November 2021: Odds N Ends

As I continue to play blog catch-up, here's everything left in my November picture folder.

Here is more of Agnes's flower costume, upside down of course. I really want to take that branch of that tree off to give a little more light to my herb garden, but if I do she has nothing she can reach for hanging upside down.

Every morning I write out the day's events on a small whiteboard so the kids who don't have access to the google calendars have some idea of what the day holds. Sometimes they like to erase things as they happen, and every time there is an empty board on the kitchen desk, Michael Jr draws a truck on it. Sometimes they are more intricate and sometimes they appear to be hurried, and if you're really lucky there's a popping elephant on top.

Agnes thinks this face is the funniest thing she's come up with yet.

We never know if there's going to be snow over the winter for snow angels, but we definitely know there will be enough leaves in the fall for leaf angels.

Often when Michael Jr is at his reading tutoring, Agnes and I will take a walk through that neighborhood, which includes climbing a giant hill. It's quite a delightful shock to the system when you walk up a very steep hill then turn around and are faced with a sky so hugely and truly blue. I'm sure my phone picture does it not justice, so when a clear day in November rolls around I highly recommend trying it yourself.

This is the famous Agnes Salad. If ever Agnes asks you for a salad, remember that her definition of "salad" has NO LEAVES. Her favorite salad is kalamata olives, artichokes, and cucumbers in poppyseed dressing. NO. LEAVES.

The schedule of Agnes's and Edie's ballet classes this year meant we had about an hour break between their classes and since that isn't long enough to go home (and, I discovered, just *barely* long enough to squeeze in an oil change, but not without many much stress from Edie about potentially being late to her class as she watched the minutes tick by), we would often walk to the nearby park to play between classes. I'm pretty sure Agnes only insists on holding a big sibling's hand in order to ensure they cannot run ahead of her, but it's adorable nonetheless.

If you haven't noticed the pattern, my school year involves a lot of time taking walks in random locations while waiting for a child's activity to be complete because I don't like the extra driving of dropping off and picking up when I can just as easily hang around and entertain myself (and usually Agnes). This walk was during an evening volleyball clinic of Catherine's, and I turned around at the end of my walk to find the setting sun shining on the fall leaves with the moon coming up behind. I should probably lug my real camera on my walks - these phone pictures are so disappointing when I go back and look at them.

Agnes cheffing with Daddy's hot on - just another day.

When Gussie's CYC soccer season was over, he played one session of indoor soccer with one of his friends. I'm not sure if I ever got any pictures of Gussie playing because shooting through plexiglass smudged with a thousand handprints (many of which were Agnes's) doesn't produce very good results. So instead here's a picture of Agnes being adorable at one of his games.

Mary sings with the church schola a couple times a month (Have you heard her sing? She's amazing.) but in early November there was a special requiem mass and she got to practice and sing with a local professional women's schola. I snuck a little video during mass; you can't see Mary but just listen.