Normal November

The month of November felt far from a normal November to me, besides the fact that we just did normal everyday life things for normal every day Australian life.  But for me, that attitude of gratitude was missing from our November since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here there was no out side focus on gratitude and I feel like I failed to put an inside focus on it either.  I have vowed to do better next year in trying to over emphasize an attitude of gratitude for the month of November.  Because for me I think it really contributes to the feeling of the month and prepares you for the holidays with the right frame of mind.  It really felt to me like something was missing and it was sad that I didn't take the chance to help my kids see how much they are truly blessed with throughout the month.  Anyways, enough of my guilt ridden rant, lets get on with the normal happenings of our month. 

 This is a morning we stopped off at the park after dropping Lily at school.  Ava decided not to get dressed in time to go this morning.  So she is in her pjs. 

This is a family night when the kids were building the city of Enoch. 

 Here is the City of Enoch right before it got taken up to heaven to be with our Heavenly Father.  Look at Lily and Will, twinners!

 After the city of Enoch was finished they decided to build the tower of Babel, okay, not really the tower of Babel, just a really tall tower. 

 We did a lot of playing outside and swimming this November. 

 Lily always stays in the longest and sometimes is the only one who swims when it really isn't quite swimming weather.  She just loves it that much.  :)

 Ava can be quite anti-swimming some days.  I sure hope she gets over that or it's going to be a long summer for her. 

 So she plays fetch with Lily in the pool.  :)

 Ha, love this kid!  Such a crack up!

 Lily and Ava planned a girls night for us one Sunday night, all on their own.  Complete with hair make overs, as you can see, and cupcakes.  I love them!!!  It was seriously so fun! Love Ava's super huge bite taking face!  hahaha!

 Ava was missing home so she pretended to fly home to America one day.  :/

 Haha, so one day I left Will in his room without a diaper on in the middle of a diaper change for just a minute.  When I came back there was pee in his little toilet!  I was so excited!  I keep hoping it is a good sign, but we will see.  I'm not quite ready to go there yet as a parent, and it is never a good idea to toilet train until you as a parent are mentally prepared.  January when the girls have no school and we won't be going on any more trips is my goal month.  Wish me luck!

 Mr. Fix it!

Christmas decor started going up all over town, which the kids found quite exciting!  :)

 These decorations are at our favorite, Hammond Park. 

 We finally decided to give our cute long haired boy a hair cut.  It is just so hot!  And it was getting out of control. 

 Look at this sweet Willy Wonka do Cory combed Will's hair into before he started cutting!  And don't mind the total disaster behind Will.  We had a dishwasher leak and tons of mold in the walls!  And anyone who knows Cory knows that it will probably look like that for another few weeks or months.  ;)

 I could not believe how much this kid started to look like my nephew, Trevor, once his hair got shorter and shorter!  It is Trevor Jr. right there! 

 We celebrated Uncle Bradyn's birthday.  I love this photo!  Everything about it! 

 Lastly, we have been blessed with an amazing adopted aunt out here, Aunt Shelece.  She took my girls on a shopping date and got them these beautiful dresses for church.  Aren't they gorgeous?  We love Aunt Shelece! 

So that was our normal November, or most of it.  Next year we will work on doing some gratitude traditions.  It's not too late anyway, I'm just going to try and push gratitude all year long! :)