November 2019

The day after Halloween was another dress up day at school.  They combined superhero day and crazy hair day and Kaylee was all for it! Except apparently I didn't do her hair crazy enough because she actually loved it and asked if she could have her hair like that another time- ha ha. 

We have been practicing really hard for the Primary Program at the end of the month. McKenna decided to put on her own program after church one day.  She was the Primary President, of course, and sang all the songs and read all the parts. She will be a great Primary President in real life one day!

We haven't gotten very much snow this year at all. And because the weather turned so freezing, we haven't been outside very much. But when we got an inch of snow, the girls were determined to go play in it anyway.  To a native Utahn, none of the snow we get here in Ohio is worth playing in but I guess to these girls, they will take what they can get!

We finally got to go to the zoo again for Zoo Lights on their food drive night. It was cold but not too freezing and I was so happy to be back there with all the beautiful lights. The saddest part was when Brooklyn found out the penguin exhibit was closed. She had been talking about seeing penguins for days and we really got her hopes up. She is our optimistic child and usually isn't too disappointed when things don't turn out but she was heartbroken and just sobbed when she found out she wouldn't be seeing any penguins. It broke my heart to see her so sad! Surprisingly, the most fun we had that night was in the reptile house. All of the snakes were really active and we stayed at one cage for more than 20 mins watching these two snakes go all over the place and taunt each other. The two older girls even got brave enough to pet a real snake. 

Our real Primary Program went better than I ever could have expected. I really had no idea what I was doing and hadn't been a part of one since I was in Primary myself. But the kids all did amazing and we even had one sweet little boy who has autism get up and say his part! I've never heard him say anything except "no" and every time we practiced, he wouldn't even go up with his class, let alone say his part.  He had a stuffed animal that he was clutching so tight but he got up and said his part so clearly and then quickly ran right back to his seat.  It was a really special moment! We also ended up with the kids singing "I Will Be What I Believe" with the YM and YW joining in for the Armies of Helaman parts.  The Spirit was SO strong, it was one of my favorite sacrament meeting moments ever and I saw multiple people in the audience crying. It was a powerful moment!

McKenna never has school on her birthday and always has very high expectations! Last year I think she was really let down but this year we tried hard to make it a great day. She got to open presents and play with a friend in the morning and then we went to see Frozen 2. We also let her go to her favorite place on earth, the pet store, and then went out to eat.  It is crazy to think that she is already 8! 

We thought we might end up being alone for Thanksgiving this year. Most of the people we are closest to were going out of town or had family coming.  A few days before Thanksgiving, one of my counselors asked us what we were doing and we decided to get together!  It ended up being really fun and we spent a lot of time playing games and talking. The kids were SO sad when they finally left at the end of the day. We're lucky that we have had so many good people to have holidays with since we've been here.

We spent the last day of November freezing our buns off. Richard went down into the basement and smelled gas so we got out of the house and called the gas company. They came to check it and told us that the water heater and gas line were leaking in multiple places (thank goodness we hadn't already died!) and that even the furnace was giving off some CO2 readings. So we had to shut both of them off until we could get someone out here to look at them. Luckily we only had to spend one night without heat and we had some sweet friends that let our girls spend the day at their house so they weren't stuck in here freezing all day.  They even fed us dinner! And our landlord was nice enough to come and replace the water heater with a huge new one.

October 2019

October brought more record high heat.  It felt so strange to be putting up fall and Halloween decorations when it still felt like July. But Brooklyn and I got to enjoy a lot of days at the park and time outside so we were very happy! 

I am so happy my Harry Potter obsession got passed down to Kaylee. She needed new winter jammies and we found these super cute Hogwarts ones that she has practically lived in since.  I wish they came in my size!

We read about the armor of God in our family scripture reading one night and decided to have a speedy scavenger hunt. We would read about one piece of the armor and then everyone would have to race and find something that would work for that specific piece of their armor. It ended up being really fun and we saw some VERY creative options!

Jason had to come to Ohio for work and so he drove down to Columbus one night to see us. Richard took him exploring around German village and showed him a few sights around the city and then he came to our house for a little bit. It was great to see him!

Kaylee sliced the roof of her mouth open with a straw one night at dinner. I was worried she would need stitches in such an awkward place but it seemed to heal just fine on it's own. She was on a liquid only diet for a few days though and was in a lot of pain.

We went to the Halloween event in Hilliard where they do trick-or-treating and have a few activities for the kids to do. It was sad for us to realize that the last time we went to this activity, Mom was with us.  We missed her but still had fun. We also stopped by an emergency preparedness fair that our church did with another big church by our house. I don't think they had very many people show up so we were glad we went to check it out. 

Kaylee signed up for a special event sponsored by Amazon called Girls Tech Day. It was a really cool event they had at the high school. They had guest speakers, made a bracelet with their initials spelled out in binary code, and got to play with robots.  Plus they had a huge lunch and treats for the kids and the parents. 

We were so happy to get our copy of Adam the Ant in the mail! Holly and Julie did such a great job on it and I was so proud of them for getting another book published in just a year!

We had a lot of sickness in our family as the cold weather finally hit. We all took turns being sick for about two weeks. Brooklyn was sick but couldn't resist jumping in the leaves I raked up in the back. Last year I don't remember having a ton of leaves but I was shocked how many bags of leaves we raked up this year. It was multiple weeks of work but it made the girls happy to have lots of piles to play in!

Kaylee and I were sick and missed the ward Halloween party but Richard and the other two had fun. Richard went as a joke, or a dad joke, and loved people telling him he was a joke all night. 

McKenna was sick on Halloween and stayed home from school but we caved and let her still go trick-or-treating for a little bit.  The cold weather definitely hit hard when it finally came and Halloween was so freezing! The ice-cold wind blew straight through all of our layers and you could tell a lot of people didn't stay out long. I was miserable but it didn't seem to slow the girls down at all!