Remember back in 2012 when I posted endless pictures of this little guy sleeping? He's still just as adorably sweet while he sleeps. I can't believe he's going to be 4 in a few weeks!
Grocery shopping + living in an apartment = wagon tetris. Seriously, this wagon is one of the best purchases I made for our family in the past year or two. So useful!
Levi had a big social studies project. He worked hard to create a slideshow on the computer and then we spend a late night putting this awesome diorama together. He designed it and did a fabulous job. I loved seeing his eyes light up with each new addition to it. He repeatedly said, "This is so awesome! Thanks for helping me Mom." And then when we were done he said, "I don't know which part is my favourite. The house is awesome. The people are so awesome. The waterfall...Its all so awesome."
A friend asked me to try my hand at this scripture in hand lettering for her. I sent her a picture of this rough draft and she made me feel really good. I love doing stuff like this for people I love!
We are so blessed to have some great families who live in our building with us that have kids the same ages as our kids. On Friday, Nov. 4 one of them invited a couple of us to join her and her kids at the bowling alley since the kids were out of school for the day. I took my 5 youngest and we created some great memories as we built our friendships.
We bowled one game and then paused for lunch before starting a second game. We had at least 3 kids in tears by the 5th frame of the second game for various reasons and we all decided that one game is good enough in the future.
But we all left as friends, so alls well that ends well!
Abraham did such a great job bowling by himself. This is the first time he didn't use one of those metal guide things, he just chucked the ball down as hard as he could, using a 7 pound ball most of the time. I'm pretty sure he took 2nd place on his lane both games. He's growing up so much!
Meanwhile, since the kids had the day off school, the youth planned a trip to Tokyo to go to the Temple! These are all our youth that went (which I think is all of them). We are so blessed to have such great kids surrounding our kids!
I know there are a lot of young men for such a small ward, but this time last year there were 4, I think. We had 6 move in this summer and one brand new 12 year old join their ranks. Jonas will be joining them in March!
Bryant had a great time. They met at the bus at 3:30 am on Friday, rode on the bus down for 10 hours with bathroom breaks every 2 hours. They made one of those stops a lunch stop as well. He bought lunch at a restaurant that was like a vending machine. He had to put his money in, made his selection and it gave him a ticket with a Japanese number and then he took the ticket to a window where someone took it and finally it was brought out to him.
I wanted to have Bryant record his thoughts about this trip, but it has been impossible to get us to sit down at the computer together. So this is all the detail I have of this trip. But some good pictures!
Eliza and her best buddy and next door neighbour built this lovely fort in our living room. They have so much fun together.
Third grade here is going to be the death of me, I think. Eliza was given a project assignment that was all about her cultural heritage. But specifically a country other than the United States. She had to interview a family member, create a poster, do a bunch of research, prepare a food item from the country of her heritage and wear a costume from the culture... this all translates to a LOT of work for mom! Even though we have a plethora of ancestry from England, we found a line from Germany pretty far back that got her excited, so she did her project on Germany.
I made her this lovely little dirndl and thank goodness she likes it and has worn it several times. I only brought my nice fabric with me so I used up a ton of the good stuff on this outfit! She looks super cute, I have to admit. We also made a delicious German Apple Cake that will become a tradition in our family since everyone loved it so much.
For FHE in November Levi was assigned as the activity. He is such a creative soul. He just thinks outside of the box! His activity one Monday night was a Lego building contest. He told each person what to build and they had to make it happen, then he would judge who had done the best. He had a hard time deciding because so many did such a good job.
I was assigned to build a Temple. I really went for it with the symbolism of the sun in the architecture. The funniest thing to me about this activity was that Abe was convinced that I don't know how to play with Legos...
Eliza made a TV.
Levi was helping Bolton build his assignment, but I can't remember what it was...
Jonas built a really cool car.
And, of course, the winner was Dad with his spectacular airplane.
That sums of the random moments of our November.
