November

Not too much happened in November.  I played piano for the Primary Program, and that always absorbs a lot of time for practicing.  I took the girls to Disney on Ice, which was a huge hit.

We went to some BYU football games as well.  That season tanked pretty badly.  But Tyler found a bratwurst in a big giant donut, so he was happy.

I spent (probably too much) time making matching Christmas pajamas. I've always bought them before, but this year I didn't find ones I liked at a good price. 

After all that effort, I decided that would be our Christmas card pictures for the year. 

We also installed a new front door.

They ended up being a much bigger project than we hoped.  We found out when picking the doors that our opening is actually too small for double doors.  We looked into a single door with side lights, but we knew we would regret that when we had big furniture to bring in.  So we only had a few options for skinny double doors, and went with ones that fit the style of our house.  And then the one day, "pop them in the old opening" project turned into two long days of frustration, but they are hung.  We even got a code entry, which is awesome.  Painting will have to wait until spring, since you have to take them off and to paint and let dry before putting them back in. We like them in the meantime, at least!

Halloween

The first costume that we finished was actually the least enthusiastic participant.

But since his name is Chewy, it was kinda inevitable.

In all honesty, Chewy is the most attached to Christopher.  He loves that dog, and gives him all kinds of food.  The adult that gives the most food wins, in the dog's eyes.  But we got the dog partially for Tyler, and so we've encouraged the dog to bond with Tyler as much as we can.  He seems to view kids a bit differently, but he knows that Tyler is his friend that takes him on walks every day.  So we made Tyler into Chewie's best friend, too.

And since I already had a Leia costume, I figured I would join the group.

That left the girls.  Kaitlyn decided that she wanted to be a figure skater for Halloween.  The good news is that any costume I got her would get a lot of use at ice skating lessons.  The bad news is that figure skating dresses can get expensive very quickly.  By a tiny little miracle, I managed to find a perfect costume at the thrift store for only $2.50.  She has worn it almost every week to practice since then, so it was a fantastic buy!

Jasmine, on the other hand, couldn't quite decide.  She was planning on the Moana outfit for a long time, but then went through almost everything in the dress up closet the day before.  She finally settled on the skirt that hides butterfly wings, and that works for me!

All three girl costumes had detailed hair, which was new for me.  I'm not the best at hair, but it was a fun stretch.

I had also found the ice skates at a thrift store, but when I took them to a guy to sharpen them, he told me that they were old and made to flimsy for real use.  I'm glad we had them so that she could "wear" them for her costume.  That alone was worth the $6.

We had fun at the annual neighborhood party.

And we went to the pumpkin patch as well.  The corn pit is always their favorite place.

And of course, we carved our pumpkins at the last minute, too.

I helped Tyler make a decent gecko.

The other pumpkins weren't as successful, however.  I could pretty much tell Kaitlyn made an ice skate, but Jasmine's cat completely fell in.  She had fun making her blob, though!