The Middle of November

On the 21st of November, the Reptile Man came to my girls' school to have some fun and learn a little bit. He came during the day at school for all of the kids and then in the evening, families were invited to come see him for a small fee of $2 per person. Curtis and I went with the girls. It was very entertaining and fun to watch.

A few students were asked to come help with the snake and Charlotte was one of them (the one with the yellow sweatshirt).

Lucy, the Alligator, posing as a hat.

She is a very nice alligator and has never bit anyone. He's owned her for a long time. They grow slowly.

A turtle that I don't remember the name.

Now Alice gets a turn with Oscar the snake, along with Charlotte. I don't remember what kind it is.

At Jack's jazz band festival (the same day Nikki came to town), he received a personal award that we didn't know about until the following week. He was the only one from his school to get a personal award. It was for his high level of outstanding musicianship. We're so proud of his accomplishments!

I discovered that we have another theater in town (AMC theater) that is a lot less expensive for tickets than the one we live closer to (Fairchild Cinemas). The girls and I decided to go see a movie there on the 22nd, when they didn't have school due to parent teacher conferences. We saw "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" and went early in the day. There were only 4 other people in the theater. We thought it was a pretty good movie, and the girls can't wait to watch it again. We're just waiting for it to be available to buy on DVD. I had bought some Kit Kat bars to sneak into the theater to eat during the movie, but the girls were worried about getting caught and thrown out of the theater, so we decided to eat a few before and then the rest after the movie in our van. I'm glad that they wanted to be honest. Theater food is just so expensive, so we didn't eat anything during the movie, but enjoyed it all the same.

We sat on the very top row by the stairs.

Our family also decided to participate in a service project where we buy some gifts to fill a shoe box and send it to kids somewhere in the world that need it. We chose to do two of them, a boy and girl. In January we will be able to see where in the world these packages were delivered. It was fun to do something new to help the less fortunate.

We did a boy age 2-4 and girl age 5-9.

This year was the first time in 3 years that we have put up Christmas lights and the first time on this house. We got them put up the weekend before Thanksgiving. I couldn't believe how many lights strands we have that have either all lights out or half of them. We decided to recycle all of those ones and just use what we have that's good. Hopefully next year we'll be able to buy some new light decorations.

Believe it or not, I was up on the roof with Curtis also. I just got a picture right before he climbed down after we finished. Some ward members had seen me up there and were surprised that I would get up on the roof. That's just who I am. I got used to it I guess when Curtis worked overseas, but I also started doing lights as a teenager decorating our house and my grandma's. I usually don't get on the roof unless I have to.

It's not a lot of lights but it's still nice enough.

Last year we did not get any pumpkins for Halloween or Thanksgiving, but this year we did! We got them for free at our ward party, but did not end up carving any. I wanted to wait until after Thanksgiving to cut them open and get the seeds out for toasting, but one of them started to rot so I decided to do it the week before, on the same day we did Christmas lights. It was nice because we didn't have to dig out all of the pulp and we could cut the pumpkins into quarters. All I wanted were the seeds!

Unfortunately, one pan got a little over toasted, but they still tasted good.

Charlotte had a dentist appointment on Monday the 25th of November, which was the same day as the girls' parent teacher conferences. Both of the girls are doing very well in school and the teachers had lots of good things to say about both of them. That makes me so happy! And Charlotte did not have any cavities at her appointment!

She gets to relax and watch "Bluey" with headphones on while she gets her teeth cleaned.

The day before Thanksgiving the kids had an early release from school and Charlotte got to make a cute turkey at school with a Kindergartener. She loves getting to do things sometimes with the younger kids at school. The turkey turned out super cute!