Backing Up to November

I have been seriously lacking in blogging motivation lately.  I don't know why... maybe because I wait so long to upload pictures and then I have a million of them and don't know where to start.  So I'm over a month behind with posting pictures. :(  Anyway, here's what happened at the middle/end of November...

My sister, Becky, now lives in Iowa with her new hubs and she was able to come down for the weekend in the middle of November, so we went down to my parents' house to visit with her.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pics of her... just ones of the boys!  Standard, I guess.  

J and E were very happy to be out of the car and at Grandy and Popeye's... after running around for a few minutes they happily snuggled up with Grandy to read some books.  We usually get down there pretty late because we have to wait to leave town until Phil is done with work for the day.    

We had really nice/hot weather in November so we enjoyed lots of time outside.  Here are E and my nephew Cameron making a mud track for their trucks around the pool patio...

The boys just LOVE following my dad around while he does his chores.  Their favorite thing (other than helping to feed the horses) is driving the tractor.  J is quite the good driver.  :)

Here's Reid just looking cute playing some golf...

Later that day my dad hooked up his little trailer and took the boys for a "hayride" and this is now a regular occurrence every time we go visit.  This is the same trailer he uses to haul horse manure around, but the boys didn't seem to mind.  They are never dirtier than when they are at my parents' "farm", but they love it so much there that I wouldn't have it any other way!

Reid climbed up on this chair to check on my parents' and sister's dogs, who were locked in the laundry room during dinner one night...  Reid LOVES dogs.  :)

Oh my gosh, the pool water at my parents' house was like 55 degrees or something, but that didn't stop fearless Emmett from jumping in and swimming for a while!  All of us adults just cringed every time he jumped in and I was sure he was going to get sick from it, but he was fine.  After a little while he stood in front of me just shaking like a leaf and said, "Mom, I'm so cold.... I want to snuggy in the warm towel!" so I wrapped him up and we got warm in the sun.  :)

More hayrides... this time with my nephew and niece, too!

After that weekend we went home for about 10 days since Phil had to work and the boys had school.  Reid, Emmett, and I went to school one day to have a Thanksgiving feast with J's class.  They made these cute turkey headbands...

Looking at that placemat you can tell that my oldest doesn't have much patience for coloring inside the lines!  

Then the next day Reid and I went to Emmett's "feast".  When I walked in this is how I saw E... maybe a little un-politically correct but super cute nonetheless!  :)

Looking at this picture almost gives me hives... I don't know how his teacher has the energy and patience for all of those 3-year-olds!  She is amazing.

Here we are all loaded up to leave the condo and go back to Ocala for Thanksgiving.  Usually I pack and load everything up myself and then we meet Phil at the base after work and leave from there.  Ugh... it is such a job to do all of that by myself with how huge I am right now.  I go down to the ground floor to get a cart, then come back up to the condo and load it up with all of our stuff (including cranky Reid just up from a nap), then herd everyone back downstairs while trying to drive this cart while also pulling my suitcase and making sure Reid doesn't fall off, and then load it all up in the minivan.  Whew!  But we manage it somehow.

It was really cold when we got to Ocala that night and my mom was waiting up for us on the couch all snuggled up with her robe on and covered in this warm blanket.  The boys ran right in to snuggy with her (and demon-possessed Holly) and get warm.  It was so cute!

A few days before Thanksgiving my sister watched Reid for us so Phil and I could take J and E to Orlando to visit some of our friends from Alaska who were vacationing at Disney.  We didn't do the parks, but just met them at their hotel and spent the day at the pool.  I can't believe I didn't get any pictures of all of us together!  It was really fun to see everyone and their kids.  And kind of funny to see all of us in this different stage of life... when we lived in AK together we were all newly married with no kids and much more carefree.  :)

They stayed at the new Art of Animation resort, which was really neat!  The boys loved seeing the life-sized Cars characters outside of the hotel.

Aaand... that's it! Like I said, I could kick myself for not taking more pictures.  :(

Anyway, then it was Thanksgiving, and I didn't get many pics of that day, either!  My grandparents and  aunts, uncles, and cousins came over to my parents' house for the day and we had such a nice time visiting.  The boys all loved riding bikes together... although we warned them several times not to ride around the pool and, sure enough, J and his bike fell in the pool after dinner.  Luckily he fell in the shallow end and was able to just stand up and let me pull him out, so no one had to jump in after him.  He wasn't hurt at all... just cold and scared... and isn't it nice sometimes as a parent when natural consequences happen (without anyone getting hurt) and the kiddos see that you actually know what you're talking about when you tell them not to do things??  Was that bad to say out loud?  :)

More hayrides... gosh they all really love this!!

Snuggling with Popeye after baths...

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we went to pick out a Christmas tree for my parents' house... and what a different experience that was than our last four years of Christmas-tree-picking!  It took all of five minutes and actually made me really sad because our Oregon tree-cuttings were one of my favorite things about living there.  :(  But we did get a really pretty tree, and it smelled so good under that tree tent!
 

My dad and sister seriously have the sweetest horses.  Even the young ones just love to be petted and be around the kids.  They will actually walk over to the fence when we're all playing in the yard and watch the boys and wait to be petted.  The boys, of course, are usually loud and running around or riding bikes and the horses are never scared.  We just love them!

After Thanksgiving Phil had to go to Oregon to fly for two weeks, so I stayed in Ocala for another week for some company.  We stayed at my sister's house so the kiddos could all play together and my sis and I could have some quality time together.  Leslie and her family are always so kind to put us up and host us whenever we need it! It was super warm after Thanksgiving and Emmett requested that Uncle Charles set up the pool in the backyard, which he kindly did.  They had a blast!

Reid and my niece, Olivia, are about 4 months apart and are so super cute together.  They make each other laugh and are just like two partners in crime.

Right before we left to go back to the condo we went back to my parents' for a few days.  Here's E watching and waiting patiently for Grandy to get home from work...

And helping Popeye wash his truck...

And J riding sweet Gus...

And the boys were just dying to decorate the tree so Grandy let them go to town the day before we left....

I'm not gonna lie... I was having a pretty rough time of things by the end of our trip.  E was acting up a lot and causing me major stress and with my overactive hormones I was kind of a wreck at times.  Plus since Phil is around so much and helps so much when he's home it makes it extra hard when he's gone (not that I'm complaining about the help... Phil is wonderful).  Anyway, I took this sweet picture of the boys sleeping to remind me of what true blessings they are even when things are rough.

So that was our November pretty much.  I'm going to try to be better about posting smaller, quick blogs more often, but who knows if that will actually happen!  :)