the rest of November {things of note}

{Note-many pics are just randomly placed in order of when they were taken.  Nothing to note because they are self explanatory}

 -Lots of Chiropractor visits.  After falling on the sidewalk {completely humiliating} my ribs were out & I kept visiting the chiro & finding them out again.  Totally frustrating.  I hate that feeling of not being able to freely take deep breaths.  It's getting better though and I'm down to one visit every other week for two times and then monthly for a couple months and then yearly.  Thanks goodness for cheap chiro copay's.

-One definite perk of having my chiropractor's office in Fruitland is that Amber can usually watch the boys for me which they love & helps me a ton.  I appreciate her being so willing and will miss having that option when she moves.  More so, I'll miss the boys not being able to play with the girls and her & me having multi week in-person chat sessions.

-Boys hanging at Taylor's.  They LOVE going to Taylor's and she is great with them.  She usually does some sort of art projects with Grayson while Beckham's sleeping and just gives them lots of attention, which I'm grateful for.

-I made a yummy S'mores dip {via Pinterest} that my mom had tested out previously.  I packaged it up cute & gave the kits to my Primary people who helped our program go so smoothly & successfully.

-Lots of home video watching with Daddy after work in the evenings.  Both boys want to sit on his lap and they laugh and clap at all the movies.  Definitely one of Zac's favorite daddy moments.

-On Saturday the 19th, we had a good day.  I went to a TSFL training in Boise while the boys played with Daddy at home for a few hours.  After the training I drove straight to Amber's house and we had a mini date to see the new Twilight movie.  Todd went out to our house to play Xbox with Zac & they dropped the boys at Cleaver's so they could play.  After our movie, the guys drove over and met us at Fiesta for dinner.  It was a fun date day/night out & we are so blessed with the natural-ness of their friendship.

-L&K and Jaeger came over for a chill evening on the 20th.  We love spending time with them.  It's a totem pole as far as who's the boss with Grayson, Jaeger, & Beckham, but eventually they'll all be best buds.

-The boys both ended up on Grandpa's lap for over an hour while Gray showed him all his games on my iPhone while we were over there one day.  Love those sweet moments.

 

-We welcomed a new person to our family, thanks to Grami Tami.  His name is Wally and he is a friendly scout elf.  For FHE on the 21st, we introduced him to our family, read his story, named him, and put him in his place for the evening.  Grayson is pretty in love with him and takes the rule about not touching him very seriously.  He tells everyone not to touch him because his magic will go away.  We've found Wally in some pretty silly places in the morning & the boys love searching for him.

-My darling friend Stephanie took some family pictures for the Pete side which was fun.  It was cold, so they didn't last long, but it was great to see that sweet girl and we appreciated her doing that for us. 

-Wednesday the 23rd was another fun and memorable day.  My cousin Trista babysat the boys while Zac and I got to go to the TranSiberian orchestra concert with the Pete crew {adults only}.  We took Doll and Megan in our car and had fun singing Buble' on the way over and laughing.  We went to the afternoon showing which was so nice because we weren't out super late.  Dad got amazing seats and the show was awesome, as usual.  I loved the new aspects this year, too.  So fun!  Afterward we went to eat at Winger's and had fun laughing and chatting.  I love that our family is close.  That we are friends and prefer to hang out with each other a lot of the time.  They are just all really great people.  We got home to the boys and Beckham had had a crash landing with Uncle Bob's fireplace before they came back to our house.  It looked pretty awful and she said it had shrunk by about 4 times!  Dang kid, he's going to be our hospital/stitches boy, I think.  He seemed fine so we put them to bed, but I'm not sure how to prevent his disasters except wrapping him in bubble wrap!  A good, good day.

-Thanksgiving day {24th} was wonderful.  We woke up early and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade & took crazy pictures on the couch.  Such a fun tradition to start with the kiddos. 

The Miner crew had come from Utah & L&L & kids from Camas, and we enjoyed playing with them and eating up all the good food and family time we had.  My contribution was a cauliflower "potato" salad.  It tastes delicious, but smells AWFUL.  When I took the lid off, the garage was filled with the smell of feet.  HahaBeckham fell asleep at naptime on Abbey and I offered to move him to the playpen at my mom's & she said, "nope, I'm good."  Haha, I love cuddling sleeping babies, too.

We got home & the girls agreed to spend the night & babysit while we attempted our first ever black Friday shopping excursion.  We got Beckham to bed around 8, turned the living room into a sleepover haven & got a Redbox put in for the girls & grayson to watch.  We left about 9:00 because Walmart was opening at 10:00.  We picked T&T up and headed over.  We had no idea what to expect and weren't going for anything in particular, so we weren't worried.  Wow.  It.was.crazy!  The entire parking lot was full and the parking lot next to it {home depot, children's place, etc.} was almost full too.  We parked a ways away and started over.  Zac was totally regretting our decision and when we got in the doors he wanted to run away or throw up.  It was CRAZY!  Tons of people, chaos, etc.  We didn't have anything in mind so headed to the kid's toys just for the heck of it.  We saw my cousin Jeremy & his wife Gwen, so we jumped on with them at the covered up Lego station.  We thought it was a super good deal on legos & the boys would love those, so why not? (:  When it hit 10 people were unwrapping like crazy & we both grabbed legos & ran...okay, not really.  You couldn't run.  Because the aisles were FULL of people/carts/kids, etc.  We just stood there happily with our boxes of legos and slowly moved with the crowd.  We also picked up {& held as we had no cart-people that did were super hard to move around} 2 big Disney books, a box of rubbermaid containers, a box of super hero costumes, a cars 2 track w/ cars, & a leapfrog laptop.  We got it all for super cheap and were happy with our purchases.  We saw many people we knew which was fun and just had a great time laughing at the craziness together.  After that we were all a bit addicted & thought about going to Nampa to the bigger stores, but I needed to check on our babies/sitters.  We got home and snuck in the garage door because it was super quiet.  Then I heard Grayson say, "mom?"  I looked in the living room and BOTH babysitters were out cold on the couch/floor & Grayson was awake watching Spiderman on Netflix!  Totally hilarious!  He was babysitting the girls!  He said, "I've been asking Abbey to give me a drink of juice..."  Haha!  I got him a quick drink and he was out within a few minutes, but those girls didn't move the rest of the night!  I decided I better stay home & sent Zac with T&T to Nampa.  Those crazy kids went to Best Buy & waited in line over 2 hours, but got what they wanted.  I watched 2 episodes on Netflix & ate a MF brownie & went to bed around 1.  Zac got home about 4am.  We all slept in the next morning.

-After a good sleep in morning on Friday, we dropped Sadie at my folks because she wasn't feeling great, picked up Taylor, and headed to Nampa.  We met up with my friend Jamie & her son Brody at a place called Jabbers.  It's an indoor play place and the boys had a ball.  It was great having Abbey to help entertain and rescue and such a cool place to chill and visit with Jamie and Taylor.  Grayson is our cautious kid & wasn't interested in going down the big slide-even though Abbey & Brody kept going. I'm thankful he isn't easily talked into things he doesn't feel good about doing because I hope that will help him in the future when faced with tough decisions.  With that said, I do try to encourage him to try new things-especially when I know he'll love them-and not be too hard on him if he chooses not to.  So, they played for a couple hours.  When I told him we had 5 more minutes, he let Abbey slide down with him on her lap.  Then he did it himself!  It was a pretty steep & fast ride {I tried a turn with him, too} and I was so proud of him for trying it out.  Of course he loved it and wanted to go several more times.  I'm glad he tried it before we left so he'll know that he likes it next time we go.  We bid farewell to Jamie & Brody and headed to Nampa.

I ran into Costco for a couple things, then we all did Target {the boys were about spent by this time but did so well} and finally got them lunch for the ride home.  That evening we hung out at my folks for a while.  Sandi cut Logan's hair and that was quite the experience!  We laughed a lot and she gave him several different looks before the final hair was cut.  Grandpa Alan gave Grayson a Yoda doll and Beckham a Darth Vader one {because they are obsessed} and they loved them.  Bex wouldn't put his down!  Star Wars happened to be on tv that night, so they cuddled and watched with Grandpa for a while.  We all thoroughly enjoyed each other's company.  So grateful for our family.

-Saturday the 26th was spent having Thanksgiving with Zac's family.  I was having an off day right from the get go.  Not to give too much information, but it was time for my cycle to begin and I was incredibly emotional.  I'm usually somewhat emotional around this time of the month, but this day was way worse for some reason.  I was extremely sensitive and just knew it would be a long day when I was already crying about something dumb early in the morning.  We got everything ready & headed to Cleaver's around 1:00.  We were a bit late, but it was okay.  We enjoyed the lunch-everything was wonderful-and the company.  Afterward we captured a quick group shot with the self timer on the camera.  Grayson was acting up a bit and lots of people were getting after him and I finally said kind of loudly that he's just 3 and to give him a break.  Yeah, I was a bit sensitive. (:  Throughout the rest of the afternoon things continued to just get on my nerves that usually wouldn't.  I was just overly emotional about everything and probably should have just gone home.  Some of the siblings left around 4 or so and we stayed for a while longer.  Em finally grabbed me and asked what was up and I just lost it.  Totally bawling and expressing my feelings of inadequacy in parenting, feeling judged by everyone else about how I parent my kids, feeling out of control & not knowing what the heck I'm doing the majority of the time, and feeling responsible for bad behavior.  Feelings of loving & being super frustrated with my kids at the same time.  Being mad, but fiercely protective simultaneously.  Feelings of wanting them to be kids, but expecting far too much-especially with my oldest.  So many thoughts running together out of my mouth.  And you know what Em did?  She listened.  She let me cry-unattractively-and she sympathized.  She didn't pass judgment.  She didn't try to sugar coat it or tell me I'm the best mom.  She just listened and let me vent.  It was just what I needed.  We left after that & got the boys in the tub & food in their tummies.  I got freshened up and then Zac offered to watch Star Wars with the boys & get them in their jammies while I went to Benjamin Boster's reception.  I was happy for the break and time to think and enjoyed it.  I loved seeing Andrew and Joseph and their sweet families.  It is so fun to see "my boys" as daddies and husbands.  I just love them.  Got home to the three I love most and went to bed.  Zac was completely sweet and understanding all day and I am so grateful for him.  I really don't know what came over me today.

-Sunday the 27th Grayson had a great time in his primary class.  Because he'll be a sunbeam in January, we've been taking the older nursery kids out during third hour of church & they have a class. The teacher is my aunt Alison and she is amazing with the kiddos.  He was SO excited about his lesson about Daniel & the Lions den.  He also learned about eating healthy food & had a mini lesson to teach us.  When we got to my folks for lunch he gathered us all together and taught us the lesson.  Adorable. {the first face below is the expression he makes & calls his 'mean face.'  I used to do something similar}

-That night we spent decking our halls with holly for Christmas.  I LOVE December and everything about this time of year, so the fact that Grayson loves it {like crazy loves it} totally makes me happy.  Beckham was so excited to help too, and only one ornament was broken in the decorating process.  We listened to Christmas music and enjoyed each other's company.  I LOVE my family and our little home looks so cute!

-Grayson made homemade bread at preschool on Monday the 28th after learning about the Little Red Hen.  He was pretty proud of that loaf of bread but declared it "super yucky" after trying it.  It wasn't really, but he wasn't impressed.  We hung at Grami's for a couple hours & the boys were ecstatic that Grandpa was putting lights on his house and that Grami had all her Christmas decor out.  Grayson kept remarking to Beckham things like, "This was my favorite a few years ago!, I Love this one best Beckham, don't touch the ornaments-just look!, I remember this exactly the same spot!"  I loved his enthusiasm and watching him share it with Beckham.  They wandered and played with the Nativity for a while and were really good. 

Zac suggested a weeknight date to the Home Depot that night to look around for items to put in our dream home binder.  His logic is that if we build a home someday we won't want to just decide at that time what we like & don't like.  We'll want to plan well in advance what materials we like, what brands/colors, etc., so that we can plan our budget and be prepared.  I was on board, so we left Grayson at Jaeger's to play {he'd been gone for several days to Rigby so they were missing each other} and took Beckham with us.  We wandered the aisles and realized how completely clueless and naive we are when it comes to building a house.  We took one of every pamphlet & brochure we could find and decided we needed to ask Julie & look at her house binder before going any further. (:  We need an initial plan because it was overwhelming thinking of all the tiny & large details. 

 

-Zac and I were chilling {him playing xbox & me cuddled next to him with my book/quilt} and I went to check on the boys.  I found them each asleep with their respective mini Christmas trees next to them.  I'm pretty sure Grayson had done this and I loved the whole situation.  That they were sleeping with them, that he'd made sure to include Beckham in this silly idea, and that they are both such Holiday lovers.  I also LOVE Gray's animals above his bed.  He arranges them like this a couple times a week and can know within a minute if one is missing.

 

-The boys have been having many more periods of playing nicely together which I am LOVING.  They especially like building with blocks and do pretty well.  I hope their relationship continues to strengthen and grow.  

-Becca & kids got a new puppy-named Tilly-and Gray was dying to meet her.  We went over for an hour one night {wed. 30th} and enjoyed the sweet puppy and the kiddos.  Bec & I chatted which is always fun.  And that was the end of our November!