Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We have much to be thankful for. 

Our family is happy and healthy. Truthfully all I need to be happy is chocolate, Jesus, and zumba.

Gaming

On Thursdays we have been playing board games as a family. Sometimes Matthew does not participate but we really try to get him to join us. Jenna made the comment that she prefers playing with adults since her two younger siblings can get a little crazy when we play games. I hear ya!

Jenna will be entering the spelling bee December 15. She is a good speller so I'm hoping she can win! She is playing saxophone (just like me) and I went to the districts for spelling so hopefully she can too. Mini me. That's what it's all about!

Panda our cat is on 6 medications (including two different eye drops). He has a hematoma, an ear infection, and his eye has an ulcer that is so bad it may need to be removed. He is old enough that he might not survive the surgery either. We are hoping he pulls through this. Erik is the cat whisperer and can get him to take any medication.

 On top of this we only have one of the three hamsters left. I guess dwarf hamsters don't live long and two have died already. We have had funeral services for them and they are buried in our backyard. Jenna seems to be okay understanding that they don't live too long.

Panda

Matthew loves magnet tiles. His speech therapist brings them every week and he just endures the lesson because he knows his reward is playing with magnet tiles. He is such a builder! I just had to snap a picture of him playing with them.

Matthew and his magnet tiles

Since I'm the girl scout leader for two troops (and a little crazy) I took Jenna's 5th grade troop on an overnight to cosi. Surprisingly I got a lot of sleep. This was a fantastic sleepover. The girls got to roam around cosi and we were able to visit the planetarium. I loved it! I think they did too but those are the perks of being a leader - I got to hang around cosi ;)

December is a very exciting month for us! December 13th we are having the Christmas program at church. All three kids will be singing and Sarah will be singing a solo. We will have to get a video!

December 19 the Minnesota and California Coopers will be coming to visit us. We can't wait for their visit! December 20th Sarah will be getting baptized. Her godparents: Joel and Amanda should both be there. December 20th we are seeing Star Wars. That will be a pretty awesome day!  Then Christmas is right around the corner. It's coming soon.

In other news:

1. Our book club just finished Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson. This book takes place several hundred years after the mistborn trilogy. Brandon left us with a cliffhanger at the end of this book. Now I'm reading Mistborn again. It's such a great book.
2. I'm almost done with Heartless the fourth book in the Parasol Protectorate. Now I need to find something else to read. 
3. We had Thanksgiving with Erik's parents on Monday and my family on Thursday. I love the holiday eating season. So much good food and seeing family. Now if radio stations would play Christmas music every third song instead of every song this time of year would be perfect!
4. This session teaching 5 classes has not been as difficult as I thought it would be. Creating that Excel macro to help me grade has shaved off some time. I might keep this up! 
5. Now that it has been a little colder, Erik is making fires in our hearth every day. I love it! I sit by the fire and drink my hot chocolate and read a book. Truly that is heaven! Today Erik carried so much wood that he hurt his back. Poor guy! 

Halloween 2015

Fall musings

Every day is a gift, that's why they call it the present. The previous sentence requires an "lol" afterward but I was reading about how only 35+ people write lol anymore. I guess the younger crowd uses emojis. Well I'm in the 35+ crowd so LOL!

At times I feel that life is flashing by my eyes so quickly I do need to stop and remember every day is a gift. The kids are growing so quickly. Jenna is a rock star on her saxophone. I KNOW I was not as good as she is in 5th grade. Of course she practices quite a bit. I worked hard to be first chair but I think it will come easily to her. 

The reckless abandon of childhood

play that funky music Jenna

 Matthew's favorite day of the week is Friday since he sees Mrs. Stevens. She plays a guitar and sings songs with the kids like spiderman and scooby doo. These are cool theme songs that even I know so I can sing with him. He loves her!

Mrs. Stevens at Halloween. Matthew is the green dinosaur

 For Halloween Jenna wanted to be a jellyfish. I had to use all my creative abilities to come up with a jellyfish costume. I bought a giant sombrero at Target. Then taped bubble wrap to it. The effect was somewhat jellyfish like. She was happy so I guess that is all that matters. Matthew was a dinosaur and Sarah was Hermione. She was wearing a plain witch costume but she insisted that she was Hermione. Since she finished the first Harry Potter book and had a party with her friends (watching the movie and drinking butterbeer), she has become a big fan as well. Now when we go to Harry Potter world next year she can  join us!

Jellyfish, dinosaur, witch

 I walked around with Sarah and Matthew for Halloween and Jenna walked with her gang of 5th grade girls. They got a lot of candy. Pounds and pounds of candy. Then the three girls stayed up until 6am!!! She was so tired the next day her eyes were red. I said no sleepovers for a month. GAH!

The trick or treating game

 Jen and I had our second craft show. This one was indoors but we still didn't sell much. We have one more craft show. Depending on how we do we might pack it in. Hopefully Red Barrel Crafts won't be a one hit wonder. Or maybe a no-hit wonder?

Our booth

 On Sunday our small group went to Faith Mission to serve. We brought 11 lasagnas and 3 giant pans of spaghetti and meatballs. Three bags of salad, two huge bags of rolls, over 100 cans of pop and tons and tons of cookies and brownies. We only had one lasagna left over and some cookies and a few rolls. Everything was eaten! These guys must be hungry. I can't wait until the kids are old enough to serve as well.

Faith Mission

 At the craft show I spent $30 on a sign for my front door. It is a buckeye wreath (maybe I should have taken a closer picture). I made $40 and spent $30. Not a good ratio!

The sign on our front door

In other news:
1. Our book club is reading Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson. I love anything he writes. It is witty, great dialogue, interesting magic, fast paced, and generally slave-hero storylines. I'm a big fan.
2. I've also read the first three books of the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. This is teeny bopper fiction but it is a fun and mindless read. I'm now on the 4th book.
3. I'm also on the 4th book of the Soulless series by Gail Carriger. These are also just plain fun reads.
4. Our book club recently finished Dragonspell by Donita Paul. This book is written by a Christian author and was a fun read even if it was more of a juvenile book. I like that our book club branches out to different kinds of fiction (well, I guess it's all fantasy!).
5. My 5 classes are going more smoothly than I thought they would. I wrote a little Excel macro to help me with grading too. It's been going well!
6. Every day I eat cereal for breakfast (usually Life cereal) and I'm hungry by 10:30 every day! The past two days I ate 2 deviled eggs for breakfast and wasn't even hungry for lunch. Wow! What a difference protein makes!