November

And here I am finally catching up to November. 

We started out our November finishing our covid time on at Pine house. 

A beautiful day called for coloring with chalk. 

A resident made this scrunchie for Aurelia. 

It made her look like a 90s teen.

After our busy time on (see October's update) it was nice to have some beautiful weather

Once off, we finally settled down enough for me to finish Gideon and Aurelia's Halloween costumes. And, they were finally willing to wear them. 

Frog and Toad :)

I'm always thankful for unseasonably warm weather.  We were able to get out and play a lot. :)

One Sunday, I had a craving for apple cider donuts... soooo... I made some. 

They were so good :)

Bodi came to play one day. 

brave knights

And then we got visitors! 

Some of the Brakers came to visit. 

waiting for them to arrive

Aunt Emily reading books

Exploring the barn with Avery

reading more books

And then, of course, we took them to the 'dead zoo'

The 'dead zoo' as it is locally known, is an Amish bulk food store.  Very randomly a doctor donated his entire big game hunting collection to the store. So, it's an odd mix but entertaining. 

bears!

The kids "look! theirs a dead bear" "look a dead elephant!" "a dead tiger!"

Avery "look there are dead people!" (pointing to carved busts of African people)

ha.

Then we spent more time playing back at Maple house. :)

Once they left, we cleaned up and went on duty at Oak house for a few days. 

playing in the oak basement

We had a fairly easy few days on. Thankfully. It was non-eventful. 

One of our duties is to go grocery shopping. This is what a weekly shopping trip to meijer looks like:

little stinker snuck my coffee

helping :)

these two...

Again, we were thankful for nice sunny days. We went out for a walk around the pond one day. We had a nice chat with a lady from the nursing home. :)

haha

Sadly we were unable to attend Kirk's wedding. But, we were able to live stream it to the Maple house TV and watch it from there. It was kind of fun.  :)

Congrats Kirk and Lexi!

We took the kids to the "castle park" to play one afternoon.

Its such a fun place

Snow!

We got a decent amount of snow near the end of November. The kids were so excited. 

:)

We built a snow man...

I like baking.  So, we made cinnamon rolls to take out to my parents for Thanksgiving and to just have on hand. 

they are such good helpers. 

The problem with baking is that while I enjoy it, the kids want to help. And so something that can be a stress reliever for me, suddenly becomes a cause of stress.

so messy

But then there is this!!!!

Once we managed to get all of our duties done around campus, pack up all of our things, and all of our food, we headed back to Illinois for Thanksgiving. :)

cousins!

relaxing :)

good food

Most every holiday, families post cute pictures of their kids dressed nice and smiling. So, I joined the bandwagon and attempted...

this is what we got. Reality. haha

dress up

:)

Playing on the farm

feeding the cows

farm kids at heart :)

Once back home I caved a day early and we decorated for Christmas. :)

the kids have the coolest manger scene. 

Some pretty pictures of the outdoors:

Aurelia and Gideon helped me cut some branches 

oh boy

I surprised the kids by decorating their playhouse 

I didn't know what I was doing but the branches became decor.

And so, we made it through November. Our calendar was full of doing odd jobs at Gateway, a visit from the Brakers,  time on duty, and Thanksgiving.  It was a pretty good month, relatively uneventful, but full of good things. :)

In Christ

~Michelle