November

November was, thankfully, not too busy in our house. Kaitlyn learned all about the Roman empire, and needed to present a project on that subject.  The kids come home with a lot of things I don't know much about - I still don't know how to tune a violin, for example - but I was excited about this one.  I took four years of Latin in High School, and an intensive recap semester in college.  I learned a lot about the history along the way, but mostly, I learned about Latin.  So that's what her project became: learning some Latin.  I bought her a cute little book that taught her some basics, and then we came up with a short little conversation to tell her class. I decided we needed to put it big on a poster board so everyone could see it (and the translation), and the store only had blue poster board.  So then we ended up with this.

If anyone ever thinks that everything I do is Pinterest- worthy, I'll have to direct them to the serial killer poster, as we nicknamed it. Not my best work.  She loved the project, and I loved teaching her something that I love.  When we went to see her presentation, I was especially glad that we taught her Latin since about half of her class did a report on Pompeii and the eruption of Vesuvius.  At least it wasn't the 14th volcano!

On the Roman party day, they all got to wear a toga, play some Roman games, and eat Roman style food.  Plus Little Ceasar's Pizza, because the name qualified it.

We went to a few football and basketball games in November, too.

Of course, that was after watching the Cleveland Indians lose the World Series. Again.

I had forgotten how much we enjoyed following the Indians when I was growing up in Cleveland, and it was a lot of fun to root for them with my old friends from Ohio.  We're good at losing, though.

Jasmine's little preschool crew went to see a small dinosaur museum.  They are standing in front of an ancient sort of Alligator's head.  Dinosaurs are mind boggling.

This was the first year that Thanksgiving was held at my Mother-in-law's new condo.  She moved over the summer, and I felt bad that it happened right as we were in the midst of kitchen chaos and couldn't help much.  Thankfully, her new place held everyone without a hitch.  We had a funnier problem when we discovered a grease fire in the smoker with both Thanksgiving turkeys.  My husband managed to save them, but dinner was a bit delayed while he cleaned the smoker, rinsed off the burnt smoke layer, and got them cooking again.

Thanksgiving was saved.

(And, my husband had smoked a brisket, so we knew there was a backup.)