Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!! We had a plan this year-make sure the turkey isn't done an hour early! And we were successful! Things we didn't plan for-Owen waking up with pinkeye, and water coming into the basement... :) Pat got Owen to a clinic early after we realized what was going on and got himself and Paige flu shots while they were there. One thing done. The basement was a little trickier. We had set tables up downstairs to accommodate everyone and we were worried it would start to um...smell. It actually ended up being fine until later in the day and Pat took care of the problem pretty much himself (Thank You!!).
We had all the typical Thanksgiving foods and a lovely array of desserts, provided by our guests! All of the foods were ready in a timely manner and none were frozen! Success! Later in the evening we played Codenames and Apples to Apples.

Nothing is more serious than when Pat gets ready to make the mashed potatoes. We're still sticking with the slow cooker method! 

The food!

Tablescape!

The people!

The silly people!

Hugs before dessert

Aaaaaand a game!

Shadowing

Owen is working on a project for school where he researches an occupation and then shadows someone with that job. I'm not sure if he wants to be an accountant but he definitely wanted to shadow Pat:) Pat graciously went in on his day off so Owen could see what a couple hours in his day might be like. He got to check out Pat's "mini office" (as Owen called it!), see that he spent a lot of time on the computer and that Pat had quite a few visitors come by. All of them were excited and surprised to see a kid in the office!

Snow!

We had our first snowfall last week and the kids were very excited to play in it! Paige made a snow angel and Owen wanted to play football. Pat and Paige joined him later. I sat inside, sipping my tea and watched:) I'll get out there when there's a little more snow to play in!

Horse

You never know what you're going to see when you get to school... :)

Leaves!

The front yard had been raked by some passersby raising money for space camp but we tackled the backyard all together the next weekend! The kids actually worked pretty hard but I only took pictures of them doing nothing:)

Happy Anniversary!

Our 13th wedding anniversary fell on a Tuesday which isn't a great day for a date night so...we took the kids with us:) We had dinner at home and then took the kids to a new (to us) ice cream place I've been wanting to try. We have a lot of ice cream places around us so it felt a little silly to drive 20 minutes to get to one but it was soooo worth it! They had all sorts of awesome flavors and everyone was super happy with their choice. Owen got hot chocolate ice cream, I think Paige had french toast with syrup drizzled on top. I had honey, pistachio, baklava, and Pat had a scoop of taro and a scoop of what I got. We need to go back very soon!!

Sleepover!

After spending the day together at school, immediately followed by dance, dinner at our house and open gym Paige and her friend wanted to have a sleepover! It felt like we should say no because the girls had been together all day already but we didn't have a really good reason so the answer was yes! They spent a big chunk of time reading and playing school. I went to bed early that night because I wasn't feeling well but Paige told me they stayed up until midnight. The next morning I made them pancakes and they played in the leaves. I'm so glad Paige's first sleepover was such a success!

Checking out old yearbooks

Playing school

They wanted to stay in pajamas as long as they could!

Soup

A friend made this Chicken and Wild Rice Soup at a get together awhile back and I ended up loving it so much that Paige and I made it a few days later. You can see by Paige's face that she didn't think she would like it but...she did! Everyone did! Both kids ate two bowl-fulls!
Changes-I used white rice instead of wild because I didn't have time to wait an hour for wild rice to cook. I also used more chicken than it called for because I had extra to use up!

Spill

I really caught Paige cleaning up a spill like this awhile back. It was not very effective but still fun to watch!

Park!

The kids had the day off of school because of Election Day so we joined up with some friends and headed to one of our favorite parks! We haven't visited there in awhile because they were rebuilding the steps so this was the first time we got to see them. The steps used to be pretty narrow and a little rickety so this was a major improvement. Now, you can fit at least four kids across (see below). The kids did some adventuring of their own too...way off the paths!

And...go!

They started together...

No one could agree on how many steps there were.

Made it!

Off the path...although everything was covered in leaves so who can really say?

Paige took this picture of mushrooms growing out of a log

Some climbing on a fallen tree. They all made it! A little trickier coming down the hill though:)

Voters!

Election Day is long past at this point but this was the first year the kids got to accompany Pat to the polls!

Pie

What happens after Patterson's...? Pie! We don't stop at just apples slices and apple fritters. Pie. We were able to make the pies even faster than usual thanks to the handy dandy apple peeler/slicer/corer my parents bought! It also turned into a bigger group helping because everyone wanted to turn the handle! The pies were delicious as always and since it was so nice (remember the previous post? I mentioned it was nice!) we went for a walk! There was some football throwing that ended with the football in the lake but everyone agreed we needed a new football anyway:)

Patterson's!

This might be the first time ever that we didn't make it to Patterson's before Halloween! We had to reschedule a few times before we landed on November 4th and I'm so glad we did. It was a beautiful day! And there were no crowds! We took our time, ate our doughnuts and fritters outside at a picnic table instead of the car and had a chance to walk around. I hope every year is just like this!

Mm

Photobooth

Owen and I went to the mall to get him some new shoes and wanted to try the photobooth! I couldn't bring myself to spend $5 on it so we went inside and took our own photos:)

Reading Buddies

Paige's class has Kindergarten buddies they get to read to and her teacher sent out some pictures last week!

I got to be the mystery reader in Paige's class too! Those kids are a blast to read to! I chose the book Stuck by Oliver Jeffers which might be the same book I chose when I read to Owen's first grade class! The kids thought it was hilarious. I thought I might have extra time so I brought I am Amelia Earhart along too and had a chance to read that one as well. Paige helped by reading the dialogue!

4th Grade Concert

Owen had his last elementary school concert last week! *sniff* He opted not to have a speaking or dancing part (wouldn't want to miss any recess after all;) but he loved learning the music and being in the chorus. The show was called Off Their Rockers and featured 50s music. I would catch him singing and humming the songs at home and it was fun to sing with him!