November

11/2 - this is a farm just a few miles from our house.  I believe they use the camels for milk.  We drive by this farm every day on the way to the school bus stop and have fun watching them.

11/3 - After a month of swim lessons, Levi got brave and put his head in the water!  I am not ashamed to admit that I bribed him with ice cream.  Here's his well-deserved sundae.  He said "this is the best day ever!!".

11/8 - Josiah's class had a mock vote at school.  I love that he's the only one in his class that voted for Hillary.  Not that I'm a big fan of her, I am just even less a fan of Trump, despite the fact that Trump is very popular among a lot of people where we live.  We had told Josiah some of the hateful and demeaning things that Trump had said, and I love that he knew that was not the kind of person we should be electing president.  I also love that he wasn't afraid to vote differently from everyone else.  Trump is now our president-elect, and we will pray for him and hope he's successful, even though he wasn't our choice for commander-in-chief.

11/11 - Veteran's day assembly at school.  They boys did a great job honoring the veterans that came, and they loved learning the songs for each of the branches of the military.

That afternoon we drove to my parent's house to spend some time with them.  On Saturday Jason went hunting with my dad.  My dad shot an 8 point buck and Jason helped clean it, so they sent us home with some deer meat on Sunday morning.

11/18 - I joined the kids for a fun Thanksgiving lunch at school.

That evening, after a several day long game, Josiah beat Jason and I at Monopoly - he was so proud!

11/21 - for my friend Brandy's birthday, we went to a local paint night event.  We had a great time, even though I'm not a very good artist!

I'm just like Bob Ross...without the painting skills.

11/24 - We spent Thanksgiving with Jason's parents.  Jason's dad had just had shoulder surgery 1 week before, so I told Jason's mom not to worry about cooking much and I'd just bring some food up.  I got a smoked turkey that I just had to reheat (which was delicious by the way), made and froze some homemade rolls a few days before, made sweet potatoes, salad and pecan pie.  Jason's mom made some mashed potatoes and stuffing, and picked up a blackberry pie.  Jason's grandparents ended up joining us also, and we were glad they could make it.  It was nice to have a small, relaxing Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures!  We also got to see Jason's aunt and sister, who both stopped by later that day.

11/25 - Jason and I took the boys to the community center so Jason could see Levi's new swimming skills firsthand.  But first they wanted to climb the rock wall.  When we got to the pool, Levi was swimming like a fish!  We had to occasionally remind him to keep his head out of the water so he could catch his breath.  He went from being afraid to completely fearless!

11/26 - Jason takes the 4 Angus cross cows we have to the sale in Joplin.  It was bittersweet selling some of our original herd.

11/27 - miracles do happen!  The sale works out with the Nebraska buyer for the red poll cattle.  4 months after he agreed to buy them, and several weeks after he paid us, we were able to get the cattle into his possession.  Jason paid a hauler to take the cattle halfway, where the buyer picked them up.  We're very thankful that the sale went through and they arrived safely at their new home.  We'll especially miss our bull Royal, who was very calm and gentle and who we bought as a bull calf that we could put a halter on and lead around.  However, I know Jason will not miss chasing him down when he got into the neighbor's fields :)  And with that, we are down to the 2 bottle calves we bought this year, and 4 heifer calves.  Next year we'll be in the steer business!

11/30 - I cooked at school with a friend again, but this time it was a disaster!  Same menu as normal, but we had some mishaps.  There were extra people with the first class, so then we were short some chicken for the 2nd class that came.  Then 2 classes came at the same time, and we were short on chicken again.  While I was rushing to get more chicken to them, the open bag of nuggets tipped over, and about 40 fell on the floor!  Then one girl came back saying her nuggets were still frozen in the middle.  Then we were getting down to the last classes and realized we were running out of nuggets - we normally use 3 bags of nuggets (which should be about 75 servings according to the package), but I guess the nuggets weighed more than normal, because we were short 15 servings!  We scrambled and made it work but it was stressful and we felt bad that the high school classes didn't get as many nuggets as normal.  Now we've definitely learned some lessons and have a new game plan for next time!

Levi's last swim lesson, and here he is swimming with his face in the water!  I don't think I can over-emphasize how stunning a transformation this is!