November

November was a good month for us. This little guy keeps us quite busy. For me the two biggest things that went on this month was Young Women in Excellence and Thanksgiving. 

I have to say this year our Young Womens leaders put in a lot of hours for Young Women in Excellence and it paid off. Our theme was "A night of Stars" A couple of weeks before we had a YW activity where we taught the girls about modesty and the girls got to try on and wear formal dresses donated by members of the ward. So for Young Women in Excellence we made it a "red carpet"event, like the Academy Awards. The girls wore formal dresses and were escorted to their seats by the Young Men who were dressed in their suits, and the girls gave acceptance speeches with receiving their awards.

Each girl got a rose and had a little talk on how they came closer to Christ that year. It was really amazing and the testimonies that the girls gave, they are extraordinary. 

This backdrop (aka the monstrosity) was the bane of my existence for weeks before that night. It took me so much time, but it turned out alright. Except for the Jesus blob front and center. Luckily when the girls took their pictures in front of it, their heads covered that up.

But we had a pretty good time. This is my neighbor Abby who is a blast and watches James every other Monday so I can get a tiny bit of sleep. Her little girls pronounce his name jay-miss, its adorable. Here we are making different flavors of popcorn. The best one by the way was the coconut popcorn, I still have dreams about it.

After that we enjoyed a nice break for a while. James turned 8 months old this month and he keeps growing and changing in fun ways.

He loves trying new foods as long as they aren't mashed up like "baby food." His favorite foods are cutie oranges and goldfish crackers. And his constant companion through out each meal is Poodee. She starts to jump up and down as soon as I put James in his bumbo because she knows that he's about to drop something and then... free meal! She'll stay faithfully in front of him until I put him down on the floor for her to clean him up.

Also this month he learned to love taking baths. He discovred that splashing mommy is really fun. If I let him he would probably stay in there all day.

We also enjoyed having Matt, Annicka, an Macie stay with us for Thanksgiving. I really wanted to get a bunch of cooked turkey frozen for Turkey Delux, so I decided to make a turkey. And if you're going to make a turkey then you have to make gravy from the drippings, and if you make gravy then you have to make mashed potatoes, and if I make mashed potatoes then I have to make mashed sweet potatoes for Sean, then to even it out you have to make a salad so why not Jello salad, and hey I might as well throw in some rolls, and that is how I made thanksgiving dinner for my siblings. But we had a good time. After a few hours Macie started to warm up to people, and James learned to photo bomb.

In all it was a great month, we did lots. Now for a little break before we delve into the Christmas season.