November

November is one of my favorite months of the year, and not just because it hosts my birthday.  I love Thanksgiving and Christmas and I feel like November is the gateway into my favorite time of year.

This year I was able to go to the Pinners Conference with my friend.  It's kind of this craft/home/everything domesticated trade show and they have fun classes on DIY everything.  This year one of the presenters was Becky Higgins.  I have followed Creating Keepsakes for a few decades now.  The magazine sadly went under, but one of the founders, Becky Higgins, branched off and did her own thing called Project Life.  She did a class on Project Life at the conference and we walked away with a ton of swag.  Later we went and bought more goodies and I was able to actually meet her!  Call me a nerd.  Whatever.  It was awesome :)

The next day was my birthday.  When I got home from Pinners that night the house was completely empty.  I finally figured out that S had taken the kiddos over to his parents for the night.  For my birthday he got me exactly what I'd wanted: a day with just him and me, no distractions.  It was awesome.  He gave me a series of envelopes containing clues or instructions leading us to our next activity.  We started out the day with breakfast at one of his favorite places to eat.  It's called Tammy's and it's one of those 'locals only' diners that he and his firefighter companions frequent while they are on duty.  It was fantastic!

Afterwards he took me to see the IMAX movie on the Madagascar lemurs.  It just made me want to go to Madagascar even more.  (This is my normal reaction to seeing those kinds of IMAX movies.  After I saw the one that Tom Cruise did about space I was convinced my destiny in life was to be an astronaut.)  We saw this one at the Clark Planetarium so we had plenty of time for me to geek out before the show.

The rest of the day S told me to go shopping, which I did.  I hardly ever just shop for me and there is something so therapeutic about it!  That evening we went to this fantastic Indian restaurant close to our house.  I don't know why I neglected Indian food for so long--I can now confidently say it is my favorite food, period.

That night we went and picked the kids up and they had a surprise party waiting for me with presents, cake and ice cream.  Bean helped organize it and she was very proud of herself.  It was one of the best birthdays I've ever had.  I was able to have a dinner party with my parents a few nights later.  And my visiting teachers dropped off these beautiful flowers which I have enjoyed all month.  It is so nice to be remembered!

We had made plans to take advantage of free admission to the aviary on a Wednesday, but the day after my birthday a cold snap hit the whole nation and hung around for a couple of weeks.  It was awful!  Anyway, we asked Bean if she'd rather go to the aquarium instead (she went with Boy and S while I was in San Francisco and loved it--I had never been before.)  Of course she said yes!!  When we got there and realized how much a one time admission for our family would be, we decided to just get a season pass for the whole family.  So it looks like we'll be going a lot this year!

Mid-November was observation week for Bean's dance class.  Because she's a PM kindergartener, we were able to keep her in the same class for the third year in a row.  She's obviously the oldest now, but it's great because her teachers (including the director of the company) know her very well.  She has come so far in the last three years!  It was really fun to watch her accomplishments.

Along with the cold weather came plenty of snow.  Bean and Boy took full advantage of every single snowstorm.

This year I offered to host Thanksgiving dinner.  I also only invited mine and S's parents.  I knew that I needed to cook a turkey sometime in my life and I knew that they would be a very forgiving audience.  Dinner actually turned out delicious, which was a miracle considering I did not feel good at all that day.  I took a nap myself and spent the rest of the afternoon doing some Christmas shopping on my Target app.  S had to work that day which was maybe the only thing (that and not feeling good) that didn't make it the perfect day.

Saturday I was feeling much better so after S got home (and took a nap) we headed to our local farm (where Bean went to preschool last year.)  They usually shut down after Halloween, but this year they decided to sell Christmas trees and we wanted to support them.

I absolutely loved the setup, it was so festive and beautiful!  Plus, we got a pretty great Christmas tree!