November 10

After church, Lucy went home with Amelia. They had fun cooking in the Easy Bake Oven and decoration g plastic cups for a tea party. The little turkey told Shannon that I never let her do fun stuff at our house. 

I brought Leanna and Bethany home from church. Kat’s friend Jeweliannah also joined us. It was fun having five teens in the house.

The boys spent the day at another wrestling meet. Elliott did great! He lost his first match by points, pinned his next three opponents, then got pinned in his fifth and final match. Clay said he looked really good, but was tired by the fifth match. Not bad for his second wrestling meet! 

November 9

For Matthew’s 10th birthday present, we took him geocaching. Our goal was 10 geocaches for his 10 years. Boys are funny. Everything is a competition. Who can run from point A to B the fastest? In this picture, they decided to see who could drink their drinks the fastest. 

Look closely at that cache-yuck! The hint was that it was an “unused muggle deterrent”. 

Love these boys 

November 8

Clay worked from 3pm-midnight Wednesday and last night, so we had lunch with him yesterday. I snuck this picture of the two of them cutting up.

Elliott had kickboxing and then wrestling last night. He loves exercise! His wrestling coach told all the other wrestlers during conditioning that they were all lazy-except Elliott. Give the boy all the burpees!

November 7

Kat is taking care of a couple of cats for the next few days.

November 6

Yesterday was National Redhead Day. Elliott will tell you that every day is Redhead Day in our house. 


Someone was eagerly waiting for us when we pulled into the garage yesterday. 

November 5

Lucy’s Flying Creatures Class dissected owl pellets yesterday. 

We survived Monday. We added dentist appointments in the afternoon (in addition to Julia’s piano lesson, and Elliott’s jiu jitsu and wrestling) just for fun. Good news? None of the kids have cavities. Bad news? I need a crown. Merry Christmas to me. 

November 4

Elliott had his first real wrestling meet yesterday. He won two matches and lost two. He was the only one on his team to compete that had never wrestled before. He won third place for his weight division. He loved it and did great! He has a lot to learn.


Leanna spent the night with us (and Julia spent the night with Bethany). Public schools are out of school today, but we have co-op. 

November 3

When your mean old mom wakes you up early on a Saturday to take the advanced placement test for the local public schools. Can you tell they were thrilled? Kat is pretty certain she wants to remain homeschooled, but we had already signed her up. And I figured we might as well have Elliott rested to give him the experience. This was his first time taking a standardize test. I honestly have no idea what his results will be. He said the test was fine. Kat? We expect her results to be high. Of course, she didn’t feel like she did well on the test. Perfectionist to the 110th %!

We went to a Halloween party at one of Clay’s high school friend’s house.

November 2

Thank goodness for extra large capacity washers and dryers. Laundry is a full-time job at our house. Ugh!

Lucy sewed a stocking for Gus


When the cake you make for a Halloween party sticks to the pan, you make it festive with plastic spiders. 🤷‍♀️

November 1

Having a creepy crawly race

Pumpkin catapult


Our neighbors went trick-or-treating with us. We have an angel, a soldier, a scary clown, Eleven (from Stranger Things), an avocado, and a teenage boy with a mask. 

2018 Halloween: Clay complained because we went trick-or-treating October 30th due to impending storms. “People are wimps! In my day we trick-or-treated ON HALLOWEEN in cold, in rain, etc.!” Yadda, yadda, yadda!

2019 Halloween: Clay lasted all of 15 minutes because it was “too cold!” 

My crazy neighbor was well prepared for 25 degree weather.

I brought hot chocolate along to keep the kids warm.

We had three trick-or-treaters the whole night. There weren’t too many kids out and about and not as many houses giving out candy. Have no fear, the kids filled 7 1-gallon bags with their loot.