November was so much fun! One of Juliet's main phrases is "I don't wait" instead of saying "I can't wait" and honestly, both are accurate. Very little waiting around here and lots of doing.
Juliet was invited to go on a zoo outing with a friend from her preschool and then we ran into her friend Aurora from church while we were there! While creatively counting to 20 for a game of hide and seek (there was only moderate interest in actual animals) Juliet started doing a fancy dance and I got to rush her to the nearest bathroom which was quite far away. She made it, but just barely. Juliet makes everything exciting.
Clark from school is a gem and was happy to play lions with the girls. It's funny having my youngest child hang out with other people's oldest children though. I have the experience to know to bring double snacks to the zoo because I know they are all going to disappear but I also no longer care if my children look at any animals. The first-time parents still have hopes and dreams.
It has been so fun having Juliet be my game buddy lately. She has gotten quite good at testing out new games with me, even if she needs a little help with the actual game play.
And then we go play outside and she finds a stick that is "just her size" to play with.
We have been loving having library story time again and we go every Wednesday and check out a bunch of new books while we're there.
Patrick lost his fifth tooth this past month! We discussed it and decided this one would be removed by robot.
Bradley was very concerned about a gross tooth ending up on their lego robotics mat but we had to persevere. For science.
Patrick has gotten quite used to having an audience whenever he loses a tooth because honestly, it's always quite the event.
So much fun. He definitely earned the dollar I pay him per tooth that is removed via string tied to something.
Do I raise spirited and spunky children? Do I reward them for spunk with smooches and bottom pinchies? It is difficult to tell.
We were so excited for our First Lego League robotics competition. We had the earliest competition slot which was okay actually, much better to go early than have practices go into busy December. The kids did a rehearsal in front of the parents the week before the competition.
And then Eleanor had to go home and take care of this. Oh my. They have a one-legged Wellie Wisher that Nathan has tried to fix once or twice but it's fairly impossible to keep the leg on if the girls play with the doll at all. Fortunately, they like the story lines they can come up with. There have been a lot of tragic accidents. I could be concerned but I find it rather hilarious.
Is Eleanor Juliet's favorite person? It's hard to tell.
Juliet's preschool has a genius event during their book fair where grandparents get to come in and have a cookie with the kids and pick them up from school. And perhaps take them to the book fair and buy a book or two? Convenient! Juliet loved this although we now own four copies of How to Catch a Unicorn because we had already been gifted two and Juliet assured her grandparents that we didn't already have it when they saw it at the book fair. So they bought another two copies, one for Juliet, one for her cousin Katie. I guess we're going to give one to Katie soon, but it's still a lot of copies of one book, even for our house.
Eleanor was proud to get to be the Girl Scout representative for the Veteran's Day Parade.
She and a Cub Scout got to carry the flags down the aisle for the beginning of the performance.
She did a great job, the flag was quite heavy.
My parents came to the performance too and Juliet was very pleased to get in some Grandma reading time while we waited for the performance to begin.
It was a nice little program with a lot of songs, most of which I had already heard because Eleanor had been singing them nonstop around the house for weeks. I love elementary school performance events.
All of us after the performance.
My Aunt Diana sent us a new dress up outfit for the kitties. Lucky Meg was the first to get to play pirate!
Apparently my kind Uncle Bill was very concerned about us traumatizing the poor kitties and we made sure we let him know that dress-up time is always very brief. The kitties dress up, we take pictures, and then the outfit is removed. But a picture lasts forever!
The next day was the big robotics competition. And oh my, was it a day. We got there at 7:30 and didn't get home until around 4:30 that evening.
The kids were in good spirits for their presentation time in the morning! Going in and talking to the judges can be a bit nerve-wracking but it was helpful that everyone but Eleanor had done this before and so it wasn't quite as intimidating. And Eleanor loves public speaking so she handled it all well. Both she and Bradley did such a good job on the team.
Coach Grandma with her favorite two kids on the team!
We had a waiting space in the basement area of the elementary school which was located in inner city Kansas City.
Getting in some cuddle time in the midst of practicing.
We had our poster display up for kids to come by and look at and get to chat with our team. Bradley was responsible for the concept behind our innovation project for the season. We were supposed to come up with a solution to a problem in the field of energy and he thought underwater turbines could be a good solution. The judges liked it!
Getting ready for a practice run-through of the robot games.
I think this was their highest-scoring run-through during the official competition.
Huggy boys. It was really nice that it was basically most of Bradley's favorite people on this team.
Slightly less huggy girls. Fun fact: Eleanor was sick the day of the competition. Patrick had a horrible cough the week before and had stayed home from school for a few days. Bradley seemed to have avoided it but Juliet and Eleanor had definitely been exposed. Eleanor had a slight cough and was running a half a degree hot the morning of the competition so we gave her some Children's Tylenol and stuck a mask on her and hoped it would all work out because we desperately needed her. She took off her mask for pictures. She was a champ.
Full team picture!
The official robot games! We got the high score out of all the teams. Everyone was so excited. Except then they asked Bradley who had designed one of the attachments on the robot because they thought it was really neat and he didn't know, so he said, "I think my grandma helped us. She's a coach!" And OH MY GOODNESS were they unhappy to hear that. I think in a lot of previous competitions there have been issues with coaches doing all of the work and then the kids just go out and push the buttons. So they are extremely sensitive to things like this. They hauled my mom aside and asked her a bunch of questions and she told them that the kids had come up with the concept and built the attachment themselves, they worked in teams and Bradley hadn't designed that particular attachment and didn't know who to give credit to so he mentioned his coach. Nathan talked to them, then I went and talked to them, they said all sorts of things about docking our score and how we were lucky to not be eliminated for cheating then and there. It was rough. We didn't tell the kids but we were sweating it out. I hadn't actually wanted to make it to the next round of the competition but then it seemed so wrong not to make it because of something like this. Because we had the kids do everything! We helped them but we absolutely had the whole thing be kid led, which is exhausting and much more work than just doing it ourselves. And because of an innocent comment from a kid (very much not Bradley's fault!), we were going to be penalized. It was very tough.
Then we got to the awards ceremony. Kids were excited, coaches were worried. They gave us a first prize for both the innovation project and for the robot games. I was dying. How were we going to explain to the kids not making it to the next round of competition when we had won first place in two-thirds of things that were judged?
We made it. We were the final team announced to move forward. I've watched movies with less drama. The kids were so happy but they still don't know about the behind the scenes stuff. The next round of competition is at the end of January and you better believe we're going to prep them on taking credit for their work this next time around!
Meanwhile, my dad had Juliet and Patrick with him for the day. Patrick listened to Adventures in Odyssey and made pot holders on a loom for most of the day, he was so happy. Juliet played her first game of Rhino Hero Super Battle and thought it was rather fantastic.
"Oops, a mess!"
We were pretty fried the night after the competition. Bradley got some much-needed reading time with kitties.
I was concerned about Eleanor being sick and wanted to give her plenty of rest for the rest of the weekend. But she had been invited to a birthday party and assured me that while she had been too ill for church, with the extra rest she had received she was in optimal shape for an afternoon roller skating birthday party. We stuck a mask on her and dropped her off at the party. Oh well. We actually had three birthday parties for the kids that afternoon, Bradley was the only person without a party so he went and played games with Grandpa.
Eleanor had expressed interest in swim lessons with the goal of getting on a rec level swim team so we took her to Goldfish Swim School because I had heard good things about it.
They are very fancy there, Eleanor gave big points just for decor.
She rocked her actual lesson, even though I've barely done any formal swim lessons for her. The biggest problem she had was remembering to stay on the surface of the water while swimming because she tends to prefer to swim underwater while at the pool. I was laughing while watching because the swim teachers kept having to pull her back up to the surface. She's starting official lessons in mid-December and we think she'll be ready for the actual swim team in a couple months because she's certainly a natural when it comes to swimming.
I've been testing out new games and Juliet was proud to show off Bubble Stories to Eleanor. It's kind of a choose-your-own adventure game geared for preschoolers.
And we had hot cocoa after school before Thanksgiving break started!
We also decided to decorate for Christmas before leaving on our Thanksgiving trip to Idaho because we were hosting our annual Cookie Swap Christmas party the week we came back and we weren't sure we would have time to decorate otherwise.
I put up exactly zero decorations, Nathan did all this with three of the kids while I took Bradley over to my parents' house to play games. Nathan has been a bit of a hero with everything we have planned and on the calendar.
The boys had basketball games and we made the decision to keep the girls home because Juliet was still getting over a bit of a cough. Eleanor was delighted to be in charge of Juliet while we were gone and I got a lot of updates about how things were going on the cell phone we use as our home phone and they even took a selfie together and sent it to me.
Both Bradley and Patrick are doing really well on their basketball teams and we're particularly happy with Bradley because he had been a bit reluctant about playing on previous seasons but he seems to be all in these days. He's #40 in the clip below.
Nathan took the boys out to Arby's for lunch to celebrate their first basketball game of the season. This has been a long-awaited event. Bradley has been quoting, "Arby's, they have the meats" on repeat for months and it seems advertising works because he was desperate to go visit and see if what they said was true.
And that evening Eleanor and I squeezed in going to the Overland Park Holiday Boutique with my mom. We tried on some furs to see if we were fancy people.
The fur shop was very nice about a mother and daughter who were definitely playing dress-up with their wares.
We had a lovely time together!
Then it was a very early wake-up to head out to Boise for a week of Thanksgiving fun. It had been five years since we had visited as an entire family, it was high time for us to go back.
We packed a ton of snacks and brought tablets for the kids so we anticipated an easy couple of flights.
We were foolish and wrong and it's like we don't even know our kids. We had quite a bit of luggage but it was manageable and after our first flight Nathan got a bunch of bags down and I got off the plane with the two girls. We waited and waited just outside the plane and finally Bradley joined us. I asked him where Nathan and Patrick were and he had no idea. Finally an annoyed looking flight attendant came out pulling Patrick's suitcase for him while he played with a pile of coins he was holding in his hands. Nathan came right after this and told me the story - apparently Patrick was already struggling with his backpack and child-sized suitcase when he spotted some dropped change under a seat. He dropped everything and dove underneath the seats in order to gather money! Nathan was telling him to stop on repeat but he couldn't hear anything, money was on the ground and that was the only thing that mattered. He held up around 100 people from getting off the plane, we had pretty nice seats that flight. So we promptly took away all of his money he had gathered and told him no tablet on the next flight because he hadn't listened to Nathan and he had a 20 minute complete meltdown in the SeaTac airport. Ahh, the glamor of travel with children.
He recovered enough to smile for a picture by me on the next flight.
He was unconscious literally five minutes later.
And missed the most amazing flight by Mt. Rainier.
However, he did manage to spill the entire contents of his water bottle on the next flight and completely soaked his coat and half-soaked his sweatshirt. By this point Eleanor was supervising Juliet and Nathan and I were doubling up on Patrick duty while Bradley loudly complained about everything. In his defense, once we landed in Boise Patrick did spend 10 minutes in the airport bathroom while we all waited for him and then he came out and loudly announced that it had been a very good poop. Then we went out to load up in the car and say hi to Grandpa Dan. Patrick was excited to show off his Christmas gifts he had brought for family and in his half-wet sweatshirt started to unload his backpack on the street in the middle of the airport loading zone in 20 degree weather. We made him put the potholders away, he cried a bit more, and we went to Grandpa and Grandma's house where he started causing problems within two minutes of being in the door. So we sent him outside in 20 degree weather and wet clothes to go be with the dogs. And then he was perfect for the rest of the trip!!!
We're getting a dog. Not a joke.
We also want to steal cousin Chalise because she's so cute but Aunt Abby says no.
Chalise is about 13 months old and was an absolute champ about the large amounts of love and adoration that were directed towards her by very excited cousins.
She did tend to break into rooms to see what people were up to and she really liked to climb up onto beds.
Cuddles with lucky Bradley!
We quickly decided that in addition to family time, we needed to get the kids out of the house and have them run off some energy. We found a great indoor playground to visit on our second morning there.
It was Bradley's turn to be a huge disaster and he had trouble playing nicely. At this point, Nathan and I were quite frustrated in child behavior and so we had him write a few apology notes. This is the one I received. I didn't realize they still had baby Bradley stationary at their house and I have to say, this is the most amazing apology note I have ever received just because of all the drawings he did on the baby pictures of himself.
We had a lot of great family time on the trip, we're really happy that Aunt Abby and Uncle Michael and Chalise currently live at Grandpa and Grandma's house. Made for a lot more time together.
The next day we went to the Boise aquarium.
The girls wanted to pay to do a photo booth so I just had them sit in the photo booth while I took a photo montage and then pieced it together in an app.
Nathan's cousin Bree's daughter met up with us there, which was a nice bonus.
Then we went to the used bookstore next-door and I tried to sell Bradley on the doll and assured him it wasn't creepy at all. Thumbs down to creepy doll!
We had been talking about the prospect of getting a family dog at this point so we were all excited to make friends with the cute bookstore dog.
That afternoon we took the kids to a climbing gym.
It was interesting to compare it to our own local climbing gym. Ours had a ton more of the clip-in routes where you didn't need a trained professional to belay you.
That said, the kids seemed a bit tired and they were able to do enough climbing with the routes available to them.
And a nice woman who works there belayed them for a few of the non-clip in routes.
Meanwhile, I had planned to climb, but Juliet had fallen asleep on me as we walked into the place so I cuddled a sleeping little girl instead.
We've learned from experience that even when she's asleep she can tell if she's on Mommy or not and if she's tired enough to fall asleep on my shoulder in the middle of the day then it's only Mommy she wants. I looked at dogs on PetFinder instead of getting in a workout. I had the puppy fever pretty bad by this point.
Nathan's Uncle Tim joined us at the climbing gym to hang out!
The kids were able to do one fifty foot climb while we were at the gym. I love these kids so much, everyone was pretty tired by this point but they went gangbusters on this final climb.
Juliet woke up and harassed everyone with her renewed energy and love.
Juliet got really cozy and comfy with everyone by about midway through the trip. I did not hear any complaints.
The next day we took the kids to the Discovery Center of Idaho. This was way more up our alley than the aquarium and the kids spent hours here.
Patrick loved the paper airplane station and was there for a long, long time.
Eleanor got to be Juliet's "chaperone" in the ages four and under area and they spent at least an hour in there together.
Scary dinosaur at the end!
It was so fun. By this point we had gone to the library and caught up on sleep and the kids were starting to act like themselves again.
I had some quiet rest time for myself when we got back to the house and Juliet made it oh so very restful.
We spent the evening before Thanksgiving visiting with Tim and Karla and Aunt Tina. We started out at a park and it was very cold and everyone was a bit whiny except Patrick who needed a good run.
Making snowflakes at Tim and Karla's house.
Game time!
Eleanor telling Uncle Tim about Lego Robotics while we ate dessert.
The tv had a fake fire going on so our group picture looked extra classy.
Nathan and his aunt and uncle!
We went home and Juliet was rather hyped up so she ran around wildly in her underwear, much to Chalise's interest.
They tried to talk us into a slumber party but we said no.
So many cuddles in the second half of the trip.
I was feeling very antsy by this point because I hadn't worked out for a few days so I drug each of the older kids out for a two mile walk on Thanksgiving morning.
It wasn't that cold and after I got six miles in I was a reasonable person for the rest of the trip.
Eleanor was very unsure about this until I told her we had met a neighborhood cat who was very friendly. That made the walk and outside time worthwhile.
Meanwhile, Juliet took a very calm bath.
Playing Push before Thanksgiving dinner.
We went over to Amber and Steve's house for Thanksgiving dinner and promptly lost Patrick to the game room off the garage.
He came back inside the house when it was time to do arts and crafts and play other games.
Juliet made herself at home.
Playing Poetry for Neanderthals after dinner. It was a great group game!
If you do something wrong you get hit in the head with an inflatable club. Connor was really into this aspect of the game.
Group picture of everyone together for Thanksgiving.
Our crew with Nana and Grandpa and a photobombing Connor.
More cuddles for the rest of the trip.
And we did some official family photos. These are just the pictures Nathan took with his camera, we're looking forward to seeing how the professional photos turn out.
That evening we decided to do a drive-through Christmas lights show and about lost our minds when we had to wait forty-five extra minutes for the event to start due to technical difficulties. However, the kids hung in there and we now have a really good example to use for the kids whenever we talk about choosing a good attitude even in not great circumstances.
Bradley had the best time of anyone at the show because he and I started talking about how this would be a perfect location for a horror movie. We decided we didn't trust giant Santa, I got to correct him on his pronunciation of severed as used in the term, "severed heads," and I was informed that Santa spawns and regenerates out of the giant Christmas tree. Oh, Bradley. You are the best.
We made it back for an evening with family and Patrick tried to arm-wrestle his Uncle Jake.
Then thumb war.
We let the tired kids have much-desired tablet time.
And then we had a rumpus and the adults played some board games.
They asked Juliet who her Uncle Jake was and she said, "Uncle Daddy's Brother." She was then asked about Aunt Anna and with no hesitation she responded, "Clyde!" She really loved Clyde.
She followed Clyde around a bunch and harassed her with her love.
Game time!
The next day we spent the afternoon with Amber and Steve as another game day.
Followed by dinner at a hibachi grill with Uncle Tim. We didn't exactly think this one through - we thought it would be kind of like dinner and a show for the kids but Juliet was terrified of the flame at the beginning of the meal and mostly hung out in the corner by our table.
I don't know if she ate anything. The rest of the kids had a lovely time! But it might be a few years before we take Juliet to a hibachi grill again.
She was cheery and back to running around in her underwear when we got back home.
The face you make when it's time to go to sleep.
Chalise decided she liked to give out hugs but only for Juliet. Juliet was okay with this.
Bradley hunted Chalise down for cuddles and she was at least a medium willing participant.
Patrick with his best friends from the trip - Fergie and Rigby. He spent so much time with them every day, even when it was cold and his fingers were numb. We're getting him a puppy.
Juliet generously offered to be the table for the game we played with Uncle Michael on our last day.
I thought Eleanor was too big for the kiddie seat in the grocery store cart but I was wrong. We were getting food for the flight home while trying to keep Juliet away from all the giant stuffed toys that the store was booby-trapped with.
Doing crafts right up to the time we had to leave! Decals of the kids' choice. Aunt Abby is so awesome!
The airport crew! The flights home were much less exciting than the flights to Boise although we all had the puppy fever and harassed a nice woman at the SeaTac airport who was sitting by a gate with her new puppy. Blessings upon Patrick, he always wants to know how much everything costs so he had no problem asking her how much her King Charles Spaniel puppy was. $4,000!!! And she had to pay for flights to go and get the dog. Our puppy will be $250 and is in a foster home 20 minutes from our house. I've never felt better about going the rescue route. We got home at 12:30AM and every kid except Eleanor fell asleep in the car on the drive home (shocker).
My brother Thomas was already in town visiting my folks so he came over on Monday afternoon after the kids had school and this is how things were for him within about five minutes of entering our house. Patrick and Juliet were curled up with him on the couch so he could read Patrick's Smoke Jumper book and Layla wouldn't stop walking around him begging for pets and cuddles.
We went to Target so he could pick out Christmas presents for the kids and poor little Patrick's legs stopped working so his Uncle Thomas came to the rescue.
Happy kids after the shopping trip! Eleanor rarely gets this huggy with extended family, she really likes Thomas.
Daniel and his kids were also visiting so the next night we went over to see everyone and I agreed that the boys could have table time with Uncles.
Meanwhile, Juliet and Katie were cute and naughty together.
Katie is so willing to be led astray by Juliet. I'm sorry that my brother's oldest child gets to be best friends with my youngest child, certain things just happen by this point.
Ethan was so much bigger than the last time we saw him and all the kids barely recognized him. He's so fun and cute and such a little person now!
Patrick playing games with the three year olds. Favorite Patrick quote that we heard from the other room, "Guys! Guys! Guys! That isn't how you play the game at all!"
Me with cuddly Ethan. I would steal this baby in a hot second. He loves to cuddle and kept snuggling into me. Amazing.
Grandma getting in on some of the amazing cuddle action.
Patrick stayed a bit later on the one night we got to see both Uncle Daniel and Uncle Thomas before Thomas had to leave. We decided to take pictures and I don't know why I am always surprised by Patrick photos.
Patrick kept trying to hide behind their legs and I had to make him move out of the way.
A photo bombing Patrick was cropped out of the back corner of this picture.
And he's back. Katie loves me too! Daniel doesn't remember how cuddly he was when he was a little kid but apparently genetics don't lie and his kids are just the cuddliest and the cutest and it's so fun.
We took Katie to library story time with us.
Yes, Juliet is in her elf outfit. It's Christmas season!
And how perfect is this photo of her and Katie? It isn't even staged, I was just ready with my phone. Cousin love is pretty amazing.
