November

 I have a plenitude of pictures to post and many exciting things to write about for December, so let's just get through November so we can get on to the good stuff. It's the American way. (Poor ol' Thanksgiving.)

Here we are, a few highlights of the month of November.

• Eve continued to be smiley and happy, and started to work on sucking her thumb. Her strategy was to throw her fist up to her eye (it was, literally, hand-eye coordination) and then drag her hand down to her mouth while trying to catch any one of her fingers in her mouth, although she was most content when it was her thumb. By the end of the month, about 75% of her attempts would result in a thumb in her mouth. I've never seen a baby so focused and so determined to develop a skill, something that didn't just happen instinctively. Even though thumb-sucking has its drawbacks (chapped little hands, for one,) I was thrilled for her every time the thumb triumphed.

• November marked month 5 of potty training. That's all I'm going to say about that.
• Charlie brought home an invitation to a "Fall Festival" in his class, the last day before the Thanksgiving break, which was to include a little Thanksgiving feast and a little program for the parents. The morning of the festival, the first thing Charlie said when he woke up was "My tummy hurts."  I immediately knew that was a ploy to get out of going to school, because he never says that his tummy hurts when he's actually sick. To this day, we have not been able to discover the truth of why he chose a punishment (to stay in his room alone ALL DAY,) rather than go to school that day. Some explanations were offered by the truant himself, some were hypothesized by his parents (see if you can guess which is which): he didn't want to eat turkey dinner two days in a row; he didn't want to go behind a black curtain; he didn't want to perform in a program; he didn't really know exactly what to expect or what was expected of him. He has not one time, before or since, expressed a desire to stay home from school, even when he had a similar holiday festival in December. Even after talking to his teacher, the incident remains a complete mystery to me. 
• For the Thanksgiving break, Will's family came from Virginia, Arizona and Utah and we got to stay home. Which was a blessing, because adjusting to being a family of five has been a slow process for us, and we were not ready at that point to venture more than a few miles from home. And the kids loved having their cousin Hunter stay with us, he's a really fun kid. We all enjoyed watching his antics on the baby monitor as he tried every trick he could think of to keep himself awake. Side note: video baby monitors are the best thing that has happened to parenting since...regular baby monitors. But really, no flapdoodle about it, they are completely worth the money.
• We shared our Thanksgiving meal with Lori and Sean and their in-laws, which was a nice way to split up the food duties among as many different parties as we could. Many hands make...much food. For the second year in a row we had an unofficial turkey contest: we cooked one turkey at Lori's house, and one at our house, and then compared.  I was probably the only one who was comparing, because it seems like I'm in an eternal quest to find the "perfect" way to cook a turkey, and I continually meet with disappointment... But never mind that. It was a delicious meal, and Will's mom makes the best sweet potatoes ever, so I was happy. 

The Kid Table.
Don't those plates of food look tasty? Twenty minutes later they still looked that good.
Because without adult supervision, no one was eating anything. 

Charlie just saw that there was avocado on his salad...

Hunter got to have yogurt for Thanksgiving dinner. Lucky!

• Having Will's family come to us for Thanksgiving worked out as a great time to do Eve's blessing, and my parents were also able to join us. Unfortunately, I had to lead choir practice right after church, and by the time I was home, I found kids sleeping, family leaving to catch planes and no opportunity for the traditional blessing day family picture. Sigh. 

Give Will a pat on the back and an "attaboy" next time you see him;
he made sure to get a picture of Eve on her blessing day
before someone changed her clothes.

I threw in this picture of Charlie at about the same age as Eve, below,
to show how similar our babies look. Original Recipe, as our friends say.
The similarity is even more dramatic between Antonia and Eve,
but I don't currently have access to baby pictures of Antonia. Long story...

"I am a pretty calm baby"

Evie loves her goofy big sister.

Evie loves her sweet big brother

•  After Thanksgiving, Will and I hunkered down in preparation for our annual Month of Mayhem, which is really the first two weeks of December. It's madness. Madness, I tell you. More about that next time...