As soon as Halloween was over, we
decorated for Thanksgiving! It's been so fun to decorate for each
holiday in our new house. The funny part about decorating for
Thanksgiving... is that it came down within 2 weeks of it going up, so
we could decorate for Christmas.
Abby
knew she looked cute this day and was in such a good mood. We were on
our way to the mall in Grandma Vicki's car and she said "I'm so happy"!
This
is Kip and Napoleon, I mean Noah and Abby - riding around the
neighborhood with Noah's contraption. Abby loved it and I love that Noah
likes to entertain her.
Abby
and I took a trip to Chandler mall one day (she chose her Minnie Mouse
high heels) and for the first time, I kind of let Abby call the shots.
Other than the shopping I had to do in Gap, Abby picked everything else.
She picked what she wanted for lunch, where she wanted to sit, and what
she wanted to do. I let her ride on the quarter-machine rides and she
was in HEAVEN! I loved seeing her so happy and realized I need to slow
down and do that kind of stuff more often.
Abberdeen is the queen deen. She loves to cuddle on mom & dad's bed.
We
visited our Veteran grandpas' graves on Veterans Day this year. It was a
perfect time to be at the Mesa Cemetery because as we were there, a
military plane formation flew overhead in honor of the Vets.
Abby had slept over at Grandma & Poppy's house the night before with cousins and was so tired!
After
the Mesa Cemetery, we headed over to Riggs's cemetery where we left a
plant and had a picnic with Grandma, aunts, and cousins.
November is the month that the tv
wall was finally completed! I've posted some of these pictures before
but I wanted to include them all in the same post to see the
progression:
1) Russ's 3-D diagram of what the wall would look like, along with a BEFORE picture of the wall.
2) Russ framed out the wall and added plywood over the top so that he would have something to nail the pallet pieces to.
3)Russ also created an in-set for the tv and wired lights in. Who knew he was such a handyman?!
4)
We stained the plywood so that if there was any space showing between
any of the pallets, it would be dark in color and not obvious that there
were gaps.
5) We had found a guy on Craigslist
that sold pallet wood, removed from the pallets. That was a great thing
to not have to pull pallets apart, and his price was awesome too. We
lightly sanded the boards and then stained most of them also. Some
boards were a good color to start with but most were not. We mixed
together a dark brown color with a gray stain. The ratio of the two
colors was different for each of the 3 or 4 batches we did, but the
boards blend together really well since the same 2 colors are used
throughout. Also seen in this picture are the floating shelves to the
sides and the big shelf under the tv.
6) Russ built an access door to be able to get to the tv wires easily, and he also built a frame to sit around the tv. Here is the finished wall. I LOVE it!
Noah
and Sophie had parts in the Primary Program mid-November. I wondered if
it would be their last, since next year at this time they will both be
12 years old and in young men / young women (insert sad face). I think
next year the Primary Program will be earlier in the year though, so
maybe they still have one more!
Abby
has become a little more comfortable in dance class. All semester, they
have been practicing their "happiest Christmas tree" dance for their
recital, and Abby got her hat to try on this day. haha!!
Notice how high up Abby's skirt was pulled. hahahaha!
Noah
finished up his season on the i9 basketball league and sadly, his team
finished in last place out of the 4 teams in that age group. All season
long, we laughed about how Noah was for once not the biggest / tallest
player on his team. Noah always gave his effort even if he was the only
one on the team doing so. He was fun to watch even if his team didn't win much.
Whenever Ellie gets a hold of Abby, she dresses her in something random and also styles her hair. So funny!
We had the Hess and Westover
families come to town for the week of Thanksgiving and Abby was in
Heaven with all those cousins being around! Noah was too - the Westovers stayed with us and Noah had so much fun with George. Here are Abby and Otto walking hand in hand at Grandpa's house..
... and Abby trying on Grandpa's hat.
Thanksgiving
Day, we had lunch in Grandma Price's backyard. The weather was perfect
and Abby really enjoyed her personal-size pumpkin chiffon pie!
Cousins Annie & Abby :)
Russ after Thanksgiving dinner!
The
day after Thanksgiving, we took a trail ride in the Teryx around
Grandpa's property and all around it. It was pretty cold outside but we
had a good time.
We
also built a little bonfire in our backyard that night and ate dinner,
made smores, and tried to play a few games (that didn't quite work out
haha)!
Davis really loved his marshmallow!
We did our annual bike ride / football game on Saturday after Thanksgiving. Abby didn't really ride in Ellie's basket!
We really missed Riggs playing in that football game with us but I have no doubt that he was there with us in spirit that day!
Grandma
& Poppy played their guessing game with the grandkids where they
show their can full of coins and everyone guesses how much is in there.
Russ helped Abby guess and whadayaknow, she was the winner! She won
somewhere around $55 from Grandma & Poppy. We held out money for her
to pay tithing, she is using some to buy her sibling gift exchange
present, she got to keep some out to buy herself a toy, and the rest
went into her bank account.
That picture above wasn't very cute so we had to take a new one the next day!
