November

November, November.  Most famous for "No Shave November" ("I 'mustache' you a question!), Thanksgiving and football.  It will go down as an extremely busy (and stressful) month for us.

But we did have some good and fun things happen in November- the most stressful one was a wonderful thing, actually (more on that later).

Throughout the month of November (and October too, actually), we sold and sent home all 9 of our chocolate lab pups.  They are fun to have, but towards the end, we are ready for them to go. 

Our kids love those pups.  Leah and Lexi would often sneak into the backyard to grab a few minutes of play time with them.

The first weekend in November, Ben had a dream come true!  A buddy of his invited him to go Elk hunting and... they got an elk!  It was technically his buddy's elk, but Ben was there to witness the kill and helped find the elk.  He was like a kid on Christmas.

The longest and hardest part of the hunting trip was transporting the body/meat back to the truck.  It took them hours.

The next few nights were spent cutting and wrapping the meat.  Can't say it's the prettiest sight in the world, but this event made Ben's whole month. 

The next week was Leah and Lexi's first trip to the dentist.  All of our kids have done awesome at their first dental appointment, and these two ladies were no exception.  Our dentist is awesome.  His daughter just recently finished dental hygiene school and was the girl's hygienist that day.  She was so, so nice and patient.  She is so good with kids.

Lexi went first.  The hygienist showed her all the tools first and let her touch all of them.

When it came time to look in her mouth, Lexi opened right up and did great!

Leah followed Lexi's brave lead and jumped up in the chair next.  When this girl isn't being so emotional, she is so, so sweet.

  She got to touch all the tools too!

Open wide!

They both got in the chair when Dr. Paul came to look in their mouths.  He said their teeth (in terms of cavities, etc) looked great.  In the future, he said Alexis is probably going to fare better than Leah because her teeth are more spread out (a.k.a- gaps!)  Leah, on the other hand, has a tiny mouth with teeth very close together.  Her teeth look very nice right now as they are all straight and no gaps, but that could pose a problem later.  I guess right now we'll just enjoy both sets of adorable teeth and mouths.

The day after the dentist, I took off for Tri-Cities for a little weekend get away with Ben's 3 sisters and his mom.  We had been talking about a "Girl's Weekend" for over a year now and finally buckled down and made it happen.  The 4 of them all live in Tri-Cities, but we made it a "no kid, no husband" weekend.  We stayed at Ben's mom's house (Ben's dad was there, but we just did our thing).  The weekend included LOTS of eating, shopping, lounging, sleeping, talking and laughing.

Our first yummy meal was Costa Vida.  It was so good!

After a full day of shopping (like 7 hours worth), we came back to the house to lounge.

We played card games and chit chatted.  And made a dent on a Costco All-American chocolate cake.

Meredith even found time to knit something for her soon-to-be baby girl.

We stayed up way too late (you can do that when you don't have kids) and slept in the next morning.  It was so nice.

We headed out to get pedicures first thing.  This is my second professional pedicure ever.  The first one was with this same group of girls 6 years ago at this exact same nail salon.

It sure is nice to sit and relax and be waited on hand (..er, foot) and foot.

My view during the pedicure.

All the pretty toes afterwards- 3 gold and 2 red.  We have an almost identical picture from 6 years ago.  (Who has that picture??)

After a little more shopping, we of course had to go eat.

We chose a Mexican restaurant and it was super tasty.  I had the fijita salad and it was yummy!

We came back to the house in the early afternoon to start on a craft.

Ben's dad was home (we couldn't kick him out ALL weekend) and helped us with our project.

Megan with our almost finished projects.  

The completed craft!  We made paper wreaths made out of styrofoam wreaths with pages ripped out of a book glued all around the wreath.  They were easy and super inexpensive.

To finish the night off, we caught a movie at the local theater.  We saw "Here Comes the Boom" with Kevin James and it was hilarious.  I'm a big Kevin James fan and this movie was funny.

We stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home (what's a girls weekend without at least one blizzard?).  We stayed up very late once again, chatting and laughing the night away.

Sunday morning I had to head home and return to normal life (and return to our busy-ness).  I was super excited to see my kids but it was such a nice, relaxing weekend.  And my weekend companions were so great and I enjoyed every minute of my time.  I feel very blessed that my sisters-in-law and mother-in-law are among some of my closest friends.  Thanks for a great weekend, ladies.  Until next time...

How did Ben fare with the kids for an extended weekend?  From the pictures he texted me, just fine.

They went to Cabela's on Saturday (to sell pups and to shop).

Saturday evening, Chloe had her last soccer game.  It was a clear day, but Ben said it was bitter cold and then sun went down just minutes after the game started.

He had a hard time keeping everyone warm.

It's not very often (I don't think ever) that Ben has had the kids alone for an entire weekend.  Maybe the last time it happened was when we just had Chloe and it was just for 24 hours.  It was a special treat for the kids to get so much time with their dad.  (And I think Ben enjoyed it too).

The week of Thanksgiving, Mitch woke up with a rash all over his arms, legs, and a few on his face.

He looked horrible, but he had no other symptoms.  Usually rashes like this follow after a fever or some sort of illness. 

These pictures don't hardly do it justice.  It looked so bad.  He was one bumpy kid, that's for sure.

His legs were bad too.  His ankles and wrists were the worst spots.

With no other symptoms, I gave him a day to see if it would improve.  When he woke up the day before Thanksgiving looking worse, I took him into the doctor.  

After just examining him for a minute, the doctor was fairly certain it was Gianotti-Crosti Syndrome, which is a reaction of the skin to a viral infection.  It's a harmless disease and the rash itself is not contagious, although he did say it could take 2-6 weeks to clear up.  That's a long time to look so bumpy! :) (Luckily he is almost completely spot free 3 weeks later).

The doctor did say this was one of the most extreme cases he'd ever seen.  Nurses and other doctors in the office were invited into our examine room (with our permission) to gawk at Mitch's rash.  I heard comments like "Wow, that is bad."  "Oh my goodness!"  The doctor even asked if he could take a picture of it.  We were famous for a little while.  The amazing part was, like I said, that Mitch never felt sick or acted sick.  If anything, I swear he had more energy (and looked like a Leper).  And I probably should have given his school a little heads up about it.  The week after Thanksgiving, I got a call from a very concerned and shocked school nurse asking if I knew about the rash all over Mitch's body.  Oops... Although it was probably hard to believe, I told her it was definitely not contagious and that he was fine to be at school. 

After a busy day at the doctor and lots of loose ends to be tied up else where, Ben and I made it home just in time to head out for the evening.  About a month ago, we saw tickets on sale for "The Forgotten Carols" with Michael McLean.  Ben saw this musical years ago at college and has wanted to take me ever since we've been married.

We bought 4 tickets and then invited our friends the Maloney's to go with us.  We enjoyed a lovely dinner in downtown Seattle at a Thai place called "Wild Ginger."  The restaurant was right next door to Benaroya Hall, where the musical was being performed.

I've never been in Benaroya Hall before.  The Seattle Symphony Orchestra plays there, along with many other plays/shows.

This is not a good picture, but there are rows of balcony seating.  It was a beautiful hall.  And the play was wonderful.  The music is beautiful and the message is so great for this time of year.  It was the perfect start to our holiday season.