Since I didn't post much in November, I thought I would do a camera dump before the month is over.

We had an end of the season party for Hannah's soccer team, the Grasshoppers, at a local pizza place.

Hannah and Andy were both sleepy one lazy Sunday afternoon so they decided to snuggle. It ended in nap time for both of them.

Since Andy's parents couldn't be here for Joey's birthday this year, they sent some extra money for us to all go out to Dairy Queen as their treat.

The kids were just a tad excited.

Andy and I enjoyed a special treat too. In fact, they accidentally made me two Blizzards! I love mistakes like that!

Too much sugar?!?!

Hannah and I are having fun experimenting with different hairstyles now that I can actually French braid.

This might be my favorite one so far.

Here's a Dutch French braid.

Hannah and Ellie were both invited to a "Rockstar" birthday party down the street. They came back ready to show off their moves.

My mom read about a cool hike nearby where you can see hundreds of tarantulas come out during mating season.

Turns out we were a little too late for mating season so we didn't see any tarantulas, but it was still a fun hike.

It even rained on us, but fortunately not too much.

Joey had the map and made sure we stayed on the right loop.

After our hike, my parents, Joey, Hannah, and I went to In-N-Out for dinner. Meanwhile, Andy and Ellie had a date night so it was a fun night for everyone.

Andy worked from home one day and he had a little lap buddy.

He's teaching her all about computer programming.

She's been much more of a "Daddy's girl" lately, and Andy is soaking it up!

This was the outfit Ellie picked out for church one Sunday. And yes, she wore the crown the whole time.

Have I mentioned she's a bit of a ham?

Another mom and I helped plan a Native American party for Joey's 3rd grade class.

Since it was my first time hosting Thanksgiving, my goal was to make it as easy and stress-free as possible. I was so happy to find "make ahead" recipes for gravy and mashed potatoes. I made both the weekend before and froze them for the big day. I loved getting those two things done way ahead of time, and it did make things much easier on Thursday. Andy raved about how good the gravy was!

One day during the kids' week off for Thanksgiving break, we headed to Google to visit Andy for lunch. We hadn't gone together since April, so the kids were very excited. They all wore their Google shirts and badges from "Take Your Child to Work" Day. Getting ice cream after lunch is always a highlight for them.

I always look forward to lunch itself. Look how beautiful these black bean nachos are!

Hannah, Ellie, and our neighbor Chloe had a little fun while Andy was playing video games. Silly girls!

After 13 years of marriage, it was finally my turn to host Thanksgiving. We always go to Phoenix for Thanksgiving (except the year Joey was born), but Andy's parents bought a house in Philadelphia and live there for part of the year, so we stayed in town. I was a little nervous about roasting a turkey for the first time, but between advice from my sister's mother-in-law (thanks, Allison), Pinterest and a Martha Stewart video on YouTube, it went pretty well!

Hannah and I had a fun time setting and decorating the table.

 In fact, we were so excited that we actually got the table ready the day before so we just sat on the ground for dinner Wednesday night.

The morning of Thanksgiving while I was working in the kitchen, Hannah and Ellie made some more Thanksgiving decorations.

This was our crew this year: Nana (the photographer), Bubba, my brother Timmy, his girlfriend Jill, and our family of five.

This little one had a fever, but thanks to some Tylenol, she was mostly back to her normal self before too long.

See? Much better.

She just LOVES having a dog around here.

Bubba and Ellie made up a game using the timer on Bubba's phone and some baby toy blocks.

Meanwhile, Joey and Hannah were having fun showing Uncle Timmy and Jill the video game Andy's been making. (Timmy and Jill, you should see the spaceship Andy and Joey made for the game on Friday!).

After dinner, the kids and my parents went on a walk on the hill behind our house. We heard them calling to us and went out to see them on our high back wall!

Later we played card games like Rat-a-Tat Cat, Spoons (a big hit!), and Old Maid.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, we are really enjoying our quiet weekend at home. We bought a fake Christmas tree on the day after Christmas last year so we took advantage of our down time, and completely decorated for Christmas on Friday.

Now we are in full-on Christmas mode around here and it feels nice and cozy especially with cooler weather and rain that we are really enjoying!

This blog post is about a month overdue, but at the end of October the kids were supposed to dress up as what they want to be when they grow up.

Hannah has been 100% convinced that she wants to teach kindergarten ever since she started school, so it was easy for her to decide what to dress up as. Joey, on the other hand, was sick at home with a fever so he couldn't dress up as a Googler like he wanted to. 

When Hannah's teacher this year saw her outfit, she sent Hannah down to visit her teachers from last year. Mrs. Prescott and Miss Bell were so sweet to her and had her stay to help for a while. They even introduced her to the class as "Miss Lanzone." Apparently she was there so long that her current teacher had to call the kindergarten class to have them send Hannah back. When Mrs. Prescott told me about it later she laughed and said, "We had math centers next that we needed her to help with. We weren't going to send her back!"

As you can imagine, it was such a special day for Hannah!

Hannah: I just adore school! It makes me so excited in my body!



After Ellie decided to be Fancy Nancy for Halloween...
Me: Hey, Fancy Nancy.
Ellie: No, don't call me that. You can only call me that on Halloween. You have to call me Ellie.
Me: Can I call you Elizabeth?
Ellie: No.
Me: Can I call you Ellie Grace?
Ellie: No, just Ellie. You can call me Ellie Grace on Valentine's Day.



Ellie: Look, Mom! I'm kicking the ball with no hands!!



Hannah still calls an umbrella an "ungrella" and Ellie calls it a "humbrella." Andy and I think it's funny that Ellie is actually closer to the actual word than Hannah. It really cracked us up because one time Hannah heard Ellie call it a humbrella and she whispered to me, "Isn't it so cute that Ellie says an "H" at the beginning of the word?

Before I get to our Halloween night, I have to share this funny story. If you're really just here for the pictures, feel free to scroll down! :-)

A new WinCo grocery store opened up near us and had the cheapest pumpkins in town. I normally just buy one, but they were such a good deal and so nice and big, that I bought two. Then I stopped by WinCo the day before Halloween and there was a sign out front that said all of their pumpkins were FREE! I couldn't believe it! As I was walking in, I happened to walk right by the manager when he was reminding someone about the free pumpkins. I said, "That's the craziest thing I've ever heard." He asked me if I had ever been to WinCo before and I said, "Yeah, about two days ago." He asked me what I thought of it so I teased him and said, "Well, I had to pay for my pumpkins!" Then I laughed, told him I was joking, and said that I loved WinCo already. He asked me how many pumpkins I bought and if I paid $1.98 or $2.98 each. I told him $2.98, but that that was the cheapest I've ever paid for pumpkins so I was super happy about it.  At this point we parted ways as I went to go buy some groceries. A few minutes later he tracks me down in the store and gives me $5.96 in cash. I just started laughing and said, "You are not giving me that money back," but he insisted. I couldn't believe it! Then, on my way out, I picked up three more pumpkins for free! I couldn't wait to tell Andy that we got five free pumpkins, although it meant he had a LOT more pumpkins to carve this year!

The kids were so excited to have FIVE pumpkins, so we basically all picked one to design and Andy and Joey did most of the carving. 

 (From left to right: Andy/Joey, Hannah, Joey, Andy, Me/Ellie-later Ellie painted our pumpkin since she couldn't help with carving it.)

Remember when Joey cried when I made a throwing up pumpkin? Well, this year he requested it! Of course, he wanted Andy to carve it, not me! Joey actually designed and carved the pumpkin on the left. I love the side smile!

Ellie decided that she didn't want to be Fancy Nancy again, so she got this old Sleeping Beauty costume out of the dress up box. I still have a bunch of orange hair spray leftover, so I told Joey and Hannah that next year they should wear the same costumes, but we can spray their hair orange and they can be Ron and Ginny Weasley! They aren't totally on board with that idea, but I have a year to try to convince them!

Hermione and her best friend Catwoman!

Sleeping Beauty and our neighbor Maleficent!

We had a little potluck with some neighbors, and then we took off trick-or-treating. The older kids love to run ahead and race from house to house. All the parents kind of just walk down the middle of the street while the kids dart from door to door. Ellie isn't fast enough to stick with the big kids, so she and Andy went at their own pace. She loved it because she got to knock on every door and say trick-or-treat all by herself. Andy loved it because he got some sweet one-on-one time with her. She was very conscientious and said, "Gank you" every time she got candy. Sometimes she even said "Gank you" when no one was there and there was just a bowl of candy to pick from.

Another great Halloween!

This year the annual Halloween Carnival that we go to at Emmanuel Faith was the night before Halloween, so we had a full weekend of fun...and candy....too much candy! ;-)

This year we brought Harry and Hermione. These two really love the Harry Potter books and are rereading them for the second time now with Andy. I was so excited that they were both on board for a Potter theme this year.

Apparently, we went with literary themes this year, because Ellie was Fancy Nancy. 

She's really into those books right now, and I always thought Ellie's curly, crazy hair looked just like Fancy Nancy's. Then I realized what an easy costume that would be: just put on a bunch of stuff from our dress up box and add a little orange hair spray...voilà! 

(Fancy Nancy would LOVE the word "voilà!")

This was our seventh year going to this Halloween Carnival (I don't think we've missed any), so we have our route down. We always get there right when it starts,

loop around all the outside games (this spinning one was a new one this year!), 

have a quick dinner and then head into the gym for more games,

and hit up the popcorn and cotton candy before we leave. Fun times!