why i love november

November is so beautiful in Phoenix.  

I also love it because it is much less stress full than October and December. Those months are very fun, but very busy.  November just gives us time to breath.  Still we manage to keep busy enough.
We had a nice visit from Uncle Danny early in the month.

We had some adventures in the park together.

We had an unfortunate adventure to the ER with Gus for croup again...

Don't worry.  He is fine and it wasn't as serious as last time, but it still stunk.  Poor kid.

Mimi came over for a late celebration of birthdays with the boys and brought special treats...

And Creature Power suits!

We celebrated Nona's birthday, too...

As usual, donuts were involved...

 
 Gus and Nora have become great little buddies and love to be dramatic together.
This was after I let them watch Enchanted...

There is generally lots of dress-up going to at all times...

 Sometimes friends get in on the action, too.

 We had our Woods Family Softball Game at St. Francis Field...

Jimmy did another Box Car Derby...

 And there was lots of bike riding in the nice weather...

It really is a favorite month of mine. 

jimmy's bowling birthday

Jimmy's birthday is on All Saints Day so we always wake up a little tired from the night before.  

In fact, Gus was still in his costume from the night before...

Despite the tired face here, I promise he was really excited about this new Star Wars Lego ship...

He begged to go bowling for his birthday this year.  Since I gave him a bigger party last year, I didn't want to spend much on this and a real bowling birthday party was quite expensive.  I was able to find a Groupon that made it doable for only a few kids.  He invited three cousins, one friend, and Gus.

Zach was kind enough to let Nora take some of his turns.  Baby Danny just slept through most of it so he wasn't too sad that he didn't get a turn.

It was a good time and Jimmy loved it which was what mattered most.  

Jimmy's present from the Woods boys was a big hit with everyone...

On Monday, we took our Saint Peg Dolls to show his class and took fruit snacks as his birthday treat.

Gus and Nora were good little helpers.

Jimmy told his classmates who each one was and we passed them around.  They all seemed to think it was really neat and wanted to make them, too.

Happy 8th Birthday, Jimbo!  

Now stop getting bigger!

hogwarts halloween... (mostly)

 Halloween was as big a deal as ever this year.  We finally did the long awaited Harry Potter theme with the Burches and Speiers.
Jimmy was all about doing the group costume, as usual, and decided to be Quidditch Harry.  

We never quite got the whole group together for one picture, but we tried...

Gus could have cared less about doing Harry Potter since he hasn't read the books yet and since he got it in his head a year ago that he wanted to be Prince Philip from Sleeping Beauty.  He wanted to have an Aurora to go with him so he convinced Nora that she wanted to do that (not too hard mind you).  I decided I wanted her to be Briar Rose since I wanted to make that costume more.  They looked pretty stinkin' cute!

Gus was happy that Isaiah wanted to battle him since there weren't any dragons around...

Nora just wanted Gus to dance with her the whole time and Jimmy tried to catch the Golden Snitch...

My dad might have been my favorite of all as Dumbledore...

Zach made a pretty intimidating Prof. Snape (I wish he could have worn it to his school) and Martha was for sure the cutest as Dobey...

This was the first year we got three grandparents to participate and help fill out the Hogwart's Staff.

Our Nana went as Prof. McGonagall and the Speier's Nanny was Prof. Spout.  Aunt Nat joined in as Tonks...

This was the first year my family split up costume themes.  People were shocked when they heard, but I was cool with it.  I thought about being Bellatrix LaStrange, but since Zach was going to be Snape with Jimmy, I thought maybe I should join in with Gus and Nora instead (Plus, her hair was going to be crazy hard for me to pull off).  I made a Maleficent costume a few days before Halloween out of a Mickey Mouse Ear Hat, My sister's purple dress, and a lot of scrap fabric.  Not my most refined work, but pretty good for last minute.

It was a pretty great party.

The decor and treats were all in accord with the Hogwarts theme.  

A Potions Bar...

And Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom...

And last my Dad provided a photo booth prop...

I managed to get pictures of almost everyone so here is the character rundown in case you are not a Harry Potter expert:

Jack was Harry Potter and Lily was Hermione...

Isaiah was Neville and Kateri was Luna...

Finn was Ron and Jimmy was Harry...

Lucy and Audry were Fred and George Weasley...

They were hamming it up for me.

Dot was Ginny Weasley (although she was out of her costume at this point)...

Nana was Prof. McGonagal and Zach was Prof. Snape...

Alley and Natalie were both Tonks (remember she can change her appearance so that is why she can look different in each picture)...

Martha was Dobey (see previous pictures for her ears) and Luke was Hagrid...

Pete and Emily were Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy...

And Prince Philip and Briar Rose just wanted to get in on the fun...

At least I was an actual witch so my picture kind of makes sense.   And just to show that Harry Potter didn't steal the whole show, Dot proved that Sleeping Beauty was pretty exciting too, by changing her costume pretty early in the evening.  Who could resist such a handsome prince?...

The kids all had lots of fun trick-or-treating and definitely made the longest trek to date.  Nora might have thought it was the most awesome thing in the world that everyone just gave her treats and all she had to say was, "Trick or Treat."  We got the most candy we have ever gotten.  It was too heavy for Gus so I ended up hauling it around and it got heavy for me, too.  Gus' feet hurt by the end and he was finally ready to head back.  Since Nora was carried most of the time she didn't want it to end.  She actualy still asks when we can go do it again.  When we finally made it back, the kids were still ready to party.  They all had fun playing with the dry ice....

I did learn one lesson which was that you can't let kids go off by themselves to "count" their candy or you will suddenly find that they have been secretly gorging on it which is only evidenced by all the candy wrappers on the floor.    I guess this was the first Halloween I neglected to remind them to check with me on how much candy they were allowed to eat.  Lesson learned.  I thought Jimmy would have a stomach ache the next day, but he didn't so I guess I am the only one who learned a lesson.  Anyway, another great Halloween that will be hard to compete with.  Surely, we will still try.... Did I say that last year?  I bet I did.