November 2017

November began with final soccer practices and soccer games.  I have several more pictures from this soccer season that I will add to a separate post.  Here's one from the final practice:

Right after Halloween at the beginning of November, Carter made this book at home over the course of a couple afternoons.  I was really impressed with his spelling and hard work on it.  It is titled Ghosts (can you tell he still had Halloween on the brain?).

of course, it's his story so he had to make one of the ghosts "toot"

Boys!

sNora Kate has been really into helping me bake, so she was super excited when I told her we were getting to bake a birthday cake for our friend Thomas who lives in Asheville.

Then she was even more excited when I told her that for his birthday party Thomas was having a tailgate party then we were all going to the UT Football game (her first), she was even more excited!

Nana and Grandad kept Clayton and John and I got to enjoy some time on campus with our three big kids and lots of great friends.

Tailgate time....we couldn't have asked for better weather.

Jeff, Josh, and John.

Amanda, Cassandra, and me.

AGR and Sigma Kappa couples.

Always so thankful for these great friendships we made in college.

Nora Kate's first football game!

She requested I take her picture here with various poses. Haha!

The White kids and the Zorio kids (minus Clayton) had SO much fun together!

dI had fun helping Cassandra with a few little things for Thomas' Tennessee Tailgate Birthday Par-T...Nora Kate and I got into baking and decided to do two cakes (pictured above).

We had a wonderful time with our friends, and the kids had a blast playing together for hours at the tailgate and then going to the football game.  Great memories.

The next morning we got up and decided to do something we had never done before to see the beautiful fall foliage-drive the Dragon!  So we loaded up the van and set out on the Dragon.  We did it very early in the morning so it was not crowded at all, no one was flying, we barely saw any motorcycles, and it was BEAUTIFUL!  No one got carsick in the van on all those curves, and we all had a blast.

Eating lunch at school with Dawson this month.

I think this may have been the only picture I took during our trip to the Muse this month.  But, we met one of Nora Kate's sweet friends, Finley, at the Muse and played there.  The girls had a great time, and I wish I had snapped at least one picture of them, but at least I captured Clayton who was enamored with this mirror tunnel.

Nora Kate likes to put lipgloss on me and her then take a picture to see what we look like...while I have suggested simply looking in the mirror, this is way more fun to her-hah!

dOur Sunday School class had a social event at a friend's farm in November, and we were so looking forward to it.  Unfortunately, Carter got strep right before the event-so I stayed home with Carter (and Clayton since it was really naptime for him anyway), while John took the others.  Everyone had a blast, and he snapped this sweet picture of NK on the hayride.

This girl and her expressions sometimes...

disguise a turkey...

Dawson disguised his turkey as a fisherman.  He was so sweet about it too because he requested that I take a picture of it and send it to Pop since him and Pop both like to fish.

Carter got these giant glasses out of the treasure box for doing so amazing with his sight words.  He was definitely rocking the big glasses look. 

Carter the Indian at his Thanksgiving Feast at school.  Nora Kate, Clayton, and I went to eat with him. 

Our good friends, the Houghs, came to visit us from Alabama in mid-November, and we were SO excited.  I sincerely hope we didn't wear them out, but we were so excited to see them and entertain them that we jam-packed all our time with fun things to do.  The arrived Friday night and we let the kids all run free, play, and then get settled.  They have Henry who is 5.5 and slept on trundle mattress in the big boys' room.  Annie who is 3 and slept on an extra mattress in Nora Kate's room. And then Ruby who is 1.  The kids played amazingly together, and honestly you would not have known we had SEVEN kids in this house because they all did so well.

Saturday morning hiked up to the Look Rock Fire tower. It was super windy at the top, if you can't tell from the picture above.

Clayton may have enjoyed the hike the most-riding in the ergo carrier eating snacks haha!

Annie and Nora Kate were so cute and sweet together.  NK loved having a friend for the weekend.

The big boys!

This was also the weekend that Pop came home from the hospital, so we took the kids over to decorate with sidewalk chalk again to welcome Pop home.

Then for our afternoon/evening activity with our company, we went to the Tennessee LSU game.  Some other friends from Alabama, the Wayes, drove up for the game too.  It was SO fun being with all these Alabama friends (who are all TN fans).  We miss them all so much.

The tailgate.

We had so much fun tailgating then going to the game.

A huge storm came during the game...that's rain blowing around in the stadium.  It was crazy.  Thankful we had ponchos and were under the overhang.

as I mentioned the boys were thrilled to have a friend spend the weekend in their room.  so fun!!

And so was Nora Kate.

Sooo after a hike, tailgate, and football game Saturday, we knew we couldn't let Sunday be a disappointment...so we bundled up and headed to Dollywood with the Houghs!

Clayton and Ruby.

And-bonus-we got to see all their Christmas-y stuff at Dollywood.

Kid coaster!

We had a fun day at Dollywood, then we had to head home so the boys could go to choir practice, and our friends stayed a little while longer.  We had an awesome weekend with our friends.  It was great!

This was the backseat on the way home...all that fun had worn some people out!

Nora Kate picked this outfit out when we were shopping.  She found the sweater and the leggings separately and put them together.  She loved the outfit and was proud that she put it together on her own.  So we bought it.  She always has extra pep in her step when she wears it-haha!

On Thanksgiving break, Carter got to bring home his class pet-Parker the Pangolin (stuffed animal).  So Parker helped us make these turkey cookies for Thanksgiving dinner.

We all had fun making these cookies.

We were beyond thankful that Dad felt like coming to Thanksgiving dinner at Arlene and Wayne's house.  Here is Carter (and Parker the Pangolin class pet) with Lolly and Pop at Thanksgiving Dinner.   I wish I had taken more pictures, but I'm thankful that my cousin took this one and shared it with me.

We went to the Fantasy of Trees a tradition.  At first Clayton kept making this serious face on the carousel, then he loved it!

This little car in the city area is always a hit!

Nana and Grandad met us there.  Everyone was happy, but this was at the very end and I think some people were getting tired.

The day after Thanksgiving was Logan's birthday, so we celebrated.

Then my birthday was the Sunday after Thanksgiving...

I have not been eating many sweets, and for months I had been telling John that all I wanted for my birthday was a lemon cake from Publix...AHHH, he remembered and it was sooooo delicious!

John is always the best gift-giver, and he did it again by surprising me for my birthday weekend.  He lined up Nana and Grandad to watch all four kids while we got away overnight to the mountains.  We started out our trip with a hike that had amazing views.  We hiked to Laurel Falls and then the Greenbriar Trail Beyond it.

The falls was beautiful.

We hiked about 6 miles.  This was as we were coming off the trail.

Then we checked into our hotel and got ready for the evening.

We went on the chairlift (pictured above) before going out to dinner.  We have NEVER been on the chairlift.  We went right as it was starting to get dark and we had amazing views of the mountains as the sun was setting and the Christmas lights in Gatlinburg below us.

Our hotel room had a fireplace.

We also enjoyed a run together, a little shopping, and plenty of relaxation.

It was so refreshing to get away for a night and celebrate my birthday number 32.

Putting up the Christmas tree.

As soon as I got out the nativity set, Clayton started pointing sweetly to each person.  His little round fingers did this all month long.  So sweet.

Decorating the Christmas tree.

We decided to put the tree up a little before December this year, and we put it up and decorated on November 27th.  The kids had so much fun decorating it.