Birthday Season...and other things going on in November
November - everything up until Thanksgiving (except for the party that I already blogged last time)
Veteran's day at school
Kaitlyn represented the Navy in the program.
(I thought that was neat since she has 2 great-grandfathers that served in the Navy. It gave me a chance to tell her about some of her family.)
Saturday (14th), after one party (the yearly friend party), we decided to have a family party for the fall birthdays. (Seth's pretty much got all of his happy birthdays, but I made sure it wasn't too girly so he felt included.)
We had sandwiches and potato soup and chips and drinks.
When we sang happy birthday, we had cupcakes and ice cream.
(We had unconventional candle rules this year. See snapshots from the video I took below.)
Keeping in with Seth's family party theme, we pinned the mustaches on the man...and so the girls would enjoy it, we pinned sparkly lips on the girl.
I think Kaitlyn won the mustache and Natalie won the lips.
Memere brought her presents to the girls. Carolyn's were all so fitting!
Alee had to put on a dramatic flair and "faint" when she got a Doc McStuffins playset. Girls...
And because her cousin was the present-passer-outer, Alee thought all the presents came from her at first.
Piñata time!
We made him go last!
One of the girls asked me if she could have a candle on her cupcake like Carolyn and Alee. I said yes, and being fair, I then said yes to everyone else. (Seth didn't ask and I checked to make sure he was big enough to handle not getting his own personal candle to blow out.) :)
11 candles on 1 cupcake!
She picked out the number 6 candle herself.
(The twins and Edwards cousins with their personal candles.)
(Venus cousin with her personal candle. She was disappointed that her mom would not let her hold her cupcake with fire on top while she sat on the couch.)
Except for the twins, moms held candles for other kids. And they all happily blew out their candles at the end of the song. Except for Alee, who had to be told twice to blow hers out.
A favorite thing of the month was when I realized the kids were making (or giving away things that belonged to them) to each other for presents.
Alee made works of art (on her own!)
This was before I cut off access to the craft table for it never being cleaned.
(Alee would prefer to being called Alice these days. Her name is based on my great grandma's nickname (Alee was short for Azalee) and she says she is ok with Azalee too, but Alice is her favorite.)
Kaitlyn gave Alee the purple care bear she's always wanted of hers.
Carolyn gave Alee her Robe (even stitching the little tear by herself where it had been hung up so many times and then washing it and wrapping it).
Kaitlyn gave Carolyn random trinkets (bracelet, etc). Alee gave her two sparkly "jewels" from her box of things.
Chloe (cousin) gave Alee a Doc McStuffins toy she had received earlier this year that she knew Alee would love because Doc McStuffins is Alee's favorite character.
I love all the little gifts from the heart several of the girls gave this year.
One last round of playing with party decorations, then we took them down!
Just in time for the next birthday!
My brother came over to have dinner and cake with us on his birthday. We did Calculus for his birthday. (Fun, right? He had an exam the next day. Turns out that college doesn't care if you have to use your entire birthday studying for a calculus final.)
Carolyn spent the weekend after her birthday with my parents.
These collages are some my mom sent me from the weekend. My mom takes even more pictures than I do.
While she was gone, Rob spent his Saturday spraying bleach under the house.
We had a leak this month (that's been going on for some time, says the plumber, but we didn't realize until we smelled mold/mildew in one cabinet). The leak has been fixed, but with the plumber's advice, we put a box fan under the house and Rob sprayed 2 rounds of chlorine bleach everywhere possible to kill the mold.
For days our house kind of smelled like an indoor swimming pool, but it's slowly going away. Better than mold or mildew! Today it just smells like I cleaned all the bathrooms. (I like that fresh bleached bathrooms smell...just not the indoor pool smell.) He may have to spray again under the house after it's all dried out. We will see.
I've got 2 cabinets emptied since mold started showing up on the floor of the (originally smelly) cabinet. (It seems in all 3 houses we've owned - brand new, very old, and in the middle - the main problems we've had have always been related to water or appliances that use water. Must be our curse.) haha
Oh! my projects are done! (Ok, the fall projects that I mentioned in a previous post. I still have Christmas projects to do, but that's different.)
The first was Carolyn's party (it got it's own post).
The other two were Alee's scrapbook - I did her first year of life -
...and family history charts/collages for my mother-in-law as a Christmas project together with her.
I couldn't post about them until all of her family had received them in the mail so I wouldn't spoil the surprise, but I wanted to show them now that they have all seen them because I loved how they turned out (and so did the family).
(Here are two of them)
Eventually I'd like to do these for all sides of the family and put them in a book for my kids to have so they will have a fun way to look at all the branches of their family.
Looking forward to Thanksgiving tomorrow.
I'm thankful for 3 days off of school (it was only 2 when I was little).
I'm thankful someone else is doing the cooking this year so I can rest.
I'm thankful for the nap Alee is taking right now so she can be functional again!
I'm thankful for
my family,
the gospel of Jesus Christ,
my home,
our 2 working vehicles
(even if I occasional hurt myself on the broken van door handle - I'm thankful it hasn't fallen off yet!),
for little trials and surprises that keep life interesting and help me grow,
for my talents,
for my weaknesses,
for opportunities to serve at church, school, and home,
for every day.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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