November 2020

Coming down from the Halloween high...

 

So much candy sorting (all month)!

We played with the leftover dry ice, finished the Halloween games that we didn't get to the day before, watched "The Addams Family" again and had caramel apples. 

 

 

"Venom" snuck up on Daniel while he was working.

Landon has been playing online chess with his friend, Aven, once a week. He was also very much into the "election game" and "kept score" by coloring the map and reporting the state percentages and projections of how "we're" doing to us (voice messages to Daddy while he couldn't check on the game from work).

 

Once the results were FINALLY in, the kids were even interested in watching the presidential acceptance speech.

Cousin twins!

Electric rope is a family favorite bedtime game!

My little cuddler:

For Veteran's Day, the kids each made cards for the people they know that have served and mailed/left them on their doorsteps. 

Household gymnastics:

One day Brooklyn had the hiccups, and she said, "When I hiccup it feels like my food in my tummy touches my hiccups."

We hot tubbed in the rain, watched a movie by the fireplace & in sleeping bags (the kids) and Landon made a board game store for us to rent and play family games...

...and played football in the house.

Amber and I had a girls' night away while the kids enjoyed a Dads' Weekend. Daniel planned a biking scavenger hunt around the city with balloons & candy, watched a movie from the hot tub, had a sleepover and got donuts.

Meanwhile, Amber and I went on a hike by the beach, ate a bunch of delicious foods and got COVID pedicures. 

 

 

Brooklyn loves to play with games, but not actually playing the game. She will take Chinese Checkers, Battleship, etc. and make patterns or artwork with them. 

Brooklyn constantly has such creative, outside-the-box comebacks. And if you throw one back at her, she gets even more creative and elaborate.

The kids created a "fort castle" in Brooklyn's room with a ticket booth, library, video game rental and baby station (where you could earn back some of the money you had spent). The floors were lava, so the price of admission included lava boots. On certain occassions a performance was even included!

 

We got COVID-19 tests to we could join Grammie and Papa in Palm Desert at the timeshare. While there, we putted, played with bubbles, watched movies and introduced the kids to The Three Stooges (which the kids and Papa enjoyed), swam just a little, played on the tennis court, played games and read books. On our way out there was an entire container of ice cream left so I gave everyone a spoon. While eating (about a third of the container, maybe half), Brooklyn said it was definitely the most ice cream she has ever had (by far!). 

 

 

 

Landon practicing his shots, layups and dunks:

Daniel thought it would be fun to play Reverse Airplane. It worked for about 1.5 seconds (with his hands aiding a bit).

School/work by the fire!

Brooklyn's school is officially done at 12:15, but she usually doesn't finish until around the same time as Landon because she chooses to put a rainbow background on almost all assignments, much of the time with pink hearts and yellow stars, formatting the text boxes to be uniform, drawing/adding emojis/writing extra on each assignment.

Video game weekend:

Brooklyn loves doing special things for Daniel. One day, she decided that we should cook him his favorite breakfast for lunch while he was working from home. AND blow up balloons for him...just because "he will probably like that."

We enjoyed the balloons for the next week, playing 'Don't Let the Balloon Touch the Ground,' 'Balloon Volleyball,' 'Mommy, Watch Me Catch It' and 'Balloon Monkey in the Middle.'

Brooklyn was excited to make the traditional Jell-O, and Landon helped me make the Thanksgiving rolls this year! Then we headed to the pickleball court for daniel and I to play with Peter & Pappou while Brooklyn scootered and Landon watched & played a little pickleball before heading to Pappou and Babcia's for dinner. 

We headed to Pappou and Babcia's house for Thanksgiving with just the Kelepouris families. 

 

 

The day after Thanksgiving the kids were anxious to begin decorating their little trees, their rooms and watch "Elf" while decorating our house for Christmas!

 

 

We got all of the inside and outside by decorated by 2 days after Thanksgiving. While Daniel and Landon were picking up our tree, Brooklyn and I jumped "the highest ever" on the trampoline, then she wanted to "finish putting the lights in the bushes for Daddy as a surprise so when he gets home it's all done."

In order to earn screen time, Landon woke up and got right to work on exercising one morning. 

We love Christmas books! And how Landon sometimes puts his arm around us while we're reading!

Thank you for the See's suckers, Papa!

On November 30th at dinner Landon said, "I have a game to play (which he always does!). It's called 'Let's talk about December!'" They are both SO excited for Christmastime!!!