November

Holy Moly! Where has the time gone?? I blinked and November was gone! But I don't want to miss recording some of our fun memories from the month... so here is November In Review:

Cast-B-Gone

Dixie got her cast off on November 9th. She was such a brave champ as they sawed and cut that thing off. She was a little disappointed when it came off that she couldn't do everything she used to do right away. The muscles have been building back up and she's proud that she is now almost back to normal. :)

Before...

After...

Austin Alert: Crawling Far & The Rolling "R"

Austin officially started crawling!! It was right around the middle of November (I think the 13th) that he  decided he was ready to just be up and moving... so away he went!

He is all over the place now. You can't keep this kid down! He is good at pulling up to standing and getting into anything he can reach. :) He also developed a habit of rolling his Rs. It initially started when he was getting overly tired or fussy and he would just sit there rolling Rs at you while he whined. Then it just became something to do for fun. :) He has since moved on to other sounds as well ("eh-da, eh-da" being his current favorite that he loves to say over and over again), and we love sitting and conversing with him in his language. :) Other updates... at 8 1/2 months old, he still doesn't have any teeth (so strange since Dixie and Summer both had quite a bit by this point); we are still going strong with nursing (aka he still won't drink from a bottle); and we are FINALLY starting to train him on sleeping through the night (something that has been way too long in coming!). I had let him get in the habit of sleeping in my arms (this mostly came from the fact that I would fall asleep in the middle of the night while nursing him) and he has gone downhill from there to the point where he will basically ONLY sleep if he is in my arms. Apart from that I could only get him to sleep for maybe an hour at a time in his crib before he would wake up and realize he wasn't in Mommy's arms and cry, and I would wake up, feed him, fall asleep... and so the cycle would continue all night long. (Hey... don't judge me! YOU try staying awake in the middle of the night when you're dog tired for 8 months straight! Oh, wait... many of you may have already done that. Never mind. Judge away!).  :)  SO anyway... we have had a few nights of tears (from both him and me) as we have had to let him just cry himself to sleep, but we are making good progress to being able to sleep on his own in his crib. A good night of sleep is just around the corner. :)

Family Pictures
WAHOO!! I was so so SO excited to get some updated family pictures! It's been a while since we've had one that I'm really happy with, and a dear friend in our ward offered to take some for us. Jim even promised to be a good sport with no grumpiness (why are men so anti-photo shoots??) and we had a good and successful family photo shoot. More pics from this to come when I've picked through them all, but here is one of my favorites...

Giving Thanks
And let's not forget THANKSGIVING! We celebrated early with the Roberts side of the family (since some families would be out of town on actual Thanksgiving Day), so the Saturday before we had a great family gathering with lots of delicious food and good family fun. Dixie even got to shoot a gun (I think that may have been her first time!). They were shooting BB guns at a picture of a turkey. :)  It's always good to spend time with family.
And then later that night, my brother Mark and his wife Jenna came into town with their sweet Brielle to celebrate Thanksgiving week with us. Jim took Mark out to West Texas for his first hunting trip. the first few days of the week, so all the girls (plus Austin) got to party without the guys. It was SO fun to be able to spend some personal time with my newest SIL and get to know her better. Unfortunately, I tend to be a boring hostess (I'm working on it though!)... so I hope Jenna wasn't TOO bored. But the boys had a good time out hunting and even came home with some meat! Mark killed two deer and Jim got one. How we neglected to get pictures of Mark with his first deer (aargh!!), I'll never know. Jim did get some video footage on his iPhone, but I'm just bummed there's nothing to put in a picture frame. Oh well. Once the hungry hunters returned, we spent a decent portion of the next few days processing the deer meat. (3 deer = lots of processing time!) But when all was said and done, we had close to 100 pounds of processed meat (sweet!). Mark and Jenna had brought a cooler with them, so we were able to freeze the meat and then load them up with a ton of meat to take back to Missouri. (I made sure to spend some time showing Jenna how to cook with venison so she wouldn't be intimidated with it when they got it home. Hopefully that helped because I know I was incredibly nervous to cook with venison for a long time (I'm not a very adventurous chef). But honestly... it's as easy as just adding some beef bouillon to it, and you'd never know it wasn't beef. Super easy and way better for you than getting meat processed from the store with no idea of where it came from or what they've done to it. But I digress...)
Anyway... the kids did some fun crafts and had a great time playing around with cousins. Jenna and I managed to squeeze in a little big girl crafting time as well as a fun shopping trip or two. We had good food, and more importantly, good family fun. It was a great Thanksgiving and I'm so thankful they were able to come join us so we could feel a little less "left out" from the family festivities that were going on back home in California. :) Thanks for making the trip Mark and Jenna! Hope it wasn't too crazy for you!! :)
Anyway... that about wraps up November. I'll leave you with these happy videos of Mark on his hunting trip. :)

{Jim loves how big Mark's eyes get after he pulls the trigger} :)

{Jim is color blind with reds and greens, so he can't track blood very well. Good thing Mark can and was able to find his deer! Nice job my brotha!} :)

And now on to DECEMBER!!! Christmas here we come!!!