The beginning of November was full of ordinary days. The exciting part of the month came at the end, when I took a 2 day trip to San Francisco and then road tripped back to Arizona with my brother, we celebrated another successful Planks-giving Thanksgiving and then ran full speed ahead into our Christmas hoopla. Individual posts on those events, coming soon!

For now, let's focus on the little moments of fun that made up the first part of the month.

Man Cub started gymnastics with Miss Katie... the same amazing teacher that both Sunshine and Beebs went to. Miss Katie stopped teaching for awhile and I thought Man Cub was going to miss out on the gymnastics fun that Sunshine and Beebs both enjoyed. We were so excited when Miss Katie started teaching again!

The stars aligned and Shark Bait fit into our Spartan track suit at the same time that the weather cooled down. Go green! 

We celebrated the birthday of one of Man Cub's best friends with a morning at the park and breakfast at Kneaders, with dinosaurs in tow. 

We finally made it over to the recently opened American Girl store to drop a couple of well loved dolls off at the doll hospital. Sunshine's doll was in need of, ahem, a new head due to some epically bad hair. And Beebs' doll needed her leg reattached. My doll went along for the ride and got a new dress while we were there. Ü 

Beebs drew an awesome picture of a costume parade. One of my favourite drawings she's ever done!

Shark Bait kept growing, despite my best efforts to stop him. 

We decorated for Christmas, a week into the month, as usual. 

We discovered termites! I found termite trails in the spare bathroom when I was cleaning one day and we got an exterminator out as soon as we could. He found a whole colony of them living in the walls between the bathroom and our food storage closet. Shudder. So glad to know those suckers are gone now. 

 We washed the cars, Man Cub's little police car included, before checking the forecast. Of course one of our handful of rainy days for the year was predicted for the next day. We changed that 70% chance to a 100% chance. You're welcome, Arizona.

Beebs experimented with some new fashions. I personally love the 80s side ponytail on her. 

We went on lots of walks, soaking up the beautiful fall weather as much as we could. Bruce and the boys put their matching skull beans to use on one particularly cool day.

Shark Bait kept on growing, and his little itty bitty baby Uggs fit him just in time for the cold weather. Did you even know baby Uggs were a thing!? They were adorable and so soft and snuggly. I love that he got to wear them all through the winter. 

Beebs continued to absolutely adore her baby brother. 

I gained a new nephew when my brother, T, bought himself a Newfoundland named Horatio. 

Beebs shocked us all when she won her school Turkey Trot, coming in several yards ahead of everyone else and not even breaking a sweat. She's fast and running seems to come quite naturally to her. I'm excited to take her out on some runs with me as she gets older. 

The dolls arrived home from the doll hospital and looked so darling in their hospital gowns and socks. 

Beebs' November school project was to make something out of candy. For some reason or another, I wasn't home to work on it with her, so she and Bruce took on this project. I love what they came up with! A candy and construction paper version of Splash Mountain. 

And last, but not least, we took our Disney's Descendants loving girls to the mall to meet a few of the cast members. They stood in line, got some autographs and thought we were pretty awesome parents. Hopefully they'll remember that as we get older, and less cool. 

Now, on to the holiday festivities! 

Halloween Festivities

I already wrote about our Halloween evening and Trick or Treat fun, but there are other Halloween festivities that I still need to document. In May. Slowly but surely, folks. Slowly but surely.

First- Bruce drew me this awesome picture to include with my Halloween decor. I love it! He typically doesn't use colour when he draws, so that touch makes this particular picture extra special.

I took as many opportunities as possible to dress Shark Bait in his various costumes. Turns out, he has quite the collection! 

Ultimately, he dressed as a little green alien from Toy Story for on actual Halloween. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of him that day! But I have one from two months earlier when I ordered his costume and had to try it on him immediately after it was delivered. I can't believe how big it was on him then. And by Halloween, it almost didn't fit!

Instead of a Halloween costume party at school, the girls had "dress as your favourite book character" day. I panicked, thinking that meant they had to have a separate costume. Turns out, it is just the "politically correct" way of having Halloween at school? I don't know... I just know that I put together two totally different costumes for them and then found out from the teachers at school that they would've been just fine showing up dressed as Jessie and Buttercup from Toy Story. Oh well. We had fun putting together Laura Ingalls and Room on the Broom Witch costumes. I think Beebs' costume turned out particularly good. I made the skirt out of a Goodwill purchased t shirt. Not too bad, right?! 

We had an actual Halloween party in Preschool. None of this "favourite book character" stuff. Man Cub rocked his Woody costume. I love my handsome little guy!

We skipped our ward Trunk or Treat, but did attend my father in law's with him. It was a lot of fun to see old friends and Man Cub was pretty excited to get even more candy.

Our Halloween was a good one! Lots of fun costumes, lots of yummy treats, and lots of fun with family and friends. We couldn't have asked for more.