November randomness

I can't believe how quickly the month of November came and went. The end of the year always seems to fly by and Christmas is creeping up too quickly here. I still have a lot to do before it arrives. 

Here are just a few random shots I took throughout the month.

We started the month with a trip to the Smith Center to see "Wicked". I was actually going to make it a girls date, but when Brendan heard me talking about it he wanted to go too. It surprised me, but he enjoyed it as much as us girls. He even remembers parts and songs I had forgotten about. It really was such a fun afternoon, it got a little long for Emery, but she still talks about. Just so fun to be able to experience something like that with them. Something we certainly want to do again. While we were gone, Corey took the older boys out to dinner. They wanted to go to outback and ate gigantic steaks, so a good night for them. Although not nearly as cultural as ours.

  

Emery loves to have her nails painted, one afternoon she gave me a pedicure too. She did a pretty good job. She did half of my toes blue and the other half mint green. She never can just use one color, in fact, we usually have to one color for each nail or make some kind of pattern. Typical Emery, she likes what she likes and knows what she wants.

 

I took down Halloween and put up some Thanksgiving decor, only I felt like it was up for two seconds before we were decorating for Christmas. It's been so much fun to have an actual mantle to decorate though. 

At the end of the month, Corey and I also made a trip to Katy, Texas. My parents were kind enough to take off work and come take care of our kids so we could go. Corey's work had a big event for the master planned community they are developing there and I was able to tag along. It was overcast and rainy the whole time we were there though. The sun didn't come out until the day we left.  The first couple of days we were there, Corey was busy with work, but we were able to do some exploring and we found the Houston Temple. I love being able to see places that are new to me. And it's always nice to get away together and take a little break.

Emery's kindergarten class had a little Thanksgiving program and feast. Her class had been practicing a poem and she had been so excited about it. Then about an hour before, then she started to get nervous and started melting down and had a little freak out. She didn't even want to go. I convinced her to go, but she was clinging on to my legs for dear life. Then all of the sudden, another typical Emery moment, she just decided to get in line with her class, said the poem and acted like nothing had ever been wrong. That kid....

My girls also played trains all month long. They set up a track in the dining room and it was there all month. Every free moment, they were playing with them. I felt bad when we finally had to clean it up for our Thanksgiving dinner. 

We spent our Thanksgiving at our house this year. It was our year to spend it with Corey's family, but with Corey's parents away on their mission, the rest of the family was going to be a little spread out. We invited those that could to come and spend it with us. His brother Jeremy and his family was able to come and spent the whole weekend with us. We loved having them and our kids had a great time with their kids. Corey's sister and her family also came for Thanksgiving day and spent the night with us. I am terrible taking pictures sometimes at our gatherings. I was busy preparing food and visiting, and just having such a good time, I just forgot. We did have a great time shopping together too. I even found these cute canisters that had to come home as an early Christmas present to myself.  The house was a little crowded and I always stress over the meal, but it was all worth it for the time we were able to spend together. I am truly grateful to have such good family to spend time with.