End of November

Thanksgiving

I'm pretty sure this is the first year in 12 years of marriage that we had Thanksgiving with only one of our families (if you don't count our Thanksgiving in Georgia a few years ago when we didn't have it with anyone). We tried to set it up where one family was for lunch and the other was for dinner but it didn't work out. This year the rotation "schedule" was on the Owens side so we had Justin's family and extended family over for a great meal. The weather was wonderful and so was the food. Unfortunately whenever Justin smokes meat, the flies congregate from miles around and they didn't leave by the time we ate, so we did have LOADS of flies to shoo while we ate.

FR, LtoR: Grandma Joanna, cousin Luke, Dale, ?, cousin Skye

BR, LtoR: Brighton, Adaira, (Justin's)Aunt Alison, Uncle John

Daisy enjoying some potatoes.

I caught Adaira roping her Grandpa into playing "Ms. Susie" with her (the singing, hand slapping/clapping stuff that little girls love to do). Her smiles at him were too precious.

I didn't get a good picture with everyone in it, so here's a random one with LtoR: Grandpa Dale, (Justin's) Uncle David, Lindsay (SIL, holding Daisy), cousin Melanie and (Justin's) Uncle Greg. We are lucky that Justin has some fun extended family that we can enjoy spending time with a few times a year on holidays like these. I'm especially glad that his brothers married such cool girls who, though I don't see them very often, I think are such fun to hang out with.

I asked Justin to take the day off after Thanksgiving (it's not  standard vacation day) and we took the kids to the Children's Museum of Phoenix. We got a gift card to go there from Grandma Joanna last Christmas but I didn't want to go until Daisy was old enough to walk and stay awake for an extended period of time. She had a blast :) The biggest concern was just losing her and Dale...

The bike car wash is always a hit. Daisy almost got run over several times...

The room next to the bike wash is a fort building room. I sat by the opening here to keep Daisy contained, otherwise she would toddle right into oncoming bike traffic (she came sooo close to getting plowed over once)

What kids don't love forts, you don't realize how easy it would be to do at home until you see the options they have at the museum.

Another room with magnetic moveable tracks for ping pong balls.

Daisy enjoyed collecting the little balls.

See Dale's boots? An awesome find at Goodwill a few months ago. I knew if I lost him at the museum I could just say I was looking for a little boy with bright green boots on. He's pretty easy to single out that way...

Must help Daisy collect better when she has both feet in the bottom collection container.

From the museum we got dinner from Taco Bell (blegh for me, yum for Justin) and went to hike Fat Man's Pass at South Mountain. Poor Dale was such a trooper. He had had a very random case of extreme diarrhea (no other symptoms at all) for a day or two and we were running to the bathroom a few times at the museum and I brought wipes and an extra pair of shorts just in case we had an accident. I can't imagine how much of a toll that was on his little body but he acted almost completely normal otherwise. You could tell on our hike that he wasn't quite 100% though because he had a hard time doing it on his own (but to his credit HE was the one in the backpack the last time we did this hike). And yes, we did have to stop and I had to hold him in a squatting position so he could shoot some squirts on the trail, gross? YES!

Brighton has one of those minds that NEVER stops running. If this kid doesn't have a book in his hand, he can TALK YOUR EAR OFF. As soon as we started hiking he was talking about how the rock formations might have formed, or what this rock looked like, or that rock, or what is in that crevice or what types of rocks they are. Sometimes I get exhausted just pretending to be interested....

"Hmmmm, actually I think these mountains were formed this way... or maybe that way...or what would you do if this happened right now...or if this explosion from the sun occurred, or if the ground caved in...or...or..or..."

Trooper Dale after a nasty poop stop

At Fat Man's Pass Dale & Brighton didn't hesitate to start their sliding down the rock. Adaira decided to be really dramatic and scared and sat at the top squealing. By the time she finally went down, she was super excited to do it again but she didn't get the chance because we got started on the hike late (again) and forgot a flashlight (again) and didn't want to hike back in the dark (which happened anyway).

They were fighting and yelling at each other literally minutes before I snapped this picture from behind of them walking and talking together.

Justin is the man. He carried both Daisy and Dale for probably 1/2 of the total hike because I was still recovering from a very painful disc issue in my back. I insisted on carrying Daisy for the hike back to the car though.

Do you think we wore them out? Daisy was having a hard time calming herself down on our way home and was sooo tired. She had been crying for a while before I took this picture, but she still managed to force a part smile and wave to the camera, sweet girl...

That wraps up November, on to December, the BEST month of the year!