We started November out with a fun scavenger hunt through Kingsburg. The theme was Charlotte's Web as that was the book all TK-8th graders were reading. The high schoolers had made paintings with webs with words in them and the kids had a crossword puzzle to solve. We had fun and ended with a treat from Bella Bakery!
We also went to the car wash and who knew it was so fun to vacuum my car? If I had known this before we would definitely have done it more often!
Bailey turned five and we had fun celebrating her with a small family party since she went to Legoland for her actual birthday. The kids had fun pulling each other in the wagon and eating tons of cake! I ate my body weight in cake claiming I was carb-loading for my marathon the next day!
We had several birthday celebrations for Dada including Tia's traditional Jello-cake and a trip to Red Robin! All the kids helped blow out the candles and I'm sure no germs were transferred in the process!
Clara has been obsessed with Lindsey Stirling for quite some time. She's the reason Clara started playing violin and she wants to be like her when she grows up. Lindsey's first stop on her Christmas tour just happened to be Fresno so we took the kids. The line to get in was several blocks long and we had to wait a while, but the show did not disappoint! I have no idea how she can play so well while dancing, but I am definitely a fan now! Even Emmett was enthralled!
Clara had piano followed by violin Thursdays and there were several weeks where she and I went to Starbucks for the hour in between the two. She became obsessed with coffee cake and we had fun playing the games! It was nice to spend time together just the two of us and I think we both needed it! Clarita is so musical, but really despises practicing so we tried to make it fun and even had her teach Emmett a thing or two!
Clara loves getting her hair cut so we squeezed her in while I was getting my hair done. Getting her scalp scrubbed is her favorite part!
Clara started a new phase where she decided that she hates school. She started crying at drop off, and it was especially bad when Dada dropped her off. One day, she ran back and forth across the car so he couldn't get her out! Probably super funny for anyone watching. She started crying so hard she had dark rings around her eyes and going to the nurse saying she was sick every day. Luckily she has a supportive teacher and the nurse was really great at making rewards for her if she came in at recess and said she didn't need to go home. Clara also started throwing epic tantrums around this time that involved spitting, kicking, screaming so hard she foamed at the mouth. We have no idea what is causing it, but it is definitely not a fun phase for any of us.
The kids did not have school one day so Tia and I took them to a trampoline place. We all had tons of fun jumping and playing games!
Fall means tons of leafs at our house. The kids (especially Clara) were obsessed with raking them into piles and jumping in them!
We had to take a few trips to various stores looking for stuff for our basement remodel. For the most part, the kids had fun playing at the different home improvement stores. Emmett even managed to sleep through a few of them!
One Sunday, I came back from a run to find Emmett in full cowboy gear! /it was all Dada's when he was little and he looked so cute we let him wear it to church. He was definitely a big hit and of course had fun playing/ "taking care" of Elise!
Thanksgiving was at our house as usual and we had a great time! Nobody was sick and the kids were extra crazy! They all talked about Aba's fruit turkey leading up to the event and were not disappointed! Our friend, Matt, from Peace Corps, and his girlfriend, Ingrid, had recently moved to San Francisco from New York so they came down to celebrate! We had a great time catching up with him and enjoyed great food, great company, and even managed to get some family pictures!
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| Crazy Asian photographer |
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| Emmett pouted because it was suggested he sit by Tristan |
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| Clara finally got him to smile |
