Last bits of October-First Week of November

 I have almost zero pictures of my kids at gymnastics. I have lots of video, but I never tend to upload that. We did four lessons of gymnastics--every Thursday for the month of November. They LOVED it!

 Our next door neighbors were de-junking and gave SOOO many things to my kids before I came outside and realized what was happening. We do not need more things!!!! But these dress-up dresses are pretty perfect.

 Walking to school pick-up. His white hair flying in the wind. I love it.

 We went to an art hour at the library and it was ALL OUT amazing. They had well over a handful of different art projects you could choose from, all mediums you could imagine, and my kids could have stayed there all night. They had found their happy place. Russ...not so much. He's made library visits very, very tricky lately.

 Will had pick out his favorite story and then decorate a pumpkin like a character for a book report. We had just got a NONFICTION dinosaur book from the book fair that he was still in love with. Soooo we just decorated the pumpkin like a dinosaur world!

 On the way to that library art day Molly fell into automatic doors that were opening outwards (I also think it's weird they don't slide sideways like most automatic doors). It was instantly swelling all huge and two doctors---90 year olds, because this is Delray Beach, and even more so, it was Hagen Ranch Library---instantly stopped to check on her. One said "I'm a plastic surgeon--did it break skin????" and the other told me to watch her all night and wake her up. The plastic surgeon thought that was overboard, and told me to get ice. Haha. She never did keep the ice on, but it stopped swelling and has healed up quite nicely.

 One day after playgroup I stopped and got hamburgers and met up with Sterling at the Spanish River library where he was studying for a quick lunch date. We didn't make it on a date in October, we even went to the temple different times (Ok, that is our norm now, I can't remember the last time we made it to the temple together.) so I'm counting this. Also the Spanish River library is absolutely, stunningly gorgeous and it was fun to eat on their balcony and look out over the alligator lake.

 Ruth wanted curly hair for pictures. I didn't pay for pictures so I'm not sure how it looked, but it had already fallen out a LOT just in scootering to school. Oops. Shoulda used more hairspray I guess? She was very happy about it though--so I'm glad!

 More of my white-haired man because I love him soooooo much!

 The day after our ward trunk-or-treat our friends, well Will's friend Holden from last year in Pre-K that we have done a lot of play dates with, invited us to their annual Halloween party. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! We spent the morning at the ocean, came home for naps and Sterling got 4 hours of studying in, and then we headed out to this party. The food was AMAZING, the slide was so much fun, and it was really great to relax and chat with other parents. It helped that Sterling was there to keep an eye on any kid that jumped in the pool or played at the park (the pool was completely gated from the rest of the backyard and the kids couldn't get in by themselves, so it was really low stress) and that made it really great too. Husband for the win! When we were leaving we kept talking about how we need to do that more often.

 Primary program Sunday! Molly was too shy to say her part (not surprised) and Will was unfortunately sitting next to a very rambunctious kid which made it very hard for Will to not be rambunctious. I figured no big deal, until they started elbowing each other during the very. last. song. I went up and moved Will away from the other kid, and he sat perfectly straight the rest of the time. A member of the stake came down afterwards and said that Will definitely respected his mom and you could tell by how perfectly he acted after I went up. That or...fear?!?!? Oh man. Gotta love it.

 After our weekend of the trunk-or-treat and the Chmil's party, we hit sickness after sickness. Will had a double ear infection. Reacted to his antibiotic. Reacted to ibuprofen. Ended up at the ER twice (meantime we took Russ once for a breathing treatment for croup). And then again at the doctors office and he tested positive for strep. So then he got different antibiotics because of his reaction to the first. OH AND OF COURSE Sterling was in Albuquerque, New Mexico for a residency interview for almost all of that. Thanks, sweetheart. The day of Halloween was the day we got him strep tested. Molly and Will were both running fevers and laying on the couch acting miserable. Suffice to say, for the SECOND year in a row (last year Molly and Will were actively puking during Halloween night) they did not go trick-or-treating. Which is really too bad because our community all meets up in the middle and has a photo booth and hands out big snacks and plays music and has a fire truck and all sorts of things, and then the fire truck starts down the street and all the kids follow and everyone stays on their porch and hands it out to everyone all at once and it's really, really fun. Especially the people who give out fresh krispie cremes. ANYWAY, Ruthie's bff Huxley went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, so luckily they could take Ruthie along. The rest of us watched tv. And ate all our own candy bag, haha.

 On Halloween day Molly wasn't allowed to dress up in a costume, but could wear a Halloween shirt. I thought that was kind of lame, but it ended up not mattering since she came home early with a fever to hang out on the couch with Will.

I never took pics of Russ for the trunk-or-treat. This is him in his skeleton outfit. 

 The weather dropped this first week of November, so as the kids have slowly started to feel better, we've been going outside more and more. We have a big playground four houses down, but we also have this tiny little fenced in one right outside our front porch. It's nice to fence Russ in.

 I really like anywhere that will do all the work and take all the mess of a craft, and let my kids totally enjoy it---so that I don't have to do it at home. Love Home Depot Saturdays!

 We have three kids that live next door and last winter we played outside together frequently. The temps are lowering and we get to see friends around again!

 Sunday afternoons of mancala and chinese checkers. We also played Peek-a-doodle and Sleeping Queens--our very favorite.

 And Sunday afternoon walks. Pretty much this cool weather is my favorite.

 I was trying to bring the spirit of fall to this 85 degree world with stove top pot pourrie, starting our thankful tree for November, turkeys for FHE, and an apple PIE! You have no idea how pleased this pie made me. I'm kind of a crust snob. It probably makes or breaks a pie for me. Tried a new recipe and I LOVE it---so I was pretty happy overall.

 There was no school today for elections, so I took the kids to the pool in the morning. Kind of a bad mood since it sucked all my 8 month pregnancy energy out of me and left me kind of dead for the rest of the day---but it was such a beautiful morning and I am so glad we got another pool day in! The kids could have played for hours and hours--but Russ was ready for a nap at 10am (curse daylight savings) and pushing him to 11am was already a little rough. When another person showed up at the pool and Russ kept walking over and wanting to touch his laptop, I decided we'd better head. But the kids raced laps, jumped off the side, dived for toys, had all sorts of imaginary games, and pretty much had a great time outside. Win, win!

I wasn't sure I could pull off a turkey disguised as a trex...but thankfully the internet had some dinosaur ideas that I could morph to a trex pretty easily. Will loves to paint and he loves dinosaurs so he was all about this project. I will be happy when he can cut by himself. He can, but he is also a perfectionist, and he isn't perfect at cutting yet. Sigh.

It's been a rough, good, happy moments rolled in first of November. I'm hoping the healthy part sticks around and we can keep enjoying the absolutely gorgeous weather we have been having! Next week Sterling flies out for another interview, so wish me luck being a solo mom for four days (two interviews) and 8 months pregnant. We got this!   

????