More of the same day in the life in November:-)

Once in Almonte I find parking at our local library and rush in (a bit late - can you guess the theme of the day??!!) for the afternoon class I'm taking all about the history of the Ottawa Valley - GREAT lecturer and fascinating history!

The class ends at 3:30, just in time for me to whip over to the school to pick the kids up.  As I was at the library anyways, I picked up a few books for the kids to look through

and Ry opted to battle his demons on the ds instead:-)  This is usually saved for the hour long bus trip to school, which is why he actually likes to take the bus:-)  Today he was disappointed that I was picking him up, so I let him play for the drive home!!!!!!!  Funny, addicted boy!

When we got home we saw that Jamie had collected a bunch of sticks for a lantern-making project that we're planning on doing with Tiegan's class (we're using glass jars and coloured tissue paper with Ry's class)

and Kea was resting her very sore sprained knee, with some ice on it.

Jamie and Tiegan headed out for an hour to take Tiegs to horseback riding (and here's an example of one of the lanterns, hanging from our deck - made with sticks, electrical tape, and wax paper!)

While I was out on the deck I stocked up our wood pile and decided to stoke the fire for the evening - amazing how much heat this little guy gives off!

Time to pull out the homework bags from the backpacks, to see what notices were sent home, if there are any messages from the teachers in the journals and to see what books they brought home to read.

Dinner is roasted vegetables, beets, kale and fish (with leftover chicken for those kidlets complaining loudly about the fish!)

And then some down time in front of a video, finishing off that dang Halloween candy (amazing how long 12 pieces can last - I kept pushing for them to just eat it all in one go!!!!)

I had spent time with Ry's class working on lanterns, so I modge-podged them all to seal the tissue paper on and left them by the wood stove to dry - next step Jamie has to add handles

Tiegan showing off her new glasses (ie procrastinating on the task at hand of getting ready to go to bed)

Time to get ready for bed.......

Reading books, telling stories, winding down after a very busy day - getting ready to get up early the next morning!

We've found this GREAT balm for sore muscles - it goes on hot and cold and works wonders!  Kea slathers her knee with it before bed and smells minty fresh.

And while Jamie does the bedtime dance, I tackle the chaos of dinner dishes and kitchen clean up, while chicken stock bubbles away in the slow cooker......

Jamie makes a couple of prototypes of the lanterns to bring in to Tiegan's class before we decide to almost call it a day and crawl into bed

to watch an episode of "The Kennedy's", a dvd I found at the library.

And as we watched, I looked up images of owls in order to create a poster for the night walk, which is what we're making all the lanterns for.

Goodnight, sleep tight - another day is done!

Day in the Life for November.........

Good morning!  It's November 6th, and I'm a bit late in getting this day in the life done this month, but here I am:-)  And what a sunny day, it makes it so much easier to get out of bed with the sun shining through the windows.....

First up is Kea - as always, we set our alarm for 6:30 so I can quietly get her out of bed, make her lunch and walk her up to the bus.  She always bounds right out of bed, throws on a pair of jeans and whatever t-shirt she chooses for that day, does her hair, packs her bag and stumbles out the door.  It's so early that her teacher lets them all eat breakfast in the classroom when school starts at 8am.

I LOVE that she still wants us to walk her to the bus each morning, happily chattering along beside us - AND she continues to give us a big hug before boarding the bus.  I HAVE to assume this will cease over time (doesn't she see all the older boys sitting on the bus watching her?!) but for now I'll take all the hugs I can!

And after dropping Kea off, I walk back to the house in order to wake up the younger two to start getting them ready.  This morning Ry joined me in a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast (in his favourite pink pyjamas!  He's quickly learned that pink is not so cool to wear to school, so he has a stash of clothes for home!)

We spend some time working at the at-home reading and filling in all the homework logs.  These two get barely any homework, mainly some home reading (that they love doing - especially because for each sheet they fill out they win a certificate, which seems to be a source of all sorts of excitement!) and Tiegan gets 8 spelling words a week to work on.

The days are getting chillier, and we're trying to not turn on our radiant floors (just in order to save money) so our woodstove is seeing lots of action this fall.  Newspaper, cedar kindling, and then lots of other hard wood that we've cut up from around the property......

These little figures that Jamie got from his grandparents always crack me up when I pass them by.  Such characters:-)

Tiegan found a One Direction book in the Scholastics Catalogue that she really wanted, so she searched through her purse to discover she had JUST enough money to order it - much excitement ensued!

Finally, we're off to catch the school bus - a frosty day, brrrrrrrrr!

Ooooooops, we missed the bus - pretty rare (shockingly) but I am heading into town anyways so it's easy for me to drive them on this day.....

The counters are a mess from lunch making, and more so because I'm trying to make myself lunch too before heading out the door for the day..... Jamie tackles some of the chaos around the table.......

One of these days I need to take down our October decorations.....crazy to think that it's already November.  The year seems to be FLYING by:-)

Well look at that, I'm even late dropping the kids off at school once I do drive them in.  Which means that we need to head into the office so they can get a late slip.

The staff here is super friendly, knows all the kids by name, and very chatty with Jamie and I.  It really feels like a community looking out for our kids in many ways.......

I drop Ry off at his classroom, help him change into his indoor shoes and settle him into circle time.

And then I'm off -heading into the city for a meeting this morning.  With my story on CD and pumpkin amaranth to keep me company:-)

I find some parking in Little Italy and head into the studio for a One-on-One session

Where we look at photos and discuss various themes around photography.  I learn a lot during these sessions, and gain new skills and more confidence daily:-)

Then I'm back in the car and heading for Almonte, switching out my breakfast for kale, rice and bean buddha bowl in the passenger seat:-)

ooooooops.....

So it's November 5th today.  And evidently Anja and I both COMPLETELY forgot about a day in the life this month.  Yikes.  So we're going to do it tomorrow instead - stay tuned:-)