october 2015.

Ohhhh, my!

Looking through our October pictures just makes me smile!

For a lot of reasons.

Miss Emma had her SEVENTH birthday!!!

Can you believe she's seven??

We sure love this spunky little girl who keeps us on our toes!

Those eyes!! My heart melts!!

She had fun with her photo shoot with mom. That was all actually the next day.

On *the* day ......

Letter pancakes for breakfast:

So spoiled, she got her whole name, instead of just her first initial.

We still got away with just a family birthday party. I have a feeling that by next year, she may be asking for another friends party.

Alyssa got her a t-shirt so she could show off some school colors!

"Heavy heavy hangover, thy poor head...

whatcha gonna do with a bonk on the head?"

(Waiting for that bonk!!)

(Whoops! Another t-shirt picture. But what a big personality!)

Phone calls from faraway aunties are the best!!

(The hat came from the OTHER sister. I see a competition with sisters and college apparel going here!)

Onward .......

Emma played soccer again this fall.

I know, it sounds like everything is about Emma -- but seriously, ... Cameron won't pose much for the camera, and the rest of the kids are gone!!

Soccer has been good for her. She has fun, makes friends, and gets the exercise that she needs.

Of course, she spent a good deal of time just playing with her ponytail:

... and chatting it up with her friend!

And, by the end of October, we get to our annual pumpkin-carving.

Cameron and Emma cleaned their pumpkins together. (I'm pretty sure that Cameron also  finished cleaning her pumpkin for her, cleaned my pumpkin, and maybe Todd's pumpkin, too! He gets extra points for pumpkin cleaning this year!)

She was so focused as she put her pattern on her pumpkin .....

(I was playing around with camera settings that night. Sometimes, I almost know what I'm doing with that!!)

Our final group of jack-o-lanterns was a smaller bunch. You can sure tell that we have less carvers living at home this year!

Todd was especially impressive with his own jack-o-lantern (he enjoys doing the intricate work on these things), as well as working hard on Emma's "Frozen" pattern. She was so thrilled to wake up the next day and see it glow.

Brandon & Cecilia decided to have Baby D's blessing on November 1st, so we made the trip down to Utah so we could be there for the blessing. More about that in THIS POST.

Cecilia made super-cute matching Halloween costumes for the kids....

Emma, of course, had to be her favorite new princess.....

 

She thought that wearing purple eye shadow, mascara, and sparkles was just maybe the best part about her whole look!

(Brandon and Cecilia matched, too!)

Poor Miss Alyssa wasn't feeling too well that evening ....

I love this picture of Todd and Darius!!

What a cutie!!

A lot of the photos I edited the scratch on his forehead out. But, in the interest of full disclosure, there's the scratch on the poor little guy's head!

Meanwhile, down at college, .... Darcie has been having an absolute BLAST:

....      uhhhhhh, that's a lot of blue foam, there.

She goes hiking with the roommates and friends ....

And they had a blast at the football games:

And finally ---

I absolutely loved how our mums bloomed this year around the patio:  

That one in the middle hadn't yet opened up, but it was just as pretty as the others!

Flowers make me happy!!

Once Upon a November. 2014, that is.

Ahhhh, November.

And continuing almost where I left off in October ..... Emma's wacky braids for her Halloween costume -- turned into some REALLY wild hair on All Saints' Day:

The annual leaves .... what am I going to do when all my leaf-rakers have permanently moved out?

(More on leaves in a moment.)

So, I didn't even stop to count how many photos I stuck in this blog post. All I know is that November kept us hopping. This was a banner year for our Alyssa, because she hit the two-decade mark. Twenty.

I know, right??? I must have been 9 years old when I had her. How can she possibly be twenty years old??? 

This is Alys with her her beau. (About a week before he proposed!)

So we had our traditional family birthday party. Streamers and balloons. And this is Emma, doing "Heavy, Heavy Hangover" and giving Alyssa her gift:

We did cakes differently this year -- and ohhhhh, man, was it ever good!! It's about the size of a bread pan (so we got two of them!), and this one is an orange creamsicle cake.

YUM!!

The following Monday, we went bowling for Family Home Evening. It's not something we do very often -- bowling is more of an occasional thing in our family. Emma had a lot more fun after we raised the bumpers ... heh, heh, heh!

I think it's interesting to see each person's individual bowling style ....

Todd has a spin and a quiet delivery. 

Me -- not so much!!

Miss Darcie turned out to be the amazing bowler of the evening -- outscoring all of us.

Miss Emma has pretty amazing form:

I smile because Alyssa bowls .... like she pitches softball! That's called, "muscle memory" right there!!

(at least she doesn't wind-up over her head, right?!)

(And Cameron bowls a lot like his dad!)

Like I said -- we bowl for fun. So don't expect impressive scores. Except Darcie. Who wrapped up her evening feeling pretty good about 6 strikes and three spares. Seriously? Whose child is this?

Moving on!

I hope when my kids grow up and reflect back on their childhoods, .... I hope that they remember things like jumping in piles of leaves.....

..... tossing them high over their heads....

... and burying themselves in them!!

November is also the wedding anniversary of this young couple:

Fifty-three years for Todd's parents!! Love them so much!!

And as memories go, I'm pretty sure that both Cameron and Darcie will look back and remember this one: The time that Darcie talked Cameron into asking her out on a "date". And he really put some effort into this one...... he cleaned out the vehicle, they both dressed up, he actually came to the front door and picked her up, (shook my hand!) .... opened the vehicle door for her, ..... and took her to dinner and a movie. I was so impressed with him!!

Impressed, yes. But I shouldn't be surprised, though. When he was young, he really had a handle on courtesies. He was always jumping forward to hold doors open for him momma. It makes me smile, knowing that my kids have grown from playing with each other, to actually being friends as adults. This makes my heart sing!

And this photo is .... "Mom, we're going to leave now, so you'll have to stop taking pictures."

And, we made our annual trip to Locomotive Park to enjoy the holiday lights there. This year, we went rather early -- I know this, because our photos were taken in November. (Usually it's the first or second week of December when we go.) Pretty sure it was a certain six-year-old that was the driving force behind the early trip. There was no snow, but it was a bit on the rainy and wet side.

Because it was wet, I thought the pathway looked like a river of light with all the reflections on it.

Next up -- Thanksgiving Day, and all the trimmings. Once again, it was two turkeys, outside in the smoker grills, starting pretty early in the morning.

I was really glad to see that Todd marshalled the troops and they all got busy with putting up the outdoor Christmas lights on Thanksgiving morning! It was perfect mild weather for it, and with all the extra help, they really got 'er done.

(Light-testers extraordinaire!)

It was fun to get Cameron and his cousin, Nathan, together again!

These two are only 3 weeks apart in age and it had been a while since they'd seen each other:

I think we ended up with 16 people, overall, for dinner. It was really, really nice. I love that we sit together, and eat and talk and everyone is so relaxed.

Maybe that's just all the tryptophan in the turkey, though.  Haha!!

Turkey chef extraordinaire!
(and he makes a mean smokey green bean casserole, too!)

And, finally......

As per usual, the day after Thanksgiving, we put up our Christmas tree!!

(Which made it really nice to have both the outdoor lights, and most of the indoor decorations all put up during one weekend -- and DONE!! We need to do it this way every year!!)

When I asked him why he was growing out the facial hair, his response was,

"Because I can."

Fair enough. 

(He shaved it off not long after this.)

And we finished with our traditional egg nog toast.

Which got a little crazy. I'm just sayin'.

Lately, I've had the lyrics of the chorus to a country song running through my head, thinking about a few different things. The rest of the song doesn't really apply, but the chorus really strikes a note with me. Pun intended.

The song is, "These are My People" by Rodney Atkins. (It's on YouTube -- if you're interested.)

The chorus goes like this:

These are my people

This is where I come from

We're givin' this life everything we've got and then some

It ain't always pretty

But it's real

That's the way we were made

Wouldn't have it any other way

These are my people

I hope, when my kids are all grown and living on their own, that they can remember this.

That these are your people.

This is where you come from.

It's not always pretty. But I wouldn't change a thing.

It's us. And It's real.