Can it really be November already? Fall just flew by and winter has made her grand appearance.
We had an absolutely gorgeous fall here. I remember when I was growing up here thinking that it was just so ugly here and wished we had 'fall' like they do in New England. All those bright colors!
I still want to see 'fall' in NE but I was absolutely amazed at the range of colors we got here this year. Usually the scrub oaks just turn brown and the quakies are yellow of course and the few maples are pinky/red/orange. But this year the oaks were all shades of yellow, ochre, orange, bronze, & burgandy along with the usual yellow quakies and few red maples. I could NOT stop staring at the mountain and being amazed by what I saw. I think it must have had something to do with all the water we had in the last year and the fact that the frost was long in coming this year. It seemed to gradually get colder and leaves turned colors before we had an actual frost. We took the pictures above up at the old ski lift before all the maples had their leaves knocked off by a rain storm. Not the best pictures but at least we have a family picture with Charles in it now (although I need to photoshop Jordan in).
Football is over for the year. We made it to the semi-finals, but were beaten by Rich again. It was a tough loss, but I have to say I'm not too sad that it's over. Life just slowed down a little.
Curtis has moved on to coaching JH Girls' basketball. It's a short season and will be done before Christmas and the practices are not nearly as long as football so we see him a bit more often now.
I finally have two teenaged boys with driver's licenses in my home. It's been so long since I've had someone I could pass the errand running off to. It's nice. Now if they'll just work on upping their GPA so we can afford for them to drive that would be even nicer!
Pregnancy is progressing well. Rather uneventful actually. It's boy #6 who will join our family in March. No name has been pinned down yet, we are running out of ideas for boys, I think. I have been fighting a sinus/cold thing for just over two weeks now and it's sure messed with my energy and ability to keep up with the work around here. I'm hoping it's on it's way out now. I have lots to do to get ready for the holidays. We are really going simple around here and I'm actually trying to make most things and have lots of thinking and making to do.
Kids are doing well, no one lost their eligibility last quarter. For us that's a huge accomplishment. They are excited to be into the 'holiday' season. I call it the 'candy' season. It starts with Halloween and does not end until after Easter. We did Halloween small, in fact, Curtis and I ran to Farmington NM to hit Sam's club and my sister ended up taking my kids trick or treating for me. That was a good trick, don't you think? At least it was a TREAT for me! We will just stay home for Thanksgiving and Christmas most likely. Trying to keep our expenses down, so that we have the $ necessary for baby and car repair. Those two things always seem to be a constant at our house.
I have been working on decluttering and minimizing the house. This week I have worked on the toy closet downstairs. It's become a nightmare lately and I just haven't felt like I wanted to mess with it. But this week I just couldn't stand it anymore, so I dug in. Mostly I'm trying to change mindsets and help my kids see that the less 'stuff' we have the less 'stuff' they have to pick up all the time. I just keep talking about it and how we need to only keep what we need and pass on to others what we don't need. Just yesterday I was talking about this in regards to Soren's cars. He has so many and they are all over the house. He said he would pick out the ones he liked and we could donate the rest to the thrift store. I may just 'donate' them to the dump! But I think he is getting the message. I'm hoping that by starting this with him at such a young age, he will have fewer tendencies to be a hoarder.
(I hate when Blogger won't let me put spaces between my paragraphs!...hence the color and size changes!)
