November

In a nut shell:

Here's Tanner playing outside in the middle of November.  Totally bundled up because it was pretty chilly. 50s, probably.  That's chilly for Texas.

Here's Tanner one week later, the week of Thanksgiving, enjoying going down the slide in short sleeves.  We get lots of warm spells when it's really supposed to be cold.  Even though I'm a cold weather girl, I kind of like the warm spells.  It lets us get more use out of our outside toys!

Tanner and his new ride.

Did I mention that Tanner loves slides?  And he and Erilyn are buds.

Anthon must be going through a smile-in-a-pained-sort-of-way-for-the-camera phase because I know for a fact he was totally psyched in this picture.  He spiked his hair himself.

These pictures are actually from way back in August, but I just found them on my phone and couldn't resist posting them here.  Eat your heart out, Harry Potter!  So stinkin' cute.

A few  more things of note:
1. Tanner is officially the sweetest little boy.  He will cuddle with me any time, any place.  He loves his blankets and he loves snuggling up on my shoulder.  He gives great kisses, and loves helping Dad put his shoes on. He's fascinated with whatever's going on above him and is constantly climbing on the table or up onto his stool so he can see what's going on.  With tile floors, this leaves Mom in a constant state of panic. I especially find his "fat eyelashes" (phrase courtesy of Erilyn) and curly hair adorable and his cheeks are still irresistable.
2. Erilyn is becoming my right hand girl.  I've discovered some helpful things about her: spanking her doesn't work.  She laughs, no matter how hard you do it; you can't reason with her when she's emotional, but when properly motivated, she can control herself pretty well; she responds extraordinarily well when you point out something she's doing well, and she'll go out of her way to help or please me as long as I  keep pointing out the things she's doing.  This is a great trick.  I especially love reading with her, and how she sings "Sam-e-el" in the primary song about Samuel prophesying of Jesus. She loves to play with friends, and is learning how to stand up for herself to Anthon.  Their playtime is much more cooperative now, rather than dictatorial (with Anthon as dictator.)
3. Anthon continues to bring laughter and life to our home.  He's taken to telling me what he wants to eat by saying the brand name.  For example, at breakfast the other day, he said, "Mom, I need the Mrs. Butterworths."  He loves to read and will read almost anything.  Erilyn frequently gets frustrated that she's waited all day for Anthon to come home from school and play with her but all he wants to do is read his book.  I've found the best way to deal with this situation is to sit down with Erilyn and read a book with her.  Works like a charm.  He's recently developed an intense interest in reptiles (ew), and is constantly asking me what my favorite kind of snake is.
A--"Mom, which snake do you like better, a Texas rattlesnake?  Or a king cobra?"
M--Hmmm....."A garden snake."
A--"Are they venomous?"
M--"Nope, completely harmless.  That's why I like them." 
A--walks away shaking his head.
Don't worry, he'll be back.  He's a hard one to shake, that one.
4. In other news, I've decided to start homeschooling.  Not an easy choice, in some respects, but in others, it seems weird that I haven't been doing it all along.  Scares the pants off me, though.  More on that later.  In fact, I think I'll start a separate homeschooling blog to chronicle the adventure.  Anthon's thrilled; Erilyn's holding judgment.  She seems cautiously optimistic.

Thanksgiving rundown:
We celebrated the holiday here.  It was nice.  Relaxing.  A lot of cooking for a 10 minute dinner.  Worth it?  Jury's still out.  It was nice to incorporate our own traditions, though.  We spent some time in the week leading up to it writing down what we're thankful "4" on number fours I'd cut out of scrapbook paper and the posted them up on our wall.  I've now put them all in a container that we'll open on Christmas morning and read before opening presents.  On Thanksgiving Eve we had a little devotional and talked about the pilgrims, watched some Mormon Messages on gratitude, talked about how the more we see something, the less we notice it and then practiced noticing the things all around us that we take for granted.  It was nice.  The kids love Mormon Messages.  They could watch it all day.  We were going to try to go hiking Thursday morning, but it was cold and raining, so we just hung out.  Good times.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And now I'm caught up.