#thankful in November

November was nice to us, and we were able to get outside and watch the season slowly turn from fall to winter temperatures.  There were a handful of days that hit 70 degrees, and so we made sure to spend some great time outdoors.  Here are the girls below on a walk near our downtown.  Each of my daughters is wearing her favorite dress (that they would wear every day if they could) and each one is posing for the picture in a way that represents their personality so perfectly!  Lucy, with maturity and class, Violet with feisty silliness and Emma with sweetness.  Notice the patch of wildflowers we found on the hill near Emma's feet that was a welcome sight for me as I have been worried about my bees with the warm temperatures, but nothing in bloom for them to eat.

Charlie has found a new way to be close to us when we are in the house - in the top, left hand picture below he is at our kitchen window ledge, which is about six feet off of the ground.  Every time he jumps up there to watch us, it freaks me out a bit.  In the bottom pictures below, Violet and Charlie were playing a fishing game together.  

We were able to get a family hike in on the last day of 2016 that would be above 70 degrees.  It was a push to get to the trail after Will got off of work and before the sun set but we managed!

 The girls and I got a lot of walks and bike rides in, and even had a few last picnics outside with Charlie before the winter temperatures came.

Here they are below after a walk on our main street with no jackets in November!

 We knew the weather would get colder eventually, and here they are below with our very first snowfall for the season.

 It was a little chaotic the day that it snowed, scrambling to find all of our winter wear, and finding out what fits and what doesn't.  Who wants to plan ahead for snow when the weather is warm and balmy?    Just when we thought we didn't have any boots for Lucy and needed to add boot shopping to our to-do list, we realized that friends of ours had given us their daughter's old boots last year and as luck would have it, they fit Lucy perfectly this year.  How nice to NOT have to go to the store and to be able to play in the snow despite my lack of seasonal preplanning!

Will has been feeling better this past month, and so we have gone from survival mode to thriving mode once more.  Proof of our thriving is the fact that Will cleaned out our oven one night (first time we have EVER cleaned our oven!) and I even went to the store and bought vacuum bags!  If you ever want to feel like you are in control of your own life, clean your oven and go and buy vacuum bags.  But once you put the new vacuum bag in the vacuum, put the vacuum back in the closet.  I was so satisfied with the new vacuum bag, that I called it done and left it out - just in case I felt the urge to vacuum later.  Several hours later, Violet decided to ride the canister part like a horse and peed on it.  One fried mother board later, I no longer felt like I was winning at adulthood.  Fortunately, the vacuum technician didn't know what questionable liquid had spilled on the motherboard and it was replaced under warranty.

Here we are below, winning at life: relaxing indoors as the weather is now cold and it gets dark before dinner time.  We've spent a lot of time in our pajamas this past month because when it is dark outside, I just feel better in pajamas.

I love cooking seasonally, and this month I made my favorite cranberry and pear sauce that I've missed since fresh cranberries were in season last year.  I made a jar of elderberry syrup when my kids got sick, and I hope to make it next fall BEFORE my kids get sick.  I made turkey pot pie in bulk from leftover Thanksgiving turkey and stocked the freezer, roasted and processed all of the pie pumpkins from our fall decorations outside, made a huge batch of banana and yogurt pancakes (that my kids are now sick of and whine that they hate pancakes - seriously, where is the gratitude!?), made a pot of chicken and spinach Alfredo pasta on a night that Will was working late (dairy isn't the best for him) and have enjoyed finding reasons to use my favorite fall and winter spices - clove, ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon - in everything.  I also have been using for the first time cardamom, and am LOVING it.  Such a great time of year for this cozy and delicious smelling spice.

I came up with a new hashtag #riskybiscuits after I made heavenly buttermilk biscuits when my kids were sick and had to decide if it was worth risking the potential germs and eat that leftover biscuit from their plate or cry softly to myself as I threw it out.  The decision was made for me when Will came home from work while I was putting the kids to bed and threw it out - gluten and dairy in a biscuit was a no-go for him, and so he had no emotional qualms wasting such deliciousness.  I never did get sick, so maybe it was for the best.  God knew I couldn't handle such a decision.  Also, the kids and I are now teasing Will that Risky Biscuits was what he was called in high school.

We had a good month of homeschooling, and enjoyed in clockwise order from top left below: piano lessons, making a fort at our chiropractor's office while most kids are still in school, having a lantern walk and bonfire with friends, art class, and working on geography.  Geography is one of the subjects that all three girls do at the same time which makes it fun.

Will and I treated the girls to a play at our local community college's theater.  It was about the Ugly Duckling and was called Honk Jr.  I worked it into our lesson plan for the week prior and the week after, including an entry in their journal about it, the social lessons discussed as well as many readings of the book.

I processed all of my beeswax from the 2016 season by melting and filtering it several times until it was clean enough to make ornaments and to use in my Harding Honey products for the upcoming year.  My bees didn't have the best month, as the weather was so warm, causing them to come out of hibernation only to find no food sources for them.  I hope that they will be okay through the winter now and only time will tell. Below in clockwise order from top left: melting and filtering my beeswax, the melted wax, beeswax ornaments, holiday soaps, and my bee hives, ready for winter. 

We enjoyed a family wedding this past month, lunch with friends, a belated birthday party at the local indoor playscape with friends as well as time at our nature center science class with friends, complete with hikes and exploring.

 We had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend, which started with an annual visit with friends that I've known for almost my entire life.  I made cranberry pear sauce and several different pies on Thanksgiving including sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie and apple pie.  I even served my family mini apple pies with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on it for their pre-Thanksgiving dinner lunch after they finished watching the Thanksgiving Day parade.  Lucy was so into the parade that she could hardly contain herself and would excitedly tell us facts about each float as it rode by on TV.  The following day, she announced to us with her purse in hand that she needed a ride to Michael's Craft Store as there were several Door Busters that she had her eye on.  We blame the parade commercials, as we have never talked about Black Friday shopping, and had no intention of going out in that madness.  Needless to say, we took her to Michael's, and sure enough, she knew what the good deals were.

 We went to my parents house for Thanksgiving this year, with pies and cranberry pear sauce in hand.  Imagine my shock when we unwrapped the tinfoil from the pies at dessert time and I realized that I had accidentally brought one of the empty pie shells I had made for the turkey leftovers I was going to make turkey pot pie with the following day.  Oops!  I would have sent Will home to get the missing sweet potato pie, except I had already sent him to CVS after dinner for an emergency bottle of dye-free liquid Benadryl.  Come to find out, I think I may be allergic to turkey.  I had a fairly bad reaction after dinner, and fortunately CVS was open on Thanksgiving day.  My kids enjoyed building with the vintage Legos in my parents basement all night, and I was recovered from my allergy episode in time to have a small dessert plate before we went home.  Thank you liquid Benadryl!  And Will, and CVS... #thankfulonThanksgiving.  All joking aside, this Thanksgiving, I am especially thankful for Will and his health and humor coming back.

We also visited with Will's family over Thanksgiving Day weekend, which was a great time as it was the first time we were all together since his mom had her quadruple bypass surgery.

We decorated for Christmas over the Thanksgiving weekend as well, and really knew we were winning at life when we thanked ourselves for having all of our decorations in three boxes counting the new tree we had purchased the Christmas before that is pre-lit and assembles in three pieces.  Since you now know that we never change our vacuum bag or clean our oven, you can understand why streamlined Christmas decorations are just right for us.

 

We are excited for Christmas, and are hoping to have a very relaxing holiday with good health, good memories and good cheer!  We have so much to be thankful for this year!