I just read through the October post and got a little cortisol spike. November, by comparison, was much more mellow. There were cozy mornings in front of the fire place...
...or snuggled up with the smooshy pillows from Costco and the fall blanket I saw at Joann's, didn't buy, then went back 3 weeks later for because I kept wishing I had purchased it.
Speaking of purchases, did I mention that I'm glad we decided to be good Americans and buy a couch? I love the room we do all our living in, though it ironically would not be called the living room on a house listing. It is our kitchen/dining/family/gym/office/den. Or maybe even a ballroom, lit by an Annie Disco ball. Drew had a little too much egg nog for this party (he can't go to the store during the holidays without returning with a quart or two).
I like to take my pre-shift Friday naps in here as well while the kids watch hours of movies in the next room. The proximity helps me feel like slightly less of an irresponsible mother.
But November was not all laziness. Our yard has a lot of beautiful trees, which we love.
But it equates to a lot of leaves on the ground in the fall.
I borrowed the van Langen's leaf vacuum one day and spent a good 8 hours bagging leaves. It was a very long day. I didn't remember it taking so long last year, and then I remembered that I didn't actually help last year; Drew did it all by himself while I was sleeping. I think I sucked up some overwintering squash bugs throughout the course of the day. The smell of their guts is very distinctive, and I took savage pleasure in imagining them ripped from their cozy leaf beds and shredded to bits incapable of spawning their foul nymphs to drain my cucubrits next summer! Ahem. On a less violent note, I found this beautiful circle of ice on the top of the small pool of water that had collected inside a forgotten dress-up knight's helmet.
November was also spent wrapping up Activity Days and Cub Scouts activities before the Christmas rush and the new Children and Youth program begins. My amazing Activity Days leaders put together a recognition night for the girls and their families.
I appreciate other people's abilities to do cute things.
Our Sundays in November were full of rehearsals. We had ward choir songs to prepare (We sang John Rutter's Angels' Carol. It strained my piano abilities with its always rhythmic arpeggios). I sang in the Stake Choir and Vivien and Rafe participated in the Stake Children's choir that The McKenzie led (the Richardsons wanted to encourage more adults to sing in the stake choir, so they devised a place to bring kids during rehearsals). Here is Baby Brock with our cute Anna Bangerter. Also Rafe, wearing a hat in the chapel. "Control your young!"
Joel chose a bunch of music arranged by an old friend for the Stake Christmas Program this year. One of them called for tubular chimes. The band teacher that allowed us to borrow instruments for Savior of the World last year was unwilling to do so again (he said it had been too stressful, which it was, because he tends to fly by the seat of his pants and having to plan around us was too much to keep track of), and though I was sorely tempted to drive to Chicago to pick up a set someone was selling on eBay, we decided to go with synthesized T.chimes. My neighbor Grandpa Sam is a DJ and said if I ever needed to borrow an amp he could totally set me up, so I asked him if he had a small one we could borrow. He said sure. Below is the smallest amp he has (consisting of the box on the ground and the two speakers flanking it). I was expecting something about the size of a microwave. We ended up borrowing one from the person who lent us the synth in the first place.
After ward choir and stake choir we would often have a little rehearsal for the group of ladies I sang with at a leadership training meeting with Elder Gong a few months back to practice the beautiful Silent Night arrangement I love. It was a bit too much singen, singen, singen for our family to handle this year. But at least I didn't have to work so much!
I got to take a whole weekend off in November, and also tried out a weekend of just working Friday. It was glorious! This Steve Jobs quote is hanging in the bathroom at work and makes me question my life every time I see it.
Especially since I am having such a hoot at orchestra, meeting all the musicians and playing the good stuff.
I got to go struggle through Shoshtakovich quartets one Saturday morning for...fun. I do love Shostakovich very much, but never on a first hearing/seeing. For any of his stuff. The violist had this cool kimono quilt at his house. I think his wife was Japanese, but I can't remember for sure.
What other November things? Drew and I went and saw the Blue Man Group at Popejoy one night with Alex and Ari. We went out for Mediterranean food at Mazaya Cafe and had to wait a worryingly long time for our food, but we made it to our seats on time. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and had fun on the drive home looking up the history of the show and the audition requirements and learned that there's a Blue Man Group drumming school for the actors. There's always like 30 of them at a time, doing shows all over the world.There was a guy from our stake in the program!
Bo was in Korea visiting family for most of November and she asked each of her friends to come over on a different day to play with Sweetie Belle in the afternoon so she wouldn't be too lonely.
She was always excited to see us...
...but mostly just wanted to play keep away. I don't have the stamina to play keep away with a dog. I'm afraid I wasn't much fun.
But she was always a little sad when we left.
We might as well do a kid update, because this post has no obvious rhyme or reason. Here is Merrick loving cucumbers. He will eat a whole cucumber in one sitting if given the chance.
Here is Merrick with a scratch all down his side, courtesy of Annie.
Here is Merrick cutting new colored pencils into bits instead of drawing with them.
Here is a Merrick who is big enough now to hang onto the front of the shopping cart.
And a sample of him saying, "I cyyyyan't."
He's a sweet snuggler.
Annie has been stealing my phone a lot lately to take pictures.
Here she is being adventurous at lunch time with a rainbow veggie pita.
She loves her Rapunzel dress and wears it everywhere we go, even to the post office when I forget to get my mail for so long that they take it back to the post office and put me on the naughty list so I have to stand in line forever and endure a guilt trip before they'll hand me my mail. It's never a problem except at Christmas-time when we get all the packages.
She cries pretty much every time we go to a store that isn't Costco because I let MERRICK ride in the baby seat instead of her. But she can usually get over it before we check out.
Bein' a rabbit.
Still rocking the rat's nest hair after every sleep and every car ride.
She's doing awesome at preschool. Her teacher told me that she has a special gift for finding and understanding patterns. I like to hear her little rhymes when she comes home.
Here is Rafe wearing his outfit of choice--Dad's old t-shirt. He'll change out of his clothes the minute he gets home and slip into his play tunic.
We had his parent teacher conference. Mrs. Lovato loves to tease him ("Please don't do your homework Rafe so I don't have to give you treasure box!"). Here is Rafe pointing to his car that shows what reading level he is on. To get to the next level they have to get 100% on a reading test. His reading has really taken off the last couple months.
And he's been so diligent with his Spanish homework. If he doesn't know the Spanish words during class, he uses the English ones. Here he is looking forward to our Cactus Christmas Chrip in Erasonu.
Here he is running up and down the ditch outside the school.
A funny exchange:
Me: MerrrrrrrRafie, get the cups.
Rafe: My name's not Merrafie!
Me: Sure, it's your mermaid name.
Drew: Yeah, aren't you a merman?
Rafe: No.
Me: "Who could the lucky merman be?"
Rafe: ...Merrick
We all chuckle.
Rafe: Was that actually a good joke?
Me: Yes.
Rafe: Thanks!
When we pull into the garage, Rafe is usually the first one out. If he is whining or being obnoxious I will sometimes try to pin him against the wall with my door as he goes by (because I am super mature and kind). I tried one day and missed, so he turned around at the front of the car and chanted, "MISSED ME! MISSED ME! NOW YOU GOTTA..." then his eyes got big, I smiled deviously, he covered his mouth, then he ran inside as fast as he could.
We were playing Yahtze one night for fun. Rafe stubbornly resisted all help or advice the whole game and had made some very poor strategic choices coming into the last round. He was the very last person to roll...and he rolled a Yahtze and won. We grudgingly congratulated him.
He is our earliest riser. One lazy morning when there wasn't school and he was up before anyone else, I heard him sneak back into the bedroom and whisper to Merrick, "Merrick, do you want to come play trains with me?" They are starting to have fun playing together now that Merrick is more person than baby.
We also had a parent teacher conference for Vivien. The thing I hear most often about school from Vivien is what's happening on the behavior chart. Ms. Descalzo said she always feels bad for Vivien because she is very good in class, but when there are many students behaving poorly then the whole class has to move down the chart. Vivien takes it personally. This is one drawback of the bilingual program for Vivien--there are a lot of unruly kids in her grade so the teachers always have to spend a lot of class time managing them, and she will have this same class until 5th grade. If she didn't love to read so much I'd be more worried about her education. Her favorite books to read right now are a series on the Roman gods that she checks out from the school library.
Here she is displaying a sample biography project while Ms. Descalzo shows me the Spanish science program they use on the laptops every child has in class.
I can't remember why she is wearing an apron, but she looks cute in it.
And here she is learning to crochet.
The tooth next to her extra tooth finally decided to come out. It was at a funny angle for a little while there and would stick out when she smiled.
The extra tooth crowd has moved on!
I know I'm biased, but I think she is an especially beautiful girl.
Some stories...
Vivi: When is Rafe's turkey project due?
Me: November 22nd.
-minutes pass-
Vivi: I calculated and it's a week from Friday.
Me: You looked it up?
Vivi: Yup, on my brain. My brain has a calculator.
In the car on the way home one day I was trying (once again) to help Vivien understand why "finders keepers" is not a good rule to live by, guiding her through some hypothetical scenarios where she was the one who had lost something, but she was having none of it. She crushed every single one I tried to use for like 5 minutes straight. "What if you dropped a toy at school and someone picked it up and decided it was theirs and took it home?" "I don't drop things at school." Etc. There was a lot of eye rolling going on in the driver's seat on that car ride.
Here are the kids watching the new Book of Mormon videos.
Here is our neighbor's cat that keeps escaping their house and wants to be part of our world.
Here is some of that funny Albuquerque sun-rain.
It makes impressive rainbows.
Sometimes when I turn around and all of my wonderful, unique children are standing right there I have to take a picture because I love them so much and they are so much fun.
Thanksgiving is a good November thing to write about! I had to work Thanksgiving night, so I knew I was going to need to try to squeeze a nap in somewhere. I made rolls the night before to make the day less busy. It was VERY DIFFICULT not to eat them right away.
We woke up Thanksgiving morning to a whole bunch of snow.
Drew dug out the snow clothes and the kids had a blast while I tried to take a nap.
It was a record-breaking snowfall for Thanksgiving day...
...and the best part of snow in Albuquerque is that it's all gone within 3 days, so you get to enjoy it but not become weary of it.
Drew's turkey turned out beautifully, of course.
He boiled the neck meat and was setting it aside to add to his gravy, but he left the plate on the counter while he got something else ready and Merrick ate most of it while his back was turned.
We ate dinner with the Richardson, Morgan and Adams families. We had a slight mishap with the sweet potatoes, but the over-broiled marshmallows were easily scraped off and reapplied.
The little'uns ate at the coffee table, but mostly played.
The not-as-little'uns picked at their food in the breakfast nook.
The almost-big'uns sat at the counter, but I don't have one of those so I didn't take a picture. And the big'uns sat at the dining table.
After dinner we had our Thanksgiving program, consisting of old hymns and Thanksgiving songs and readings from journal entries of pilgrims who lived through the first Thanksgiving. After that we worked on the dishes and divvied up leftovers, and then it was time for me to go to work.
Lastly, here are the results of Drew's no-shave November. Trimmed on the left, shaggy on the right.
No comments:
Post a Comment