November 2016

November was a great month, but super busy. We started off the month by attending an awards ceremony for the Gaston County Recycled Art contest. We found out Aubrey won 3rd place with her bottle top jewelry and we were so excited for her. She told us that the kids pick on her because her art is not good so it was some sweet news for her to hear that she won a prize for her art. She got to miss the day from school to attend the ceremony at the Gaston County Library and was tickled with that. She was given a certificate and a gift card to Hobby Lobby, which just made her day.

Mason wrapped up his first season of team soccer and was so excited to get another trophy. I think soccer replaced t-ball as his favorite sport and he showed a lot of promise on the field.

The kids were pretty excited to go vote with me this year. The precinct volunteer told the kids to make sure I only watched my machine and followed all the instructions and the kids took their job very seriously. They were excited to show of their stickers afterwards and made sure to tell me they told their friends they "voted." I am glad I can include them in on the voting process and hope they are excited to vote when they are old enough.

Aubrey got to attend her first dance convention this year. I was a little nervous about the whole deal because I knew she was going to be in over her head and I was afraid she would get frustrated. While I was right that the classes were really hard for her, she managed to keep a positive attitude and try so hard to keep with the older girls. I was very proud of her and can't wait to watch as she grows in dance over the next year.

Per tradition, we hosted Thanksgiving at our house again and it was perfect. The weather was awesome and the food was fantastic. I love all things about Thanksgiving and this one was perfect.

We picked out our Christmas tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving and it was a really great tree. The kids loved decorating the house later that afternoon and enjoyed their hot chocolate tradition that comes along with it.

We ended the month with the Mount Holly Christmas parade. Aubrey was so nervous to dance in the parade for the first time because she has always ridden in the truck with the dance studio. But, she did a great job and enjoyed seeing her friends along the route. Mason enjoyed sitting on the sidelines with my parents and catching the candy thrown at him.

October 2016

October has always been one of my favorite months. The weather is usually perfect, its my birthday month, and we have Halloween candy. Perfection. This October was no different.

We made a big step for Aubrey by forcing her to take the training wheels off her bike and that was a big fat fail. Poor girl just has no frustration tolerance so the multiple falls that come along with learning to ride a bike just made her give up. We realized she probably needed a new bigger bike after the fact so we gave up forcing the issue until that happened.

We did our annual trip to Hodges Farm for our pumpkins. This is our 9th trip there and its amazing how much the farm and the fall activities have grown there since our first visit when Aubrey was a baby. We checked out the animals, climbed on the hay, ate ice cream, and of course picked out our pumpkins.

Todd and the kids went to Atlanta for his cousin's wedding and I stayed behind to do school work. It was nice to have a quiet weekend to get work done but I was happier once everyone was home safe.

The kids both dressed up for school for Halloween, or excuse me "Book Character Day" for Aubrey. Mason decided he wanted to be a shark for school which was perfect because I could use the shark costume we already had in the house. Aubrey decided to be Fancy Nancy again so we reused an old dance costume that worked perfectly.

For Halloween this year, the kids decided that we were going to do a family Star Wars theme. Aubrey reused Mason's Darth Vader costume, Mason was a Storm Trooper,  and Todd re-used Luke Skywalker for the 3rd time (we get our money's worth out of costumes if you can't tell). I was supposed to be Princess Leia, however I waited way too late to get my costume so I ended up being Rey from the latest movies. It was still fun to dress up and the kids had a great time trick-or-treating.

So while the month was busy, it was the perfect October for us and I cannot complain one bit about it.