November

November has flown by. It is hard to believe that December starts this week. We have done so many fun things and now I am sure the Christmas season will fly by as well. When I reflect back on the month it helps me to realize that I need to appreciate the moments more. The days can sometimes feel long, or at least certain hours in the day feel long, but somehow the weeks and months are too fast. I must be getting old to be feeling this way. So here were some highlights from November - I'll start with the girls art lessons. They are incredible. They drew the most unbelievable turkeys and made awesome earrings out of clay. They love it. And I love that they go together. It makes for a lot of Tuesday afternoon driving, but it is well worth it. The girls are also in piano lessons, which are fantastic. I love their teacher, who drives to my house to teach them one after the other. It's so great. It's been really fun to see them learning and progressing so quickly. They both play a mean "Jingle Bells." Katelyn participated in the cutest Thanksgiving program in school. And I get to volunteer in Ashley's classroom as the math helper. Justin also got to participate in a Thanksgiving feast. The highlights for him are probably all the playdates. He has so many friends. He loves them all. He got to play a lot with them this week. I think there was 1 week where he had more then 1 playdate in a day for the entire week. For Mia it's all the Dora watching. I am limiting it, but I will find her hiding somewhere with my phone where she has figured out how to find Dora episodes on You Tube. On her own. Now I try and hide my phone, but she almost always finds it. She also ate all 24 chocolates on her advent calendar already. She is a girl of little patience. She is 2. What else? For Thanksgiving week we went to the Science museum in Denver for the day with the Conleys. We also hiked the incline as a family. The girls and I made it all the way to the top in less then an hour. I was so impressed with them. We caught up to Hans and the babies on the way down. Then we stopped for ice cream in Manitou. Fun day. We did motorcycle rides, bike rides to the park to play, and sat outside. We had 60 degree weather all weekend. I love that. We, of course, ate a gigantic Thanksgiving meal. The Conley's came over with a feast and I had prepared a feast. We ate until we were sick. Then we did a pig pinata that the kids and I made during the week and watched a movie. We are so exhausted from all the fun. For me a big highlight is completing my yoga training. I successfully completed it. Hooray! It was a life-changing course and I am so glad I participated in it. I'm hoping to find a job teaching, but in the meantime I am teaching twice a week out of my house. If that interests you, call me. You can come. I applied at a place in Falcon through the YMCA. Mostly I am enjoying doing yoga because I want to. I love yoga. Now we are onto Christmas. Cards, gifts, shopping, decorating, and all that goes with it. It's great!

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We had such a great Halloween this year. We made witches out of oatmeal containers, which the girls spent the entire afternoon on. They turned out really cute too. Justin wasn't that into it and Mia was sleeping. And I actually splurged on costumes this year and it was so fun to see how excited they were about dressing up in what they actually wanted. They got a ridiculous amount of candy, as usual. We had a ward Halloween party where we ate soup (I brought my own gluten-free "healing quinoa and cabbage soup" ) and maybe 2 bowls got eaten so I had it for lunch for 2 weeks and the kids went from room to room in the church doing activities and collecting candy. They also trick or treated at the high school and collected tons and did fun activities there as well. Then around the neighborhood in the evening. We only did 8-10 houses, but we had more then we needed. I picked out a bunch of candy to pass out to our trick or treaters. It was a great weekend. I was able to go up to Denver on Halloween for a cadaver lab for yoga. It was a unique experience. Then Hans and I got a babysitter that evening for Stake Conference. I was hesitant to go since it was the holiday, but I'm so glad we did. Elder Maynes of the seventy spoke and it was so great and worth the time. I needed some spiritual guidance:)

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October has been one crazy month. I've loved it. We had some fun snowstorms and then tons of warm, beautiful days where we could play outside and lay out on blankets and read. It was fantastic. We carved our pumpkins, went to Halloween parties, finished up the soccer season for both girls, and just generally had a great time. I got to go to SYTYCD in downtown Colorado Springs. Yes, I'm a SYTYCD groupie. I signed the girls up for art classes again up in Monument, which they love. And suddenly I can't think of anything else we did. But I'm sure we spent lots of our time in our house. I've fallen in love with my crockpot and I cook almost every single day in that thing. It's so much easier and I have a great gluten-free cookbook. I do eat stuff like Quinoa and cabbage soup, but it's yummy and I'm getting used to it. The girls are doing great in school. They are best friends, which I love. They love to see each other when school gets out and then they frantically play until bedtime. Last night they spent 3 hours making a bracelet on their bead loom and then decorated the cutest cards for me with the "World's greatest mom Award" written on the back. I taped them up to my mirror. They make it easy to be a mom, that's for sure. Mia still can't stop talking about "soda, cake, soda" and her Dora party. She is obsessed with parties, but even more with Dora. I did finally take her to the Doctor. She is 21 lbs and not on the charts and 25th % for height. Her speech is above average and she's perfect in every way.