November Fun

We had a lot of fun with friends in November.

For my friend's birthday we did an escape room & escaped in 53 minutes (7 minutes to spare).  It was a blast & we laughed SO hard at how TIRED we all were.  Nobody wanted to do math (because as parents, all we do every afternoon is help kids with math) & we had the hardest time putting our clues together.  I swear the poor guy that was watching us on the camera was laughing his head off at how bad we were.  But we DID escape & we had a blast together.

Cadence had another stake dance up in Birmingham at his old church building again.  We dropped Cadence off & found Trek's name still on the boy scout plaque in the hallway of the church.

And we ran into one of Trek's very best friends from high school there.  He's the stake young men's president (he was in charge of the dance) & they haven't seen each other in over 20 years.  We talked with him for a good hour catching up on life.  We are SO blessed to live in the same area Trek spent his high school years.  It's been really fun.

We met all sorts of people Trek knew at that dance.  It was crazy fun.

I had a new cultural experience here as well.  I got invited to play Loteria with my zumba friends.  Loteria is a Spanish bingo game played with bingo cards, dimes, & nickels.  It's A BLAST.  Seriously, I can't wait for the next one.  We had so much fun & it was nice getting to know my workout buddies in another setting.

And then of course we had a fun month of goofing off with the kids.  Cadence is finally done with Marching Band.  Wahoo.  Nah.  We loved marching band, but it was busy busy busy busy busy.  It's nice for her to have a small break right now.  She's playing oboe in wind symphony now which is only on Mondays after school which is nice.  She finally has her weekends back.

She's such a fun spirited teenager right now.  She's a goofball & has gone from being super shy to super outgoing.  Nothing embarrasses her.  She's a total dork & I love her for it.  I love my kids so much.

Canyon's Pow Wow

For Thanksgiving at the Kindergarten, they learned not only about the pilgrims, but about the Native Americans too.  They did their Thanksgiving feast on the Native American side of things.  It was a giant Kindergarten pow wow.  (And it was ADORABLE.)

Check out this video of him singing the adorable song he learned for the pow wow.

Canyon Singing

I got to make pigs in a blanket for their pow wow.  The kids here LOVE pigs in a blanket. . . but I make them wrong apparently.  I had several kids tell me mine were wrong.  ha ha ha.  I guess I'm supposed to do biscuit dough around little smokies (That's the "southern way").  Out West we do crescent rolls around hot dogs.  They were nervous to eat them, but ended up loving them.  I even had one little girl come up afterward & tell me those were the best pigs in a blanket she's ever had because they filled her up fast.  Cutie pies.

Canyon loved all the pow wow activities we did.  We made necklaces, friendship story bracelets, painted faces, made Indian head-dresses, & painted pictures.  And of course, we ended with a big feast with all 25 Kindergarten classes.  (You read that right . . . TWENTY FIVE classes.)

It was a such a fun day & I loved being able to help out (I did face painting), & I loved spending time with my sweet little Canyon.

Murder Mystery Party

Our church youth group did a super fun activity in November.  They did a big murder mystery dinner for about 50 youth ages 12-18.  Both Cadence & Lorien got to go & they had a blast.

The theme was an Edgar Allen Poe Gothic Theme which is kind of hilarious for a "church" activity, but the girls enjoyed stepping out of their comfort zone & turned themselves into something they're normally not.

Lo was a full on goth.  Purple lips, thick black eyeliner, black clothes, black fingernails, etc.  Cadence was a poor forensic anthropologist that liked to wear black, but wasn't a goth.  They both looked adorable.

The activity was so fun.  Everyone was pretty gothic.  I especially loved the gangsters & their fun outfits with suits & fedoras.  The teens here are great kids.  I just love them.

And of course Cadence died AGAIN.  She's ALWAYS the victim in these things.  She said within 5 minutes of the start of the game she knew she was a dead woman.  ha ha ha.  She had a blast.

Both girls had a great time.  It was a great activity for the youth.  Kudos to great leaders who put it all together for them.  They will always remember this activity.

Veteran's Day Program

Bladen also had an adorable little Veteran's Day musical program at his school.  He did a great job singing his little heart out.

A Time To Remember

Bladen's Part

You're A Grand Old Flag

Welcome Home

We Honor You

The Spirit of America

He's such a cutie pie.  I love you Bladen.  You make me so proud.

Fort Toulouse

I'm LOVING having all 6 kids in school.  It allows me to go with my kids on every field trip they have.  I've never been able to chaperone field trips because I've always had little kids with me, but now I'm going on field trips once a week.  It's a blast.

Bladen is a 4th grader this year & 4th graders always have the very best field trips because that's the big HISTORY year.  He's studying Alabama history & he's got some amazing field trips planned.  His first field trip was to the nature preserve & his 2nd was a trip to Fort Toulouse & Fort Jackson.  It was a BLAST.

I love seeing history come alive.  And I love seeing my own kids get excited about history.  This was the perfect place for that.  Fort Toulouse & Fort Jackson are 2 forts (one French, one British/American) that do reinactments of the time period they symbolize.  People are dressed up like people from the 1700's & 1800's & they show kids & adults what life was like in the forts during that time.  It was incredible.

Bladen enjoyed the street performers.  He even got to play with the monkey marionette.

There was SO much to see & SO many people to talk to.  I loved all the amazing costumes & props from those time periods.

Bladen's favorite part was the homemade root beer.  I had cream soda & let me tell you, it was delicious.

Bladen's favorite shop was the blacksmith shop.  I'm pretty sure we visited that blacksmith shop 3 or 4 times during the field trip.  He enjoyed watching them put the metal into the fire until it was red hot.  He was amazed as they pounded the metal into shapes.  It was really interesting.  Being a blacksmith was hard work.

Bladen's little friend Heidi loved the silhouette lady.  Back then, pictures were too expensive so people would have silhouettes made to hang on their walls.  This was done by a silhouette artist who would cut their silhouettes onto black paper & glue it to white paper to hang on a wall.  It was pretty impressive.  Quite the talent.

We learned how to spin wool into yarn too.

The French Fort had some really strong structures rather than tents.  Their uniforms were quite beautiful too.

Bladen also enjoyed grinding corn into cornmeal in the Indian Territory section.

It was a blast.  What a fun day with my cutie pie.  I love him so much.

Raingutter Regatta

Bladen is loving cub scouts.  In November he got to build a raingutter regatta boat to race for cub scouts with all of his friends.  He did a pretty good job too.  We were very proud of him.