November

We kicked off November with my 35th birthday, which fell on a Sunday. The weather wasn't too cold, and we decided to go disc golfing. Mariah, Jarod and Mayona joined us at the course in Lake Linden. Everyone was having so much fun during the first 9 holes, we decided to keep playing. Well, we didn't make it to 18, but I think we made it to 14 before the babies started getting hungry and Willow started getting bored. I was pretty impressed that Willow played that long without whining. She really had a good time, and actually played each hole, for the most part. The birthday girl (me) is not in any of the photos we took, but here's some cute ones - of Willow, and of the two dads wearing the babies while disc golfing.

After disc golf, we all went to the Loading Zone and got a free birthday pizza. It was a good birthday.

One night, another awesome band -Breathe Owl Breathe - was playing at the Orpheum. We really wanted to go, and we were thinking about bringing the kids...but it started at, I think it was 7:30, and bedtime is normally 8-8:30ish. It was a weekend night though, and we decided to go for it. We knew that our friends Mark and Azure were going and bringing their 3 kids, so we figured we wouldn't be the only ones. I was more for it than Josh, who was being somewhat of a nay-sayer. Well, I'm happy to report that I was right - it was just fine. When we got there, we were a little apprehensive, because there was a line out the door to get in, and of course most of the people in line were college students. So yeah, it was pretty crowded, and there were not too many kids, but there were a few. Seda pretty much slept in the sling the whole time, and Willow did well until the very end, when she fell asleep too. But she didn't melt down or anything, just crashed in Josh's lap. So we thoroughly enjoyed the show, and when it was over, we said to ourselves, "We have to do this more often, and not let having kids stop us from going to shows". I got this one photo of Josh and Willow watching the show.

Here's another night we got out on the town - just at the Library restaurant. I like this photo though. Seda crashed in my lap.

One warm-ish day, Emily and I and the kids walked to Chutes and Ladders. Emily took these nice photos on her phone. Thanks, Em! You can see in the background, they had already blocked off the "chutes" for the winter.

As far as milestones go, Seda became mobile in November. She started with an army-crawl, and would also do this cute thing where she'd be on her belly, and her feet would want to move...she'd keep moving her feet forward until her butt was up in the air, then she'd topple over sideways.

We went to Minnesota for Thanksgiving - the usual routine. We started in Hastings. Here are a couple photos from that leg of the trip.

The night we got into town, Willow and I went to bed, but Josh took Seda over to see GG at the rehab facility she was staying at at the time.

Seda also got to meet her new second-cousin, Isabelle. Here's Janna with both girls. (There seems to be a proliferation of baby girls in Josh's family lately! One of these times we should try to get a photo of them all together..!)

We did sneak in a quick visit (sushi lunch) with the Martell's and Lanners on the way fro Hastings over to Alexandria, though I didn't get any decent photos of that. We stayed at Scott and Lisa's for two nights and didn't have another Thanksgiving, but just hung out and visited with family. Willow had a grand time playing with Ellen, as usual, but for some reason I didn't get a photo of her with Ellen. I did get one of Seda and Nicholas though :)

I'll finish off this post with a few of my favorite random photos from November...

When Seda starts to get sleepy, her favorite thing is to suck her thumb with some sort of fabric in her fist, up against her face. She'll use a burp rag or a blankie, or my t-shirt (at night in bed) but her preferred thing to use is her sock.

Here's a photo Linda took of Willow and Seda in Willow's fort.

And Willow getting her hair cut at Wal-Mart. Grandma Judy took her there and took this photo.

More October

After the leaf post, I wanted to do a post of the rest of October, because we did do some fun things, and of course Halloween photos are always fun.

Mid-October, Sharon, Andy, Fritz and Josie the dog came to visit. A really awesome band - Cloud Cult - was playing here in Houghton at the Rozsa Center. We were super excited for the concert. My mom and Linda both helped with child care so we could go kid-less.

The concert was amazing. However I felt ashamed for my town and for Michigan Tech students, because there was hardly anyone there. We puzzled and puzzed over it and came up with theories ranging from not enough publicity to "Tech Students are lame and don't appreciate good music". Because this band is pretty big, and they sell out much larger venues than the Rozsa Center. Anyway, I'm glad we got to see it because, like I said, it was the best concert I've seen in years. I took a picture of the band (you can see all the empty chairs).

And of course, we had a great time watching the two babies together. Seda was just learning to sit up by herself at this point, and Fritz was cruising around on furniture. This was the best picture I got. We even took them out to eat at the Ambassador, which was moderately successful.

We also went on a hike in the Paavola Wetlands. It was actually cold and sort of rainy. But it was still good to get outside. You have to enjoy it when you can when you work a sedentary desk job five days a week.

Here's Willow helping harvest the last of our garden for the year.

 The weekend before Halloween, we went trick-or-treating in downtown Houghton for the "Treat Street" thing they put on. It was fun, and not as crowded as years past because they actually blocked off traffic, rather than trying to confine everyone to the sidewalks. Willow's favorite part was the haunted house at the police station. For weeks afterward, anytime we walked by the police station, Willow would ask if we could go in the haunted house.

 

On Halloween, we went trick-or-treating over in Grandma and Grandpa's new neighborhood. It wasn't quite the trick-or-treating mecca that east Hancock is, but it was still pretty good. The weather could've been better - it was raining - but we still had a good time.

Here are our jack-o-lanterns. Grandma made the kitty one, I made the scary one, and Willow drew the middle one and I carved it. The things on the sides of its mouth are bat wings.