December fun

 This year I made a big meal for Thanksgiving dinner.  Jason thinks it's too much work, but I like having one big family meal each year... plus the left overs are amazing and I don't have to cook for several days! I made the usual turkey, stuffing, potatoes, biscuits, cranberry sauce and 5 salads: pea salad, crab salad, sweet potato/yams, green bean casserole and raspberry fluff.  Desert was homemade New York Cheese cake (Jason's favorite) and 6 types of macaroon cookies. It was just the 4 of us, plus we invited our friend Kevin to join us again this year. 

Random December fun- I bought 25+ small gifts and wrapped them all with number on the outside for an Advent Calendar for the boys this year.  Each night when I got home from work I would let them unwrap one.  I gave them a riddle or clue on a card that would lead them to where I had the gift hid.  Kaiden loved this idea. They both had fun with the little gifts too. Connor won an award in his Game Design class at school. Kaiden and I played some board games.  We had to close our eyes for the picture so we wouldn't see the card on our heads. I went out to dinner with Emily and Rachel after work and got a chance to snuggle with Jayla (Rachel's baby). We took the boys downtown for some fun. We had planned on sitting on Santa's lap (well Kaiden did anyway), but we found out you have to schedule the appointment time on-line now.  After waiting in line for over 30 minutes we gave up. We walked around the mall and checked out the Davenport tree's and the reindeer. We were going to go for a horse drawn carriage ride though downtown, but it was raining and chilly so we decided to skip it. Nobody wanted to check out the rest of the tree displays at the Davenport so we skipped that too. But we did have fun at Boo Radley's and the Lego store. Last picture is the park next to my work decorated for the holidays.

Games

 What does our November look like... games, movies and hot tub!  Lots of family game nights: Plunder, Ticket to Ride, Taco vs Burrito, Uno.  Movies: we just finished watching Sweet Tooth and Cobra Kai.  Nothing goes better with curling up under a fleece blanket on the couch to watch a movie than hot cocoa and fresh hot chocolate chip cookies too.  And our family is loving relaxing in the hot tub too!  We all enjoyed a nice hot soak in the hot tub on the first snowfall of the season, Nov. 16, 2024.  And I have enjoyed collecting little things to wrap up for the boys new Advent calendar this year.  Unfortunately the boxes on the advent calendar are too small to fit anything other than candy. Boo!  So instead I wrapped each item and put a number on the outside corresponding to the number on the advent calendar.  Each day in December the boys will open a drawer, pull out a clue/rhyme... figure out where that clue leads them and that's where they will find the wrapped present for the day.  Some days are chocolate/candy goodies, some days have arts/craft projects, some days have fun items.  I tried to really get a variety of different items to make it fun.

November

 The boys each had friends spend the night all weekend long from Friday night- Sunday night.  Kaiden had Alex and Connor had Xavier.  Kaiden and  Alex camped out on the living room couches and Connor and Xavier slept on the couches in the basement.  They played video games, board games, sat in the hot tub, I took them to the B&B movies.  Connor and Xavier saw Venom: the Last Dance.  Kaiden, Alex and I saw Wild Robot.  We even convinced Xavier to try a smoked oyster for the first time.  Jason got creative with his glasses for distance along with his reading glasses... who needs bifocals.  LOL

Halloween

 This year for Halloween Connor went dressed as Ghost Face from Scream (again).  He's used this same costume for a few years now.  He walked around with Mason (dressed as Beetlejuice) and Britain for a while and then they all went to a Halloween party at Mason's girl friend, Maggie's house.  We briefly hung out at McKayla and Brian's house and then took Kaiden, Alex and Colton trick-or-treating around our neighborhood.  It was a little chilly and sprinkling rain, but the boys stayed out for over an hour before we called it quits and came back home.  Alex and Kaiden played his new board game that Kaiden invented and handed out candy.  Kaiden dressed as SWAT, Colton was a blow up shark, Alex started the night as a blow up Minecraft and then switched into his Pikachu costume.

Pumpkins

 Kaiden went to a pumpkin carving party at a neighbors house with Alex this year and carved his pumpkin there.  I decorated a small pumpkin.  Connor and Jason didn't have any interest in carving pumpkins this year.  Grandpa gave both the boys a wood chopping block that they can put in their kitchen some day... but until then Kaiden invented a pretty fun board game with his.  The two of us have been playing his game every night.  There is no paint on his board.  Grandpa used different types of woods to create a color and pattern with cuts.