Lil Landis Fam: Year 7, November: Thankful

I hope you have all had a happy Turkey month! We have had a great month, a little crazy, but full of things and people we love, which is exactly what the holiday season is about, we just had an early start to it. So thankful for the weather and the start of our birthday and holiday celebrations.

We started off with our first celebration! One of our friends has a chili cook-off every year and we housed it this year. It was a lot of fun! We had a great turnout, the weather was a bit chilly, but it was so much fun. The kids were so excited, we loved getting to use our barn for people we love to gather together, it was a wonderful day and the first of 3 parties we had in 8 days!

Tuesday was voting day, then on Wednesday I had to take Vivian to an appointment for her skin, it turns out she has eczema, which was disappointing to hear, but we have been treating it and have been getting good results. That evening we had our final small group of the semester with dinner and some fun fellowship time together! Our second party and by far the least involved! By Thursday I was pretty exhausted from the previous days and overwhelmed by the rest of the week, I got a lot of stuff done and instead of making supper, we went to Grinder's, got some grocery shopping done for the final party: William's third birthday!

This year we decided to have a "farmer's breakfast" for William and had everyone over for brunch. It was a bit of a hack. I am absolutely a fan! All the prep work was done on Friday - two kinds of muffins, scones, cinnamon rolls, slider prep, fruit prep and table/chair prep. On Saturday, all I had to do was finish the sliders, set up the yogurt bar and organize the pastries! William had such a great time. He got to enjoy his new toys the entire day and everyone got to stay and hang out until naptime!

Jonathan has done some traveling this month, so we have made sure to get some time with friends and Nana and Papa to distract the kids from long days at home. He had a lot of work things that all have gone very well! We had a pretty quiet middle of the month. Lots of relaxing, a few doctor's appointments for the kids and for us.

We had one weekend of kids and Mama at Nana's house. The kiddos were little troopers! We went to visit Grandma Kate and Grandpa Glenn, we did some grocery shopping and the guys working on re-insulating and flooring our attic. As a reward for making it through, we all went out to eat and the kids were absolutely thrilled. It was a great evening, the attic looks great, we had a great time with Nana getting some visiting and tasks done, it was wonderful. Added bonus, I got to do some kitchen cleaning the next day because I was so inspired by all the space I have in the attic to store things! No need to keep extra stuff in my kitchen anymore, that's for sure!

Of course, we ended the month with Thanksgiving! It was a small Thanksgiving with my parents and grandparents, big family game night with my dad's side of the family on Friday, pigs on Saturday and Christmas decorating on Sunday after naps, sausage and church. It was a BIG weekend! The kids loved every single minute of it, of course, and took some VERY good naps!

Our month has been pleasantly full. We have all enjoyed our month and our time together doing such a variety of different activities. The best part of the holidays is more time with family and friends and we are planning to continue that into the next month! I hope everyone else is ready for December! Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, enjoy the cooler weather and the holidays!