Novhember

In November the Primary was in charge of a Ward Talent Night. We wanted it to be more of a show-and-tell, where people felt free to share all kinds of talents, not just "performance" ones. We had display tables out and got a good selection of interesting talents—embroidered stockings, paintings, a rocking chair someone had made—someone even makes hats! So that was cool. I hope if we do it next year we'll have even more displays. It's cool to see some of people's hobbies and interests you never get to see otherwise. Sam said he had an easier time talking to people than at any previous ward activity, because there was something so easy to talk about!

Junie and Marigold both did beautiful drawings for the display table. These are Marigold's "feast stations" where she drew all her favorite foods and how you'd put them together into crepes, pancakes, waffles, etc. in a buffet.

I wish I had a closer-up picture of Junie's drawing. It was all different kinds of fruit.

Daisy displayed a bunch of her crocheted food and the Darth Vadar she made for Ziggy. I love the little box of chocolates best!

Malachi set up a table with his playing card collection, and sat and did card tricks for people. It was hugely popular and he was surrounded by admiring throngs all night long. I worry that he has possibly sold his soul to the devil to learn these card tricks? Some of them seem completely impossible without actual magic.

I made ten dozen rolls to go with the soups and chilis people brought. Yum!

Other November moments…

• Ziggy and Gus "nursing" their Caws on the stairs

• Building dams at the lake for a homeschool lesson

• Going through a carwash

• Clementine's tiny pigtails (Sam refused to even acknowledge them as pigtails. He said they were—at most—just "spikes"). But the older girls were very proud of them.

• Clemmie in her tiny gold dress

• Hiding behind a stack of chairs in Primary

• After walking home from church

• Piggy pajamas (Junie claims to remember wearing these herself!)

• We were listening to music during our pre-Thanksgiving Fall cleaning, when the music from the Nutcracker came on. After that there was no getting these girls to do any work.

The boys joined in

I love Gus's arms in this picture. Such a graceful ballet pose!

• The girls had the funniest idea one day to do a puppet show out the upstairs window. We sat in the library downstairs and watched it. One of them stood in the room with us and narrated while the other one leaned out the window and dropped the puppets down on long strings from upstairs. It was SO funny! They did "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Monster and the Tailor."

This is the brawl scene in "Romeo and Juliet." A whole tangle of fighters! Hahaha.

• Gus looking so happy that he found his pockets

• Sleepy people at morning scripture study

• Cool sky above the hill

• Frosty hill

• Foggy temple

• Braid bun (done by Daisy in Junie's hair)

• Thanksgiving Pies. The girls are getting so good at baking them!

• A cold cross-country race right before the team's NXR trip. Seb wore these "arm sleeves" which I thought were so weird and funny, but apparently they are all the rage among runners. What is wrong with plain old sleeves, I ask you?

• Malachi and Sebastian went with the cross-country team to the Nike Regionals (NXR) in Arizona. They had such a fun trip and a great race! We didn't get to go, but our van went (driven by some other parents), so it was like a little piece of us was there too. :)

We watched the race on TV, but they were only showing the view from up high in a drone, so we couldn't tell who anyone was! We were so excited when they finally did a close up of the finish line and we saw Seb come in seventh! Amazing!

His team did awesome and took second, and the varsity boys in the championship race qualified for nationals! So exciting. (They ended up taking #3 in the nation in an amazing race a few weeks later at NXN!)

Ky coming in with a great finish

It was a great way to finish out Sebastian's senior season. Cross-country has been so good for him, and he's grown and improved so much!

• Daisy in a pretty new dress

• Seb reading to Clementine

• The bike ride Seb did on Thanksgiving—turkey-shaped, as you can see! He even wrote "Happy Thank" (running out of room before he could get the whole word, haha) in a big field, though it's too small to see in this view.

• For Family Home Evening one day we made shrinky-dinks. I had forgotten how fun they are! SO fun! Everyone (even Seb) got in on making them. We couldn't stop!

Daisy made a teeny Book of Mormon

Someone made a police car and handcuffs for Zig, at his request

Teeny and teenier penguins

Seb's miniature landscape

(on his hand for scale)

I made a million prototypes for my ornament for the ornament party. I wanted a really simple nativity scene just made out of shapes.

• Low clouds

• Teddy had his first piano recital and did a great job. I will say for the thousandth time, he reminds me so much of Abe at that age!

• Oh, here we are back at Thanksgiving for some reason. The girls found my old steam-curler set and have been getting good at doing their own curlers! They looked so cute on Thanksgiving Day.