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. :)

First half of November

There really hasn't been anything truly out of the ordinary happening the past 2 weeks. Just trying our best to survive over here. :) Life is so, so good. I'm just completely exhausted by the end of every day! When does that let up? Ever?

2 Saturdays in a row, I got to go out and do some window painting in this beautiful weather we've been having! Even though it's hard work, I'll admit it's nice for Richie and I to switch roles for a day or two. He gets to be at home with the kids all day, and I get to be Rachel, while still contributing financially. Win! More pictures on the window painting blog.


Another homeschool day hosted here. We were talking about what is now France and how the king of the Franks, Clovis, united all the tribes there to become one. As part of the "festivities" we dressed all the kids up like Clovis. Miles's face cracks me up!!


Miles getting Benson to laugh :)


Here's a few of Lindy and Benson. Lindy has really toned down her aggressiveness, thank goodness. Her only problem with Benson is that she loves him SO much. Way too much sometimes. She calls him "Bay Ben-Ben" (Baby Benson), and is always wanting to hold him. She only lasts for about 45 seconds, and then she is done. She used to just push him off her lap when she had reached a limit and that was scary! She's now learned to tell us when she's done. :) When it gets to be nap time, she lays down in our bed and always wants to cuddle him for a bit. Whenever I lay him down next to her, she sighs and says, "Oh..He My Beh-Fweh" (Oh, he's my best friend). Melts my heart. I hope these two develop a really strong friendship.


Miles took an art class with some homeschool friends at the community center last month. However, we were not all that impressed with the program. So this friend and I decided to do our own art class. We switch off, every other Thursday for 2 hours. It's really low key, no major curriculum or anything. We just want our kids to love art and have an instructive and fun time with each other. My first turn was last week and we are starting with the basics. We talked about Color and used Picasso's blue period as a jumping off point. We painted with different blues, made a giant color wheel, and each kid made an art portfolio out of poster board. I'm so glad I have my amazing artist/teacher mother as a resource here! If my kids live too far away to attend her art class, then I'm just going to try my best to copy what she does. :)


And a few more pictures of Benson just because.:) He had his 2 month check up recently and is tipping the scales at 14.9 pounds and 25 inches. Wowza! That means he has gained 5 pounds and 4 inches since he was born only 2 months ago! He's in the 98% for weight and height. The first 6 weeks or so after Benson was born were hard. He was not a natural sleeper, and trying to stay on top of everything was defeating. It's still an adjustment and it's still hard, but it's getting so much better. He is turning into a great sleeper and that makes all the difference in the world!! He used to be whining if he was awake. You had to constantly be working with him (or at least that's how it felt). Now he's turned into this super content (most of the time), and extra smiley baby. He has learned to fall asleep by himself, he loves to be swaddled up tight for sleeping, but other than that, he loves to be by himself with plenty of space. :) Sometimes I'm holding him and he'll get fussy and as soon as I lay him on a blanket by himself, he's as happy as can be! Crazy. He LOVES those black and white baby pictures books. His little body can't even contain all his excitement when I start showing him those pictures! He's "talking" to us all the time now, he's ridiculously ticklish, and is the king of blow outs. The king! Man, I love this kid so much.

Last week of October

Gwen completed all of the Bob books! Since Miles got a date with Mom when he finished, she wanted a date too. :) We went to Jamba Juice to get smoothies and then to Deseret Book to pick out a birthday present for Grandpa Garner. I love the one-on-one time with my kids! I hope by putting in time to developing our relationships now, that they will still want to be friends when they are teenagers and beyond.


My cute Benson Bear, feeling all festive for Halloween. :)


Homeschool day at the Kishpaughs. Got the school part done and then we partied!


Moon dust. (flour and baby oil) This was a win! I made them play with it outside, because I knew it was bound to be a mess. They were outside for over an hour with this stuff! Cha-ching!


Getting ready for the ward trunk-or-treat. (I'm just now noticing the kid's poses. All on their own. ha!) The kids were beyond excited! The only downside to the night was that it rained. So all the kids got soaked as they collected candy and our trunk-decor was sub par, due to inclement weather. Events like this are always fun, but stressful to me. I'm grateful when we get home and it can be quiet again.:)


Jeffrey and his girlfriend came over Saturday night to carve pumpkins with us. They were all exceptionally grossed out by the pumpkin guts. Miles carved his all by himself without any stencil! We splurged and bought some donuts, then after the kids went to bed we watched "Rear Window". Classic.


Halloween Night. The big event. Usually I feel more magic on this particular day, but I ended up just being tired and stressed. Boo. We snapped a couple obligatory photos, which Benson, our cowardly lion, was not a fan of. Then I sent the kids on their way with Dad, left the candy on the porch, and hunkered down with Benson. The kids came home on cloud nine. The next morning they took such delight in organizing their candy, trading it, deciding which pieces to donate, and eating some. I forget how exciting that is. Your candy becomes like currency!



Goodbye wonderful October. Hello awesome November! (one more post after this one, fyi)