We got back from our cross-country trip on the 7th of November and that means we're back to our regularly scheduled monthly round up posting. This one won't have that first week, since I blogged about it elsewhere already, but here is the rest of the (rather full) November we've had since we've been home. And don't miss my other November posts about Thanksgiving and thankful turkeys and Christmas trees and hiking (and biking).
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| 11.8.20 (it snowed!) |
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| 11.8.20 (they built a snowman) |
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| 11.9.20 (back to home school now on our new and improved "school table" complete with books and supplies that finally arrived while we were gone!) |
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| 11.9.20 (it's so nice to have tens blocks and workbooks and spring scales and all the things we've been doing okay without, but are much happier with) |
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| 11.10.20 (the aftermath of a curbside pickup of nearly 60 library books - how we've missed our library!) |
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| 11.10.20 (another facetime with Grace where I ended up with 200+ photos like this on my phone) |
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| 11.10.20 (and Heather ended up with 200+ photos like this on her phone) |
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| 11.10.20 (and this) |
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| 11.10.20 (and this) |
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| 11.11.20 (more snow!!) |
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| 11.11.20 (pumpkins from Gma B have cute snowy hats) |
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| 11.11.20 (I went on a little nature walk in my backyard) |
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| 11.11.20 (last apples) |
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| 11.13.20 (my friend Erin took this from her house of the clouds forming on the lake on this freezing cold morning) |
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| 11.14.20 (it was supposed to snow 8-18 inches this weekend but it was too warm for snow so we got nearly an inch of rain instead!! my gauge has never seen this much water in one 24-hour period before - kind of exciting precip checking and reporting today!) |
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| 11.14.20 (This was a fun, quick read. Not perfect, but enjoyable. Had a lot of Guernsey literary and potato peel pie vibes going on, but with Jane Austen fans instead) |
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| 11.15.20 (she made my heart go pitter-pat when she brought this one off the bookshelf to snuggle and read by herself) |
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| 11.15.20 (we finally put up the vintage postcards from our various places we've visited together over the past 10 years as a family - pretty happy with this happy wall) |
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| 11.15.20 (Callie has been begging for a while for her own room. After having a sneak peek/test time in Katie's and Liz's rooms in NC, she was even more motivated to make it happen. So we did some major dejunking of the spare room on Saturday and dragged Sam's mattress into that room for a test night on his own. It went great, so while Gregg and I were having Sunday School on zoom, the kids moved everything off the walls that was Sam's into his new room. When we finished with class, we moved Sam's box spring into his new room, and Cal's bed to the other wall (where Sam's was) and moved her bookshelf out of her closet and she rearranged all her pictures on her wall. And voila! Our kids have their own rooms now!) |
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| 11.15.20 (happy camper for sure!) |
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| 11.15.20 (milestone!) |
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| 11.16.20 (loved these books about getting in the attitude of gratitude, perfect for this time of year, even though they don't specifically talk about Thanksgiving the holiday) |
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| 11.16.20 (I wanted to check out this book that I saw somewhere on a booklist, but my library only had it in DVD format. It was actually really nice to be read to (like an audiobook) while looking at the paintings on screen (plus there was effective mood music in the background). What a story of a remarkable man! I think we don't recognize Squanto quite enough in our traditional Thanksgiving stories that are more Pilgrim-centric (though their story is important too).) |
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| 11.16.20 (after a hike on the Quail Trail loop in North Ogden, we visited the Harrisville disc golf course for a quick round) |
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| 11.16.20 (lovely sunset out the front door since the sun is so far south) |
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| 11.16.20 (it made my favorite pink mountain reflection in the east, too) |
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| 11.18.20 (spelling assignment hack: she loves to spell words if we're using scrabble tiles!) |
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| 11.19.20 (Callie's playdoh creations return!) |
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| 11.23.20 (today is the day we've been waiting for! Gregg heard the helicopter and we hopped in the car to go watch it fly the new lift towers and tops into place at Nordic) |
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| 11.23.20 (we watched for an hour! It was so fun and amazing!) |
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| 11.23.20 (best field trip ever!) |
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| 11.23.20 (fun mail from Gma Elwood today - all the supplies and instructions to make these cute Indian corn necklaces) |
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| 11.24.20 (magnet science! (also, we do school in jammies most days. best ever.)) |
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| 11.24.20 (craft time - we made turkey place tags for our Thanksgiving dinner table . . . and for Gmas' and Gpas' dinner tables, too. Aren't they rather fitting for 2020 being made out of toilet paper tubes? ;) |
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| 11.24.20 (some November must-reads in our house. We've been checking these ones out every year for years and they make it feel like Thanksgiving when we read them) |
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| 11.24.20 (what a story! and we are big Oge Mora fans for sure, so we of course love the art, too) |
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| 11.24.20 (I was intrigued by the combination of topics covered in this one: PhD student in neuroscience, opiod addiction, religion, science, depression, immigrant story, black lives . . . so much packed into this story. I felt like the characters were believable (sometimes I had to remind myself that this is a novel not a memoir) and the writing was really good. Maybe not for everyone, but I enjoyed this one.) |
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| 11.24.20 (yep, at it again with the book stacks! So many books, so little time!) |
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| 11.25.20 (pretty frost pattern on my rain gauge, but unfortunately still no water inside) |
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| 11.25.20 (we made a journey to West Haven and Cache Valley to deliver thanksgiving table turkeys and cranberry sauce to all the grandparents and on the way back we stopped at the Harrisville disc golf course for another quick round before the sun set (it was close!)) |
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| 11.25.20 (love that purple mountain majesty behind my dishy) |
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| 11.27.20 (Gregg and I went on a disc golf date up the road at Wolf Creek and left the kids home with a PBS Kids show and my phone. Of course there are Callie selfies on my camera roll when I get home!) |
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| 11.27.20 (shh! don't tell her, but I actually don't mind ;) |
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| 11.28.20 (two excellent books with unique art and plenty of back matter) |
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| 11.28.20 (a few more Thanksgiving/fall books that shouldn't be missed!) |
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| 11.28.20 (my parents and Megan stopped by to drop off gingerbread and have a turkey sandwich picnic in the yard (we made a fire, too, since it was so chilly!) and they also brought some boredom busters for the kids: two kiwi crates! The boredom was indeed busted for a good hour while they put both of them together and played with the results. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!) |
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| 11.29.20 (These three books may not appear to have much in common, but after reading them in a row this morning (it's just how they were stacked in our pile) I thought it was interesting to see the similarities: we're all part of this planet/universe and it doesn't make sense that one type of human is better than another and we all have worth. I loved it!) |
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| 11.29.20 (A classic, this time recommended by the author Johnathan Auxier in a writing class on RAR where he was teaching about practicing creativity and suggested playing the game where you try to make a picture from a few random scribbles on a page, kind of like Harold does with his magic crayon. :) |
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| 11.29.20 (my mom gave us some of the plum pudding she and Megan made in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving - it was a staple at her Grandma Anderson's house every winter from Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day on Sunday evenings to re-steam the pudding and eat some for dessert. I decided to try my portion on Sunday evening. I must say it brought back my own Thornley Thanksgiving memories smelling it steaming on the stove warming in the steam, but I messed up the sauce by using lemon extract that I hate (every time I use it I hate whatever I make - I finally threw it out today so I won't make that mistake again). It made the whole thing taste rather like pine needles (as Callie described it) or just super chemically (my thoughts) so it was unfortunately not the best dessert we've ever had. BUT, we still have more, and will try again either with vanilla or new lemon flavoring.) |
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| 11.29.20 (it took some macgyvering, but we came up with a suitable steamer situation: my steamer basket, folded up into its closed position, on the bottom of my biggest pot, disposable pie tin balancing on top, and plum pudding in the middle of the tin. water in the bottom to provide steam and let it simmer away until the pudding is warm and steamy and soft. done!) |
Every other round up here (whew!):
2020: Sep | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar Quar + Mar | Feb | Jan
2019: Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan
2018: Dec | Nov | Oct | Sept | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan
2017: Dec | Nov | Oct | Sept | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan
2020: Sep | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar Quar + Mar | Feb | Jan
2019: Dec | Nov | Oct | Sep | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan
2018: Dec | Nov | Oct | Sept | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan
2017: Dec | Nov | Oct | Sept | Aug | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan
