November 2017

I heard of a girl who taught ballet for pretty cheap and so I let both girls sign up for ballet this year.  I'm not sure it was the best experience ever and they didn't seem to learn much but they both said they liked it and they got to put on a ballet recital at the end. Each class only seemed to perform for about 30 seconds but it was fun to see how proud of themselves the girls were.

We were so lucky to have Mom come visit us. We took her on a fairy scavenger hunt in Dublin, went to the Conservatory for a Day of the Dead celebration, and she even got to be here for their ballet recital.

McKenna got to have her turn with Dad coming and being in her class all day. I don't think this teacher had as much for Richard to do and Kenna mostly wanted to be with her friends instead of him but I think she still loved having him there and showing off to all her friends that her dad came.

For Thanksgiving, we invited the Biggerstaff's over.  I decided to try buying just a turkey breast and cooking it in the crockpot this year to free up the oven for everything else (and because I'm a little nervous to cook a whole turkey for the first time). It was fantastic and definitely the best turkey I've ever eaten. We had a lot of fun playing games and spending the day with them, even though I didn't take any pics!  We also had our neighbor, Aiko, stop by.  She has been so sweet to us and she doesn't have any family nearby so we were glad to have her over, even though it was just for a little bit.  She has taken cello lessons for a year and I was able to play a duet with her on the piano and Rachel sang. I am usually very nervous playing in front of people but Aiko is so sweet and unassuming I wasn't nervous at all and it ended up being really fun.

We knew most people would be out of town for Thanksgiving the weekend before Kenna's birthday so her actual birthday was pretty chill, although she was excited to be at school for her birthday this year since usually it's over Thanksgiving break.

We had her birthday party the following weekend and it was a blast!  We did a princess theme and had a game for each princess. We had a race wrapping each other up in yellow streamers for Rapunzel, put lipstick on the girls and played kiss the frog for Tiana, we used an apple to play hot potato for Snow White, played princess charades and did another game with balloons for Ariel but I can't remember why it was for Ariel :)  This was probably the most fun she's ever had at her party and the easiest it's been for me so, win-win!  I saw an easy castle cake on Pinterest that I thought I could do.  It didn't turn out anything like what it was supposed to and I was pretty embarrassed by it but Kenna told me over and over how much she loved it so that made it worth it.