November (2010)

Well.  Obviously here on the blog, we have not hit 2011 yet.  I started this November post about a month and a half ago, and just never got around to finishing it.  Just so there's no confusion, I wrote the first part (about sitting in a hotel room in Albuquerque) while we were on our way to Utah - I thought while we were on vacation I was going to have all this fabulous extra time to catch up on the blog. Ha!  It didn't happen.  Anyway, I'm posting it now so that eventually I can move on to documenting December, our Utah trip, Christmas, January, etc. 

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Albuquerque, NM (we are on our way to Utah for Christmas), and I realized I finally have some free time to blog!  I uploaded the pictures for my November post a few weeks ago, but blogging is far, far down on my list of things that get done these days, so I had kind of given up on ever finishing it.  Now I am finally finding myself with a napping baby* and nothing to do - Daniel and the older boys are at the bowl game (we were so excited when we found out BYU would be playing in Albuquerque on the exact day we would be driving through).  The rest of us are hanging out in our hotel room, watching Christmas movies (until the game starts in an hour - then I'll put the kids down for a nap in one room, while I watch the game in peace and quiet.  At least that's the plan.  We'll see how it goes). (*It failed.  The napping baby woke up.)

Anyway.  November:

We started out the month with a visit from my mom, who came to help out with the new baby.  Everyone loves visits from Grandma Orva, and we all had lots of fun.  Plus she did all our laundry, made dozens of batches of bread and other snacks, cooked all the meals, and babysat all the kids so Daniel and I could go on dates.

Here's a random shot of Rachel's bed.  While my mom was here, we noticed that Rachel was taking extra care to make her bed super fancy every morning.  I love all the animals all sitting in a train. 

Cynthia, 3 weeks old:

Lizza and Henry enjoying their Strider bikes in the backyard:

And in the house: 

Taking a little break for Lizza to read a story:                                  

Cynthia, one month old:

Oliver's last football game.

Rachel and her best friend, Addie, at the game:                                                                

Cynthia's first football game appearance.  Everyone loved seeing her - I don't think I held her at all during the whole game, because people kept passing her around.

Elizabeth was very proud of herself for finishing a puzzle bigger than she was:

She LOVES Cindy, and is seriously a big help with her.  She knows all the good ways to get her to stop crying.

I came out into the family room one day and found (alarmingly), that Henry had gotten himself set up on the couch with the laptop.  He told me he was "just doin' work stuff like Dad."

Rachel decided she wanted to learn how to ride a bike with no training wheels, so the day before Thanksgiving (it was nice and sunny), we went out to work on it.  Thank goodness for Strider bikes - she already had the balance part down, and literally the first time she got up on her bike and I let go, she was off and riding. Easiest "learn to ride a bike" experience we've had by far.  

Henry and Lizza joining in on the fun:

We were on our own for Thanksgiving, so we decided instead of making the traditional turkey feast, we'd rather have something we all liked better - fondue!  So we had a fondue feast. 

The day after Thanksgiving, Rachel wanted to test out her bike-riding skills again, so we all rode down to the playground.

Henry rode his strider all the way to the park for the first time:

Lizza and Rachel playing some dominoes while waiting for the BYU/Utah game to start:

An almost 6-week old Cynthia, ready to go to church for the first time:

My three girls.  When I was pregnant with Cindy I really thought I wanted her to be a boy, because I love my pairs and thought it would be fun to have 2 boys, 2 girls, 2 boys.  Now I am so happy that I have 3 and 3.  It's so much fun to have another sister for Rachel and Elizabeth.

Wrestling with Dad - their favorite part of the day:

SeaWorld

Before I move on to November (and December), there is one more fun thing we did in October that I wanted to blog about - SeaWorld!  We didn't have anything going on the day before Halloween, and it had been so long since we'd had a free Saturday, so we wanted to do something fun together as a famly. 

Cynthia was not even two weeks old yet, so it was a tiny bit of a crazy idea, but it actually was perfect, because she just slept in the front pack the whole time, except for when I fed her during the shows.  The weather in San Antonio was great - hot enough during the day that I felt sorry for all the kids I saw who were bundled up in their furry Halloween costumes, and just chilly enough for jackets in the evening.   

Daniel and the boys at the dolphin show:

Me and the girls:

I love the dolphin show.  It's so neat it gives me goosebumps.  I know I've said this before, but it always makes me wish that in my spare time I was a dolphin trainer at SeaWorld. 

Or the lady who gets to do this:

After that it was on to the Atlantis ride, which Daniel went on with the older four kids.  Lizza was not scared at all.  If you click on the picture to enlarge it, and then click again to zoom in, you can see Tristan, Elizabeth, Daniel, and Rachel in the very back row, and then Oliver (green shirt) in front of them.

I think everyone got pretty wet except Daniel and Lizza.

You can see from Oliver's face that he was very much in "dramatic picture posing mode".  (I actually don't know if he is ever not in this mode.) 

After that we went to the Shamu show.

The older kids really wanted to sit down in the splash zone.  After I warned them that it would be cold and salty water, Tristan thought better of it and moved back a few rows, but Ollie and Rachel insisted on staying.  They got soaked!

Oliver was tall enough to go on the Steel Eel roller coaster for the first time with Daniel and Tristan.  He was pretty nervous, but liked it enough to do it a second time later.



After he and Tristan posed for a picture in front of it, Ollie asked me if I would take a "before" and "after" picture of him.  I was like, "What are you talking about?  You already went on it," and he said, "no, Mom, please!  I have a really funny idea."  So I said okay.

Before (except it's really a pretend before):

And after. (I'm not really sure what he was hoping to portray with this one - maybe he is falling over because it was so fast and scary?  As Henry likes to say, "You are such a goofball, Ollie!")

We bought some little fish so we could feed the dolphins.  We've done this before, but have never been able to get so close to so many.  We were all able to pet the dolphins, which everyone loved. 

After that we fed the sea lions.  I think sea lions are so funny - it's always entertaining to watch them.

Little Cynthia stretching out during the sea lion show:

Rachel took this picture of us while we were waiting for the boys to do the Steel Eel again.   

After it got dark, Daniel took the older three to the haunted forest (SeaWorld had lots of fun Halloween stuff going on).  The line was super long, so I took the younger three out to the car to feed Cynthia.  Lizza and Henry were pretty worn out, and fell asleep immediately. 

It was a good day.