November 2014

Construction continued to move along next door. In the morning we unknowingly enjoyed our view out the dining room window of the mountains that we have come to love for the last time and by lunchtime it was gone. Forever. Now with the second story built out, you can see nothing but wall. Bye! Bye! Mountains! I guess I should just be grateful that they didn't put a window on that wall. At least we can still use our window for light during the day! 

Camden wants to do everything -EVERY THING- that Ryan or Brady do. I don't think I put Ryan on a "big boy swing" until he was well over three. Here Camden is swinging at 20 months. He just wants so badly to be one of the big boys!

I got some money for my birthday this year (back in October). I love getting money for my birthday. I tuck it away in my wallet until I come across something I really love. Like that one morning in November when I went into Hobby Lobby to browse until Costco opened and found this cute "hello" sign that I just had to have

and this most perfect, exactly what I had in mind for that space, window-looking mirror. The hello sign was on sale and I had a coupon for the mirror. It was a happy day. :)

I bought Roxy what hopefully will be her last collar. It's leather and pretty sturdy and cost me $3. (Thank you clearance section at PetsMart!) It's crazy because she had the same collar for the first 4 years of her life, but since moving here a little over a year ago she's been through 3 different collars. Like I said before, hopefully this will be the last collar I ever buy. I think it looks good on her. I like it.

Camden loves dropping Fischer and Brady off at preschool on Monday and Fridays. For a long time I would have to take him home in tears because he wanted to stay with Brady, but he has finally reached a point where he knows the drill. He likes to walk with them to the stairs (he refuses to let me carry him) and then turns around and walks back to the van and gets in his carseat all by himself, no problem. I can tell he feels really big walking to and from the car on his own. He is such an adoring little brother and Brady is so kind and gentle to him. They were made to be brothers.

I am currently trying to figure out what Camden's nap schedule is (does it ever end?!). He seems to prefer two naps a day, but usually ends up taking one way too late in the evening for my taste. I have been trying to transition him down to one mid-afternoon nap with little success. One evening as I was getting dinner ready he pulled the kitchen sink mat up and set up a little rest spot by the fridge.

We had a cold spell in November. There were a couple days where it got chilly. Not so chilly we couldn't jump on the trampoline but more like a "this could be the beginning of winter" chilly. We were wrong. It was not, in fact, the beginning of winter. It only lasted a couple days and it's been beautiful (like in the 60s) weather ever since. It's just been in the last week that we've dropped into the 40s. That is crazy for Utah... but I'm not complaining!

Some snow snuck it's way into November. It only stayed for about a day and a half- but it was very exciting nonetheless.

Speaking of figuring out (or not) nap schedules...

and...

and...

One morning after we dropped the older two off at school Camden and I went downstairs and cleaned the toy room. While we were putting everything away, Camden came across two plastic spiders. He must have seen Ryan or Brady scaring me with the spiders before because he knew exactly what to do with them. He spent the rest of the morning chasing me from room to room yelling/singing "Bye-da! Bye-da!" It just might have been the cutest thing I have ever seen.

Zach secured his spot as Dad of the Year and took Ryan to a home football game at BYU. Ryan has been dreaming of going to a game since before the season even started. It was their last home game and ended up being a really fun game to watch as BYU slaughtered the other team 64-0. It was terrible weather but they went anyway. The weather turned just as they were meeting a guy to buy tickets and the nice guy ended up giving Zach and Ryan the tickets plus a few more. Score!

I attempted to put up the Christmas tree and get it decorated while they were at the game. An impossible task with two little "helpers" around. I had one who just wanted to take all the ornaments out of the boxes to look at the them and then toss them aside and another who loved to take the ornaments off the tree (especially the ball ones) and throw them on the ground. So in the end, I had a huge mess in the the living room and a fairly bare tree. Thank goodness for nap and quiet time or that tree would have never been decorated!

I put up the tree a week before Thanksgiving since I knew we'd be traveling to St. George the next week and by the time we got back it would be December. I didn't put up any of my other decorations until after we got home, however, because it seemed wrong to put away Thanksgiving decorations before Thanksgiving.

For whatever reason, I had the grand idea of rearranging the office the day we were supposed to leave for St. George for a week. I literally didn't pack a single thing for the St. George trip until the office was rearranged. I love how it looks now- but the timing could have been a little more sensible. It left me pretty stressed out trying to throw everything together for our trip just a couple hours before we were scheduled to leave.

With this new arrangement I can fit an extra chair and can hang some curtains I bought specifically for the office. Unfortunately, the desk is not a perfect fit on the other wall- it's a few inches short on either side- so I see a Spring project in my future. I found a tutorial online on how to make a table top for a desk that I think will be more sturdy and better in the long run anyway so I am kind of excited to take it on.

We left for St. George literally two hours after I finally got the office put back together and took these pictures.

Thanksgiving post to come!