The Rest of November

Cute Gwen getting ready to head out to dance class. She LOVES dancing.


My little Turkey!


Art Class here again! We continued to talk about color. We learned about tertiary colors this week, also warm and cool colors. We talked about Henri Matisse who was known as "the king of color" and tried to imitate some of his cut paper art.


Beautiful weather, and a big pile of leaves! Doesn't get any better than this!!


Went shopping for and delivered our Christmas shoeboxes! Such a fun tradition we are beginning. It's still a struggle for the 2 youngest to go to the store and pick out all sorts of fun things that are not for them, but I think it's getting better. :)


Painted another business! I'm improving, but I still get frustrated with my lack of skills. Overall, this was a great painting day.


Thanksgiving!!! I can't believe I didn't take more pictures! Here's Grandma and Benson, and then one of some of the "men folk" chatting about all sorts of important things. We had a lovely and relaxed day eating an almost entirely vegan Thanksgiving. Believe me, it was delicious!! Even so, I did buy a tiny bit of turkey to cook at home the next day. ;) We missed Ian and Makenna and co, but enjoyed the company of all the rest of the Garner clan. The kids and some adults went to a park and played, while I stayed back with Benson and worked on Lindy's stocking. Yes, she's nearing three, and still doesn't have a stocking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. :)


The next day, the guys all worked on chopping down some big trees in the back of the Garner's property. Richie took the 3 oldest kids over so it was just Benson and I at home for the majority of the day. After dealing with 4 kids all day, dealing with only 1 is mostly a breeze. :) Benson "helped" me get the house all decorated for Christmas. When the kids got home they said, "FINALLY! You finally got our Christmas tree up!" (Mind you, it was November 25th). We turned on the Harry Connick Jr. and I let them have full reign over decorating the tree and they were SO excited to do it. I am slowly letting go of the idea of a "pretty" Christmas tree, and just being happy that it is up and that the kids feel a part of the process and love it. They very carefully placed every single ornament and have been "ooohing" and "ahhhing" ever since. It's magical! (And bottom heavy.) Although I love having them be a part of the process, I was grateful for the quietness I had earlier that day to set out the nativity, slowly and with purpose. It's one of those things that strikes me to the core every year.


School stuff. Saw this idea on pinterest. It's simply letting them put rubber bands around a tin can. She worked so hard on this can!! :) Also pictured: I whipped out the magic sight words idea again. (Always a hit) You just write their sight words in white crayon and they water color over them. Ta-Da!


Gwen had her first performance of the school year at the Festival of Trees. It was an insanely busy day, complete with a mad dash to the area where we were supposed to drop her off and find they have already gone backstage, so a sweet volunteer takes her down and we follow behind, finding Gwen's belongings dropped on the floor along the way (including her dance shoe. Oy!) She did great. She just lights that stage up! Then we took our time wandering around admiring all the amazing trees. They kids each took a picture with their favorite one. I told them they could get one treat/kid's activity, and it took all my persuasive powers to convince them not to buy a nasty bag of cotton candy, or pay a dollar to make a snowman out of a toilet paper tube and some paper. They "settled" for a cinnamon roll and we called it good. :)