First Weeks of November 2010

I never posted the photos of my favorite part of Halloween: the candy sorting! Even Elsie was old enough this year to sort her own candy and participate in the trading.

And I never posted our pumpkins-turned-jack-o-lanterns.

The artists.

Jonah's was REALLY cool. They all were, actually... especially Ana's since she did the WHOLE thing by herself. She won the church pumpkin carving contest for the kids' group.

We were blessed to have fantastic weather for the first few weeks of November... nice enough that we had time to do most of our outdoor projects before it got cold enough that we needed gloves.

Sometimes you just have to photograph Mr. Mouth because he is AWESOME!

The kdis had a couple days off of school for parent-teacher conferences, so we took a trip to a nearby town. The bridge was open to let a big ship pass through, so we enjoyed those massive Olympic Mountains for awhile.

We get some phenomenal fall colors up here in the Northwest, and it was fun to take a long walk along the bay to breathe in the mixture of fall and ocean. Cam and Ana got to use their rollerblades one last time for the year, too.

Elsie was most concerned with trying to catch caterpillars. There's one on the pinecone that you can't see... she is convinced that one of her captured caterpillars will someday become a butterfly. Sadly, they usually die the next day after she's put them in a jar.

Fun times in the autumn on the docks.

The major work for November was trying to get all the house projects done before Thanksgiving. The hallway was a BIG one, and Jonah helped me get my "wainscoting" up so I could paint, paint, paint. Here it is before the prime and paint. I'll get around to doing a "before-and-after" post soon... I promise!

Elsie has become MASTER of CRAFTS. she is constantly drawing, cutting, taping, gluing... and she's getting pretty good I think.... as long as she isn't drawing on the walls or window sills or floor or her body... which she does at least once a day. She's also getting pretty good at writing letters, so she'l make "cards" for Cam and Ana and ask me how to spell it and then try to write their names. She's so cute... she melts us with cuteness.

Okay. There you go. Onto the next blog post.... the POST OF CRAZY THANKSGIVINGNESS!