November was a good one.

I want to capture it here before it slips right through the holes in my memory.

Here we go.

Sometimes I just feel the need to follow these two out in the morning and take a picture when they are leaving for school.  They make my heart hurt I love them so.

The little girls took up the art of making ocean pancakes:

(recipe HERE)

They even had me video their own little cooking show…I’ll have to put it on here at some point…

We did lots of soccer….

More about that another day, but for now I’ll just day man alive, Lu thinks she’s pretty much a professional now:)

I took my little girls out on a special date from school to get passports.

 …and it wouldn’t really be a “date” if we didn’t go to lunch after…

I had to renew mine too.

I love my passport.
My niece got baptized.  My sis-in-law, who barely had a baby, put on this shin-dig:

(see more about how she pulled that sucker off over here)

I missed it because I was taking Homecoming pictures for this boy and his group:

(My mom, who was in town, took that pic for me since I was already at the photo place started on the pictures.)

(More about Homecoming back HERE.)

My Mom and Dad came to town.
Oh how I love them.
That means my girls get awesome bedtime stories.
Max gets a little extra support at volleyball tournaments:

Lucy gets someone special to walk with her to school:

Max and Elle get a special lunch date:

…and even Dave and I get a great lunch date 😉
They spoke at the conference I talked about back here (my notes are here).  One of my Dad’s missionaries from back when he was a mission president in England helped put that conference together.  

What good guys.

Somehow Grace, Claire and I lucked out and got to go with this great group to the Selena Gomez concert:

Well, not sure if “lucked out” was the right word for it, because this was my view:
…and I really didn’t know what the heck Selena sang before that night, but man alive was it fun to watch the excitement in these little girls!
These ones in particular never stopped jump-dancing the whole night.

The girls:

The moms:

Lucy has decided that her “practicing” for her job chart for the week (back HERE) is to do fifteen somersaults each afternoon.
Love that.
Teenagers…

A drive past this most gorgeous temple that will open up in a few months.  Anyone is welcome to the open house.  Can’t wait!

Elle came with me to try to find the perfect spot for pictures for our big “Temple Walk” coming up.  (I’m in charge of taking family pics. for everyone in our stake during the walk.)  Hmmm, not sure this spot will work 🙂

Tried another new chocolate chip cookie recipe.

I’m not sure there’s a bad one out there.

Grace figured this little reminder would help her get ready a little quicker in the mornings (she’s been struggling lately).

Not sure if that’s made a huge impact on the speed of her get-ready-for-school routine but I’ll give her an A+ for the effort.

Brushing teeth…

Elle has been soooo busy with photoshoots and is learning so much.  I’ll post more of her stuff soon but here’s a sneak peek:

Loved that sweet family.

Her cousin came to assist on one of her shoots.

Love that we get to live by cousins.

We went to a “braid-bar” that night at this cool new salon that just opened up in town.

My friend decorated that place and words can’t do it justice…it’s gorgeous!

These two also got to go to Time Out for Girls with their Nana.

Lucky girls.  Good times.

Some of Grace’s friends borrowed Claire’s bike and then it was GONE.  SO sad.  Here’s a group of friends that helped her make valiant efforts to track it down again.
SO sweet of them…still no luck on getting that thing back which is super sad news for Grace who is earning money for a new one.
Red-white-and blue day at school:

Claire got to go sleep over at the zoo with her zoology club.

 For reals.

She thought it was the best thing EVER.

Grace’s volleyball season wrapped up.

And she’s on to cheer leading!
Lu got to hang out with her cutie-pie cousin and their bunny.

Oh boy, we really do need a pet.

(my cute sister-in-law took those great pics. BTW)

We are in the middle of Ender’s Game.

Luckily I’m the one reading since there’s some not-so-great language in that thing!

These girls forced their frazzled-crazy-sleep-deprived mother back in bed one Saturday and made her their own version of an omelet.

Complete with a “Lucy” drawing.

Dreamy.

I adore them.

These four cousins can never get enough of each other.

…nor of the red lipstick that somehow manages to mysteriously appear on their lips when they are here for some reason.

We made a “thankful turkey” during singing time in primary.


Lucy doing enie-menie-miney-mo to pick who she wanted to read with her that night.

She was taking that very seriously.

Have I mentioned how much I love how she writes?  She always remembers to do the box around the “stuck-together” sounds and she always puts her stars above the double letters.

We had to disguise her turkey so it wouldn’t get eaten for Thanksgiving.

She was dead-set on it being a girl and that would save the day.

We had to make a few pumpkin things to get the season going:

(Recipe back HERE.)

Grace saved out a few of them for her older siblings who were out at some party with kids from their rival high school.  I couldn’t resist taking a picture of her note:

We have been pretty ok at “Pay Day” lately…which was especially helpful getting ready for tithing settlement.  That money system is a constant effort I tell you!  SO glad to have those kids getting more and more aware of spending and saving and giving so it’s all worth it.

Breakfast vitamins for her eyes every morning.

Claire’s thanksgiving assignment:

Socks in the hair at night:

…equal this in the morning:

(She didn’t have make-up on yet…heaven forbid!)

Thanksgiving:

More pics of that back HERE

…and of the the Turkey Trot HERE.

Dave had a birthday.

I’m pretty sure I can guess exactly what he’s thinking in this picture:

“Boy I sure wish my wife would take more pictures of me and blog about me.”

Ha!

We ate almost three whole pans of ocean pancakes for breakfast.

…and went out to dinner at his favorite place that night.

Grace was very insistent that we do this pose:

 Cheeseballs.

Got together with a whole bunch of Dave’s cousins and their families over Thanksgiving weekend.

(The girls were the winners for gathering for the picture.)

They came over to check out the progress on the house.

 I am so lucky to be related to all those wonderful women.

…as well as these three I got to go to a fireside with prepping for the big temple open house.

Our friends we love visited from Utah.

I came out of retirement and did a photo-shoot for my friend who has helped me a TON on my house.

Oh boy her kids are so darn cute.

And let’s just end this post with a Pinterest-inspired addition to the thanksgiving feast this year:

I don’t think anyone else was as excited about it as I was, but hey, it’s a veggie turkey for crying out loud!  What could be cooler than that?

Ha.

On to December…

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14 Comments

  1. What a great month, so full of good things! I should try to keep record of our life more often, I tend to get busy and forget, but it's good to have reminders of the good things 🙂

  2. I love reading about your cute little family. Thanks for being such a great example. Elle takes great pics. Just curious about her curly locks. Does she just roll them in socks and tie? It's her hair wet or dry?

  3. I just love your blog, it's beautiful. Your family is wonderful and seems so loving. I love Elle's sock hair – I need more info on that, for sure – the finished result is beautiful.

  4. man alive! 🙂 shawni, you have such a beautiful life. love you guys so so so much and miss you like crazy. maybe i should come by arizona on my way home from slc after christmas???

  5. Seriously I love hearing about your family! I'm getting married next summer and it's always nice to hear your tips and tricks with kids such as tithing and chores! Love love it! I hope you're house is everything you're dreaming of (:

  6. Love the photo of my girls. That one is a keeper and going up on the wall.
    Your family ROCKS. I hope you found a spot by the temple. You could always use. Pres. LeSueur property to the south of the temple. Our girls went there with the YW and turned out nice.

  7. you are going to do a tutorial on Elle's hair right? I have 3 girls plus myself and have never been able to figure out those curls! looks like a timesaver in the morning too! 🙂

  8. Soooo happy to see all that we missed, even though we were there part of the time. What gorgeous people, inside and out!

    I personally think that the turkey is astonishing!

  9. It's such a funny feeling looking at all of your pictures and then up pops one with my dad in it! ha! Thanks for taking it. Can't tell you how much I loved hearing your parents speak at the conference. I came away feeling uplifted and inspired. They are wise beyond words. I love it when my dad sends me their weekly email (which sometimes is hard for me to understand :)) but I can feel the love they have for what they do. Thanks for sharing.

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