bus stop there was a surprise greeting at my garage door.  It was the boys who had arrived home earlier than expected because the school decided to dismiss early (by about 10 minutes).  I was a tad irritated that they had been dropped off on the street corner in a blizzard with no parents and no warning that they were coming home early.  Apparently my neighbor had no knowledge either of the early dismissal and found all 4 of our kids walking up the street by themselves.  Grrr.....

And just 24 hours after I had taken the picture of Finn sitting in the grass, our house looked like this.  This picture doesn't even do it justice.  That snow is up to Reid's knees, which is the equivalent of my mid-thigh at least.  

I tried to use Bree as a measuring stick in this picture but it still doesn't do any of this justice.

Our house manages to get a fairly large drift right at this corner of our walkway every time.  This snow was nearly as tall as Finn right here.  I tried to walk through it and then just turned around and headed back.

All of this snow resulted in Monday's early dismissal, no school on Tuesday or Wednesday, and a 2-hour delay on Thursday.  Of course, this was also the week before our one-week Thanksgiving break.  My kids did not go to school that much in November (don't forget there was also that snow day on the 11th that I mentioned earlier).

Wal-mart used shopping carts to block off this dangerous snow drift situation.  I think they have some design flaws with their roof because I've now seen this twice already this winter.

My kids were all staring out the window one morning looking at the geese flying by.  It was too great not to get a picture, even if it is bad lighting.

On Tuesday the 24th (2 days before Thanksgiving) we headed to the zoo.  It was so fun to see the lion cubs up and playing.  We had first seen them when they were about two months old in August.  They have grown so much in those short months.  And they were super playful.  In this picture a cub is standing right by a wire gate.  For some reason they had separated the dad from the cubs right as we got there and he was sitting on the other side of the door and this cub wasn't moving.  He clearly wanted his dad back.  So cute.

There have been some recent renovations in the australia exhibit and this is one of them.  Finn loved climbing all over this alligator.

I was too lazy to pack lunch that day so we bought lunch there.  I forgot how horribly expensive their food is (think Disney prices!) and was shocked when I paid nearly $30 for a slice of pizza and a hotdog (and I think I got something for myself but I can't remember what it was).

Of course, lunch was right next to the carousel and the kids insisted on riding.  I used that as bribery to get them to eat some and then we headed out for our ride.

What an incredible view of the city behind Finn!

Bree loves "rides"!

Walking down the path I happened to glance over and just see this bald eagle hanging out in the tree.  It was really neat!

And the grizzly was nice enough to come up for a close-up for us.

Even the tiger was strutting his stuff that day.

But hands down my favorite part of the day was the hippopotamus.  We got there right as a special group was allowed back to the area and was given a whole cantaloupe to feed to the hippo.  (I'm guessing they were high-end donors as the zoo has a program where you can get some encounter experiences with a generous donation.)  The group got to spend a good 15 minutes with the hippo and the trainer learning about what he ate and what tricks they were working on.  And since they were just behind the bar one foot in front of us, we were able to hear it all as well.  The trainer showed the group how they are working on getting the hippo to back up into place so that they can do a blood draw when needed.  The skin of a hippo is so thick (about 3 inches) that the only place they can draw blood from is her tail.  So they have her back up to the railing here and use a screwdriver to apply some pressure to simulate a blood draw.  It was fascinating to watch them work on this behavior with her.  And after the group left it was only fifteen minutes before an actual scheduled feeding/show for the hippo.  So, I let the boys walk around the building looking at other things while I held our spot right at the front for the hippo show.  We spent a good 45 minutes standing right here watching the hippo and it was fascinating.  (except Bree lost interest and so she got to play on my iPhone, which is why I have no pictures of the hippo show).

Our last stop is always the ape house.  Bree enjoyed watching this gorilla.

Two days later it was Thanksgiving.  We had a quite, slow day at our house.  (see the boys still in jammies?)  We watched the parade in the morning while eating cinnamon rolls and then I cooked dinner that evening.  Finn has decided that Thanksgiving is boring and I don't entirely disagree.  I guess I need to find someway to spice it up next year. 

The day after Thanksgiving saw us decorating for Christmas.  The boys were so excited and loved helping.  Even Bree got into the spirit of it.  I'm glad they like hanging the ornaments because that is not my favorite task.  :)

On Saturday evening right before dinner I was cleaning up and was about to toss out Kai's "cursive book".  It had come home in his backpack and was pretty much empty.  I figured it was one of those in-class assignments he hadn't finished, but I knew they had already had their cursive test so I figured it wasn't a big deal.  Kai saw me moving it and casually mentioned that it was "due on Monday".  Umm....come again?  It turns out that the rest of the class had pretty much completed the book but that Kai was SOOOO far behind.  There were 72 pages in the book.  Kai had completed no more than 12.  In fact, he hadn't been allowed to take his cursive test because he wasn't done with the book.  And he was now at the point where it had to be done by Monday or he would begin losing recess.  I was angry that this was the first I was hearing of the situation.  His teacher had not sent any communication home and hadn't even sent the book home until Thanksgiving break.  So, in other words he had been assigned 60 pages of homework for the break and I had never been told.  Poor Kai.  (Yes, he is partly to blame for the whole mess, too, but the teacher's request was unreasonable in my opinion.)  Kai diligently began working on Saturday night.  And then he had to take a break when we had friends come over for dessert and some play time.  And then on Sunday after church Kai sat at the kitchen table and worked and worked and worked.  He was at the table from 1 pm to after 10pm doing cursive.  His hand hurt and he was tired.  He went to bed with just a few pages left.  The next morning he managed to spend a good half hour or so finishing it all up and then he was off to school.  I should have felt relieved but there was nothing but a pit in my stomach.  The teacher and I have exchanged emails and talked about the situation.  I think I handled it well and I hope we have a system in place to keep this from happening again.  Yikes!