November Catch-Up

Okay, here we are almost half-way through January and I'm finally getting back to blogging! Oh brother. :) On the first weekend in November, we had the AWANA Grand Prix at my parent's church. The evening before I'd been to a gathering of homeschool moms from that church and when talk of the Grand Prix came up, I lamented that I'd forgotten to sign up and get a car. I was told that it was definitely possible to still participate even at such late notice, as someone had done it last year.. Ahem. Well, my husband was none too pleased but went along with it since I'd mentioned it to Ben already and he was overjoyed with excitement. The next morning was chaos trying not to bug people at the church too much to find the extra cars, a drill, etc and to get it all done by the official deadline. We brought markers to decorate it, but didn't even have time to finish that job. Kevin is a former Boys Scouts Grand Prix champ and it was very frustrating for him to just throw the car together at the last second and not have all the tools he needed to do it right. :) In fact, the car ended up riding down the track better backwards! Ha! But Ben had a blast anyway and in one heat his car even came in second instead of last like all the other times. Haha! My husband said, "Don't ever do that again, Sara." I learned my lesson. I will not forget about the Grand Prix next year. :)

The kids with cousin Solomon.

In between rounds, sometimes Jake and I would wander around the church. It was funny to me to see him standing at the front windows in the lobby, arms resting on the ledge and looking out to the parking lot...because I can remember doing that when I was his age! :)

He was pretty intrigued with the stained glass windows in the gym since our church doesn't have any.  

The next day we celebrated the Marks family summer and fall birthdays at our house.

My mother-in-law brought a silly and fun game for us all to play. :)

Abby finally got her birthday cake. This year she picked an owl and I let her pick the colors too. She loved it. :)

 Kevin decided that our two flowering pear trees needed a pruning job before the winter snow. This was hard for me. I love our trees. We planted them the first year that we moved into this house and they've grown so much. But he was right - some of the branches were hanging so far out, it appears they could break off if we get a decent amount of snow this winter.

Ben was a great helper. He loves to shadow his daddy on any job.

He even got to cut up some of the branches into smaller pieces to fit in the yard waste container. He found out that it was easier to stand on one side. :)

Abby is continuing to love homeschooling. We set up a store for her to practice adding (and shopping etiquette) and we nabbed Kevin as a customer. :)

In mid-November, I had been planning a trip to Oregon. I needed to deliver some fresh tuna that my cousin and some of her friends had ordered. But at the last minute Abby got sick. I was planning to make a weekend of it, but ended up having to cut it short to one day, leaving Abby home with Kevin and taking the boys down with me (and I got my mom to come too at the last minute!). It was a lot of driving for one day, but it was nice to see my cousin and my Grandma again and the boys actually did a fabulous job during the ride.

The kids always love to help push Great-Grandma's wheelchair!

It's a good thing Grandma's room is at the end of the hallway, because we often take over the common area outside her room and the boys sometimes get a bit spread out. :)

We continue to visit our friend Mrs. Bird at a local retirement home. Her health took a turn for the worse in November and December and she was put on hospice care, with everyone thinking she was dying. One time when I went to visit, both her sisters were there and we basically held a vigil for awhile and no one thought Joyce would live through the night. However, the last several times we've visited she has improved greatly and is eating a bit again.

In the picture below, we visited her on Thanksgiving Day before we headed over to Kevin's brother's house. She had it in her mind to give the kids some of her things (just trinkety items). Abby got some items she's saving for her new room and we were also given all of Mrs. Bird's Thanksgiving decorations.

So, two days later when I decorated for the Gardner Thanksgiving at our house, it was very special too add Mrs. Bird's decorations to ours.

As we always do, we played many games following our meal. The favorite game has been Four On a Couch for several holidays now. It is a fun group game where two teams compete to get four of their team members on the couch. Everyone's name is written on a piece of paper and passed out. You then become the name on your paper, not your actual name. It gets quite crazy and hilarious at times, when the names start changing hands! For the first time, we decided Abby was old enough to play since she can read the names now (and we needed one more person to make the teams even!). We didn't expect her to do very well, but she ended up having to call out names and she got called more than anyone else...and then she made the WINNING call for her team! Everyone was so happy for her and she was so pleased to have won the game. It is fun to watch her grow up and be able to participate more and more in big kid and adult activities. She's such a sweetheart. :)

In the picture below, my mom played Uno with the kids while the rest of us adults played a more complicated card game in the kitchen. Jake loves Uno and surprisingly he's pretty good at it! He definitely needs some coaching each turn (i.e. "Jake do you have any 2's or yellows"?), but other than that he does great! He even seems to have a decent grasp on wilds and draw twos and cards like that. It's quite amazing. He's a smart 2-year-old!