November 2015

Dear Friend,

This month was eventfully exhausting.  

These kiddos stayed busy dancing, 

playing rocket ship, 

painting, 

sneaking food out of the kitchen, 

getting into Mom's lipstick, 

crafting, 

dressing up, 

making Thanksgiving cookies with friends, 

and working in the yard. 

 These three have really been a riot lately.  One day they were all chasing after me when I ran and jumped on the couch.  Summer jumped on top of me and accidentally knocked both of her brothers to the floor when she kicked up her feet.  It was silent for two seconds before all of their personalities burst out.  Summer: "Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!" Smith started bawling and Boyd's face was over taken with anger as he yelled, "Hit you!" 

Summer is such a good big sister.  She loves helping others and keeps me on schedule.  

She loves her daddy.  She will often try to wake up early just so she can spend time with him as he works out before leaving for work.  One morning I caught them having a dance party.  

On another day, she was saying her nightly prayer when Elias reminded her to please close her eyes.  

She replied, "Oh, no Dad.  You do that.  I don't.  I'm a kid."

 

Smith is serious about his accessories.  He is seriously into shoes, hats, and gloves.  

He is learning so many new words each day and is such a charmer.  

He's got a shy smolder that can pull in ladies from across the room.  

 Boyd is catching up with his siblings when it comes to dress-up but he certainly has his own style.  

He is actually a really good helper.  But he has an entourage of stuffed animals that often have to follow him throughout the day.   

He has really been a daddy's-boy lately.  He gets so excited when we meet up with Elias for lunch, but when it comes time for Elias to head back to work Boyd gets really upset.  He starts by begging Elias to "stay us", and then petitions for "no work" before he pulls out his last resort of hitting Elias and declaring "mad you".  It's actually a really sad scene.  

 

We had our first good snowstorm of the season.   

 Summer saw it and declared, "Oh, I love snow!  I will eat it, and I will throw it, and I will make snow angels all over it."  

 

 We did just that, and then came inside for a little hot chocolate

and relaxing,  

 and then went back out for more.  

  We took a quick weekend trip to Arizona to spend a Saturday morning with Britta and her family.  

 And Saturday evening with my mom's family celebrating Grandmother's 90th birthday.  

It was so fun to celebrate her life and catch up with cousins.  

 The boys made themselves at home, 

 and Summer is always thrilled when with her cousins.  

 We love you Grandmother!

 It was a lot of driving for one long day of visits, but the boys took it easy on us the next morning...kind of.   

 Summer completed her book of 100 reading lessons so we got to go out to ice cream to celebrate!

 I don't know who is more excited that's over; me or her.  

The Saturday before Thanksgiving we enjoyed a day as a family going swimming 

(please note Smith's cheesy grin; I can't get enough of it)

 

and decorating for Christmas.   

 

I can't believe our Summer-Girl is four years old!  Her birthday was the day before Thanksgiving, so with plans to fly out as a family at noon, Elias had the day off and was ready to make her the birthday breakfast of her dreams.  Little did he know, she would request a bean burrito.   

 She had planned out her birthday outfit weeks in advance, 

but when she got Christmas socks from Gram and Grandpa, she just had to add them to the ensemble.  

Our plans were to fly to Oakland and then drive four hours to my brother's house in Tahoe to spend Thanksgiving with all of my family, but our trip started out a little rough.  My wallet was lost at the airport, and then I got sick and kept throwing up in the car, and then there was a big snowstorm, so we didn't make it to Tahoe and had to get a hotel in Sacramento.  

We picked up a few things for dinner at a grocery store and luckily the kids were pretty good sports about the whole thing.  Summer was more than willing to celebrate her birthday for another day.  

Elias discovered that our rental car had a built-in DVD system and so he spent the best $10 of our trip when he got a DVD "for Summer's birthday" for the kids to watch during the drive.   

It was a long ride that seemed to keep getting longer, but Elias kept things interesting.  

 Once we got there, we had a delicious Thanksgiving meal and had a blast celebrating Summer's birthday.   

It was a ton of fun spending time with family and the food was awesome.  

Thanks for being such wonderful hosts Carter & Steph! 

We also enjoyed celebrating my dad's 60th birthday.   

 

Good times were had by all! (Look at all those grandkids!) 

From there we headed back to San Francisco to spend a day as a family.   

The kids enjoyed the aquarium.   

 

  Elias had a recruiting trip back at Stanford for work, so we had a last-minute lunch with good friends.  

We love how gorgeous it is there 

and had fun with the kids at the children's museum. 

All in all, it was a busy and fun month with these three.   

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and wish you a very merry Christmas! 

Love always,
Elias, Brittany, Summer, Boyd & Smith