Kids

November photo dump: The kids have enjoyed playing basketball against Daddy after their basketball games. Brooks does the LA sign, for Los Angeles Lakers, for most pictures. And Stockton attempts to do it as well. Haha! The kids have been loving legos as of late. It is cute when they all get a long while they are doing it as well. But, lets face it, that is a rare occurrence. Hallie claims that hitting her head with an empty water bottle "calms her." She said she learned this "coping mechanism" at school. It sounds like a bunch of bull to me but hey if she likes it, I guess. 

Brooks

We signed Brooks up for a basketball camp during the month of November. He was excited to finally be signed up for more things basketball. I love his passion for basketball. He practices for hours when the weather is warm enough to do so. And if it's cold, him and Taco will head downstairs in the basement to dunk it. Haha! He comments weekly on how he wants to be tall and is always asking the Alexa how tall the tallest person in the world is, or who is the tallest person to play in the NBA, etc. He is pretty funny!

This month, he had to get a tooth pulled at the dentist. He had a tooth growing in behind his baby tooth (which was not loose at all, by the way) and so we had the dentist pull it. He was SO brave at the dentist! The unknown makes Brooks really anxious and he cried for the days leading up to his appointment that he didn't want to go. But, he did so great and agreed that it wasn't painful like he thought it was going to be. The tooth fairy brought him $2 for his bravery!

Jazz Game

Tonight was the night that Brooks' junior jazz team got tickets to go to the Jazz game. They (well Russ and Brooks) enjoyed a complementary hot dog (Hallie does not like hot dogs) and popcorn and Russ bought them their own ice cream as well. They are becoming more able to enjoy the game for the entire game long now that they are getting older. 

Hallie

Hallie has had a rough month this month. One of her 4th grade teachers, Mrs. Hammer, moved to Arizona, rather suddenly, and she will be getting a new teacher for the rest of the school year after having a sub for 2 weeks. I was surprised by how much this is affecting Hallie. She has cried several days and nights over losing this teacher. She is now sleeping on our floor nightly saying she keeps having bad dreams and she "is just sad." To be honest, I didn't even know she liked this teacher all this much. Hallie often says she "is sad" and I love her and let her cry on me and then remind her that she won't be sad forever, which she immediately responds, "Yes I will!" Poor thing. Emotions and hormones are hard to navigate at this age. I pray that her new teacher will be nice and good for Hallie and that we can track down Mrs. Hammer's new address because Hallie wants to write her a letter badly. 

Hallie and Mrs. Hammer

Stockton

Oh Taco boy, you are truly one of a kind! His fiery personality will ensure that no one messes with him when he grows up. He is obsessed with Russ and loves playing with his older siblings. Listening to him talk and form his own sentences is the best. He has some pretty funny things to say! He is fully potty trained and poop trained. One day he just decided to go poop in the toilet and hasn't looked back since. We took him to the store to pick out a prize for pooping in the toilet. He picked a Monster Truck suitcase that carries 15 of his monster trucks. He loves this thing and even brought it to speech therapy to show off. Speaking of speech therapy, one of his therapists thinks he is close to graduating from speech. Which was a shock to me, I thought we'd be in speech forever. However, his other speech therapist wants to wait until he is closer to 4 to do some official testing to see where he is at. That is fine with me because the last thing I would want is us to stop speech therapy early just to have him get behind again. He is mischievous and colored on several walls with marker this month. Little terd. He also loves to eat while sitting on your lap, which makes it very difficult for me to eat. Him lining up his monster trucks will never get old. I think it is so cute. We sure love our Taco baby who I secretly want to stay 3 forever!

Gingerbread Houses

I have had it with all of the candy at our house!! The kids eat SO much candy a day and it starts as early as 630 in the morning!! After Halloween, I thought I had this great idea to put all of the kid's candy in gallon size baggies, labeled with each of their names on it, and allow them to only have 2 pieces of candy per day. I would then hide the gallon size bags to make sure they would only have their allotment for the day. Well on day 1 Brooks found my hiding spot (which is crazy because I put it in a place I thought they would never look) and the kids went to town on their candy. I then just didn't have it in me to keep hiding the bag and figured the quicker they eat it the quicker it goes away. And maybe, just maybe, they will learn the hard way that too much sugar can make you sick. Hallie was much more disciplined then the boys but still had way more then 2 candies a day. I swear Taco only ate candy for a week straight! So, I know it is super early, but tonight we made gingerbread houses, which consisted of everyone eating a lot more candy, but then I threw the rest of the candy away at the end of the night. With Russ and I going on a trip the beginning of December, I felt like if we didn't do it now we probably wouldn't have done it anyway. So, we killed 2 birds with 1 stone and did it tonight! The kids had fun. Hallie made her annual nativity scene and the night ended with Stockton placing gum in Brooks' hair. So, with a lot of peanut butter and patience, we got the gum out of his hair without having to cut his hair, which would have devastated Brooks to have his Mohawk be cut off.