2019 :: week 48

November 24

Miles now drinks from a bottle about 75% of the time! Hallelujah! Will and Lauren are both very helpful with feeding him his bottles. Anthony has started tithing settlement, which means his Sundays have gotten a little longer. It has crazy to think that this is his fifth year of tithing settlements!

November 25

The kids we out of school for the week, so I tried to plan something fun to do each day. After a busy day of cleaning and running errands, we went to Union Station and watched Elf on the big screen. When we left the the theater it had gotten dark outside and we spent some time walking around a mostly empty building. It was kind of magical watching the kids dance and run down the grand hall with the twinkling lights overhead. Union Station is one of my favorite spots in Kansas City, especially at Christmas.

November 26

Tuesday we went bowling with a group that was mostly comprised of Lauren's friends and their siblings. We had a pretty good time, but my kids got frustrated that some of the girls we shared a lane with didn't bowl as quickly as they did, thus "wasting" some of our time. That evening Anthony and I stayed up late and watched BYU play KU. Even though they lost, it was still a fun game and we felt proud to be BYU fans.

November 27

Wednesday all the kids got to play with friends. In the morning Elliott went over to Tyler's house and Will spent most of the day at Knox's. We invited the girls from Lauren's primary class over to decorate cookies and watch the new Lion King movie in the afternoon. Four of the six girls in her class came and they all seemed to have a good time. Three families with girls Lauren's age have moved into our ward in the past year and we are very happy about this.

November 28

I battled a pretty bad headache for most of the week, and was grateful to have a quiet Thanksgiving Day planned. We watched the parade in the morning and did quiet things around the house most of the day. The boys played a lot on the Switch, Lauren played with her dolls, and I did a lot of reading. Anthony made an amazing sweet potato dish for our Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and the Wilsons, and I made a green bean casserole. It was a relaxing, quiet Thanksgiving. Perfect.

November 29

It is getting a lot trickier to take a good family selfie. Friday afternoon we checked into the Marriott Downtown for John Family Staycation 2019. I was a little apprehensive about how crowded it would be and we lucked out--it was like a ghost town! We got upgraded to a suite and had the pool to ourselves. The shuttle took us to get our pizza for dinner and then we went back to our room and watched a few episodes of America Ninja Warrior together before going to bed.

November 30

We spent an absolutely wonderful day getting out and about in Kansas City Saturday. We woke up and went to Union Station where I made the kids ride the Christmas train (thank you to Will for riding the train he is much to old for to appease me and my love of good photo-ops). Then we rode the streetcar to the River Market and got an early lunch at Pigwitch. The food was delicious! We then walked on the bridge and down along the Missouri River. The river is high this year! We had fun exploring along the trail and speculating what it looked like here 200 years ago. We made a quick stop for ice cream at Betty Rae's and then spent a lovely hour at the library. It has a great children's section with lots of toys. Lauren read me a few books and Anthony and the kids built a tower with oversized Legos. We checked out the rooftop, but it was windy and we didn't stay up there long. At this point all four children we showing signs of getting tired, so we headed home so as not to push everyone past their limits. It was a good choice. We had such a great weekend and are already plotting when we can do a staycation again.