November

We had parent teacher conferences early in November

John showed me himself in the school of mural of kids

Looking very cool!!

And Emma

I liked this writing John did - although it made me feel bad I didn't go play catch with him more

Got good reports from the teachers so things are going well there

Emma played her last and muddiest soccer game for the season

Yes, time to be done!

We also had a nice birthday lunch for Emma at Applebee's - her choice

I got Emma a special Oreo donut for her birthday

She loves Oreos

We had a crazy chocolate cake

And some presents

We had a friend party a few days later - Mario movie, pizza, cupcakes and a few activities including painting birdhouses

Lots of fun!

I also took Emma to the mall to spend some birthday money at Claire's

She got these puffy clip on earrings

Somewhere in there Scott and I went to see Les Miserables in Portland

Fun

Anna wore one of Scott's AF jackets to the camo night football game

It's looking very fall around here still

We got a few new coats from the Columbia store

And we did some neighborhood walks

So many leaves around

Emma got an award at school for demonstrating kindness

Good job Emma!

John started trumpet lessons and Grant started guitar lessons although I didn't get a good picture of him playing.  Hoping the lessons go well.

Scott's keeping on top of the fall yard work

Scott has won the hearts and minds of all the local birds by keeping our bird feeders well stocked

We did some sibling Christmas shopping

Lots of fun ornaments

Emma got a fun cookbook for her brithday - it has a recipe for every day of the year.  One of the November ones was these pie sugar cookies.  They didn't look as cute as the picture but we used what we had and it was fun.

The kids ask for pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes a lot in the fall

And we are starting to think about Christmas - looking so festive!

Anna and Grant helped me put together a Dungeons and Dragons advent calendar for our nephew/cousin.  They were very helpful!

For Halloween we went to Scott's parents house and had a fun get together with cousins.  Here they are playing Left Center Right with actual money.

Clark was one of the big winners - he was so cute with his money the rest of the weekend

We went roller skating with the cousins

We got to go to our nephew's baptism that weekend - that's him front and center in the gray shirt.  Hooray Ben!!  It was very nice and we had a delicious lunch of pizza afterward.  Another nephew (Adam Keeler) got baptized at almost the same time in Hermiston - sorry we couldn't be at both.  Happy Thanksgiving!!

November

We had an epic friend birthday party for Emma - 15 kids!!  It felt like a lot for me - glad its done now - but it turned out well.

And had a special b-day lunch at Olive Garden - Emma picked that restaurant because she loves the breadsticks

Emma's fall soccer season finished up

we got rid of the jack-o-lanterns

Emma made mini pumpkin pies at activity girls

Emma also helped me prep a lot of food for Thanksgiving

Getting the table ready!  We hosted Scott's side of our extended family this year - I think it went well, although I wish our living room was a little bigger when we have lots of people over.

More seating on the patio - we have a heat lamp out there that we used

All the cousins were there!  It was a lot of fun.

Hooray for cousins

The next day we got together with some of my side of the extended family to celebrate our Keeler nephews Gideon (blowing out candles) and Adam (blue/aqua shirt next to little table) and their birthdays.

And we got to celebrate Ben (a Guptill nephew) and his birthday with swimming, Chick-Fil-A and cupcakes.  It was so fun seeing everyone!!

A few weeks later Emma was baptized

We had wanted to do it over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend so everyone could be there but our stake leadership didn't want us to do that

Some family got to come and it was nice

Matthew and our youngest Guptill nephew, Clark are best buddies!!

And Emma with cousin Norah

It was a great day!