November Phone Dump

Reading on the ottoman

 

Our Give Thanks "board" for the month.  Start of the month and end of the month.  We missed 5 days for a vacation and a couple other days but mostly got them all.  We loved this and will be doing it again next year.

 

Trying to teach our children a little more about money.  Made jars for saving (goes in the bank), spending (whatever they want) and tithing. 

Did something a littler different for Halloween treats this year.  They kept thirty pieces, got to take one bite out of 5 pieces and we gave the rest to Daddy's work.

#HairdresserProbs  I was thinking it had been foooooooooooorever since I did anything with my hair.  Later I figured out it had been 6 months.  What a long time.  If I didn't change the color, I would have chopped it off.  Then I would have been sad.  Color it was.  I love the ombre looks.  A little nervous to do it myself.  But, one can teach oneself anything with YouTube.  Away I went.  I figured if I hated it, I would just color it all over.

Ta-da!  I love it.

Can't leave this kid for a second.  He helped himself to some Halloween marshmallows.

 

 The farm we get our eggs, pork and chicken from had some layer hens that weren't doing their job.  To the butcher they went.  We were offered some for $3 a hen.  I couldn't pass it up.  The only way they are good is if you pressure cook them.  So I did that and had Eric label bags.  1lb old busted hen, 1lb grandma game tight hen, 1lb played out hen, 1lb centrum silver hen.  Thanks.

Almost done canning/freezing.  I still have a bushel and a half of apples to go.  I want to cry.

Teething Lincoln is a miserable Lincoln.  He does a lot of this.

Snowy one day, park playing the next.

Getting Christmas stuff out!

Someone loves our new stool just as much as the big kids.

Joelle did her buttons.  Ha.

His favorite spot to play.  He also has to close the door.  No worries, he doesn't close it hard enough to seal AND I don't turn it on.

 

First Flurries!

We had our first flurries!  The kids were so excited to play.  I was gone for the morning and came back to this::

They are the cutest

Adelyn went inside because she got cold.  Brecken and Joelle were out for a while.  Fun times!

Traverse City Vacation

Eric and I (and our sidekick, Lincoln) took 5 days and went to the new outlets in Byron Center, Ikea and Traverse City.  Initially we were going to fly somewhere.  Then we decided we were to cheap.  Then we were going to rent a house just over the border in Canada.  Then Eric decided he didn't want to deal with passports and border patrol (maybe he has something to hide?!).  Then we were going to rent a house on the East side of Ann Arbor.  Then we were to cheap.  Then we found a (really nice!) hotel room in Traverse City for $300 cheaper than the house we were going to rent.  Then, when we got back, I baptized our laptop in coffee and blew the $300+ that we saved to buy a new one.  Go me.

Eric realllllllllllly wanted to go to the outlet malls so we decided to do that Friday night.  No one was there, because it was freezing, so we did the whole thing in an hour.  We enjoyed a nice dinner at Salt and Pepper and headed home to pack for Ikea and Traverse.

On our way to Ikea Lincoln slept for like 45 minutes.  Then screamed the rest of the way there.  Because he wanted out.  We just looked at each other and said we have to go home from Detroit, up to Traverse City, all over Traverse wine tasting and back home from Traverse with THIS?!

At Ikea.  Mainly took a picture of this and blogged it because I want to make this someday.

Beautiful sunset on our way from Ikea to the Jolly Pumpkin in Ann Arbor.  If you ever are in Ann Arbor, go there.  It was SO good.  {We were totally baby in a bar, baby at the wine table, people all weekend}

Alas, my L diddy was a trooper.  He slept (literally) the whole way home from Detroit, transferred to his bed and slept until 7:30 the next day.  Success

THEN, he slept the WHOLE way up to Traverse City.  We felt like our luck was turning.

Our room in Traverse.  It was SO nice.  We stayed at the Cherry Tree Inn.  They had buy a night, get a night half off.  We have taken to getting suites since we have so many kids.  It stinks when you have to turn the lights out at 8:00 because, if you don't, you will have she-bears for children the next day.  We are already planning on coming here again in the fall in 2016 with the kids.  They would LOVE it.

There was a TV in the mirror.  Eric was in heaven.  Yes, the man throne was right across from it.  He said he was never leaving.

One of the Cherry Places had a ball pit of...cherry pits!  Lincoln enjoyed eating them.

And face planting in them.

We took him swimming.  But we forgot his floatie.  He is so cute.

We didn't last long though.  The chlorine was at an epic high.  It was making me cough and I didn't want it to bother Lincoln's skin.

Went to get a luggage cart.  Lincoln looooved riding on them.  He fell over while I was pushing it and then just stayed as still as a statue the whole ride up.  With his fork.

The bedroom of our suite.

Wheerrrreeee's Lincoln?!  {Eric calls this my Eye of Mordor skirt}

There he is!

Our tub.  So nice.

The living area portion.

Our fireplace and TV

Wine tasting!

And then he slept, literally, the whole way home.  What a trooper.

The weather was SO nice while we were up there.  It was in the 60's all weekend.  We walked outside a ton and really enjoyed wine-tasting.

 Adelyn, Brecken and Joelle had sooo much fun at Papa and Nana's.  Nana (with some assistance from Papa) built them a castle to sleep in.  They spent lots of time at the park.  I'm sure they didn't want to come home ;)  Adelyn barfed the first night and I was a bit afraid of the flu.  But then she didn't do it again.  She was probably stressed out.  She always asks 4,352 questions before we do anything.  Where are you going?  Where are we going?  For how many days?  What are we going to do?  Where are we going to sleep?  Etc.  Any new situation we have to explain EXACTLY what's going to happen and how it's going to happen for her to feel comfortable.

Cuties on the slide at the park.

I texted these pictures to my brother and sister and said where was our castle?!  I also told my dad to pass on telling my children how old those sheep sheets are.  

No day is complete without sitting on your brother's head.

Super thankful for parents who will take our crazies!

A Picnic! In November!

Our fall has been SO nice.  We have been spending loads of time outside.  I finally had to put the kabosh on the glass jars outside.  They played with them everywhere.  But then they thought it would be a great idea to send them flying down the slide.  As you can imagine, one shattered all over the sandbox.  So that was fun to clean up.

They asked to have a picnic outside.  Who was I to say no when it was so nice out?

Lincoln in this one.  I look so nice.  ;)

 We had to have our last fire of the year too!  So much fun.