The rest of November

Jacob tried to not shave for no-shave November.

 He got tired of the itchiness and gave up and shaved before Thanksgiving, but looked pretty distinguished and handsome in the meantime.

 We had a delicious Thanksgiving at my parents' house. The kids kicked off the season after dinner by watching The Muppet Christmas Carol.

 We managed a family bike ride, even with the bike trailer wheel being flat. It gave Jacob a great workout, since it went flat every 10 minutes, but at least we had a pump along to help for a few minutes at a time.

 The day after Thanksgiving was also our 11th anniversary. We headed to the temple and did sealings to celebrate.

It's been a great 11 years.

Performances

November was the beginning of performance season. Grandma had been wanting to take the girls to a play and we settled on The Gaslight Theater. They had fun posing out front with their old play ads.

 The old coach was pretty cool, too.

 Inside we had a good time watching Christmas in the Big Apple while eating pizza and popcorn.

Megan did great for the first half, but should have gone home at intermission. The last half was rough for her. The other kids, however, loved it. Annie danced her way through all of the songs. It was almost as entertaining watching her as it was watching the play.

Rachel had a play of her own that she performed in. In her gifted program, they did a program called Story Share. They wrote stories, then exchanged with kids at another school, and each group chose one of the stories to perform, wrote a script, made slides, costumes, sound effects, etc. and put on a play. Rachel was the teacher in a play called How Fidget Spinners Took Over the World.

 Her group did a great job.

Annie got to sing as part of the first grade concert. She also got to be a special dancer in the square dance number because she was so good at it. She did a great job both singing and dancing.

 The kindergartners had a small Thanksgiving performance, too. They sang some super fun songs and did a really good job of it.

Rachel's birthday

Rachel turned 10! We celebrated with her friends a week early. She's on a roll, 3 years in a row doing a pizza and movie night with friends for her birthday. It sure makes things easy. Even the invitation is the same, saved on our computer, just changing the date every year. :) 

 Simple cupcakes, pizza from Little Ceasars and our movie projector and screen all for easy set up.

 One friend had wrapped up her gift in a box, inside another box, inside another box, inside wrapping paper. They all got a kick out of it.

 They watched Tangled.

Then the day before her actual birthday, we celebrated with the family at Grandma and Grandpa Knight's house. Grandma had a delicious ice cream cake ready for her.

 Rachel sported a goatee to match Dad's that he grew for no-shave November.

 She got some fun stuff, including a Lego Advent Calendar, an alarm clock/speaker/mp3 player, and a loom.

Ten-year-old Rachel is very responsible and takes care of her homework and piano practicing without us having to remind her at all most days. She is a great student and has an excellent teacher that looks to find ways to challenge her and help her reach a little beyond her natural abilities. She loves writing and puts a lot of detail into her stories and writing projects, and is becoming a poet, as well. She is learning Spanish both at a weekly after school class, and an informal club we have at our house weekly, and is understanding and speaking more. She is a good big sister and Megan comes to her for help or comfort when I'm not available or close. She is looking forward to being able to babysit in another year or two and is happy to hold down the fort occasionally for a few minutes when I run to the store for a quick item for cooking dinner, or to pick up a kid from some activity. She is a good example to her siblings and her friends and we are blessed to have her in our family.

Christmas Card Photo Shoot

We finally got around to getting some family photos.  We went over to a friend's house and she took pictures of us in her backyard. Here are our favorites.

When we got home we took a few more pictures of the kids with Mom and Dad in the front yard. We only got a few because the kids were a little burned out on having their picture taken.

They're cute kids aren't they? They have a beautiful Mommy as well.

Early in November

My angel wife often let's me sleep in on Saturdays. Once in a while, I let Colette do the sleeping in. On a Saturday in early November, Colette came down after snoozing and took some pics of me and the kiddos. 

Megan, Ryan and Daddy playing "Sequence for Kids".

Without a doubt, one of the kids' favorite games is "Sleepy Monster", aka "Beat up Dad".

Ryan was putting his face on the window and had the perfect pig nose going on.  I found it immensely amusing and asked him to repeat the feat. We weren't able to catch it on camera, but here is a scripted recreation.

Rachel also had to get in on the act.

Here's a shot of Ryan and Annie gearing up for Turkey month.

They were supposed to disguise their turkey so Farmer Brown wouldn't try to eat them. Annie made her turkey into a farmer with each of the tail feathers a sheet, and Ryan disguised his turkey as a tiger. Both did a great job.