November 2021

The first weekend in November, Don and I took the boys to Aunt Sarah's house to hang out, and we went to my friend Kerri's celebration of life for her parents in Vandalia. Don and I drove up to Hannibal for a quick get-away for a few hours on our own. We had a nice lunch downtown and did some exploring and shopping before heading back to Columbia to pick up the kids. The weather was great for November.

Mark Twain Memorial light house

Mark Twain's boyhood home

View of the Mississippi River running along Hannibal

The view from Lover's Leap, Hannibal

I thought the boys looked handsome one day after church so I talked them into getting a photo!

Trees around our house- I take too many photos but love the fall colors!

Nice note from Jordon's teacher

Glad to see a positive note come home for Tristan after hearing from several teachers he was talking too much and distracting the class. 

Tristan wrote this and colored it for Don for Veteran's Day.

Tristan goofing around playing with the dog.

Jordon middle school basketball game

Boys helping with pears from the tree in back/ preparing them for the crockpot

the 3 brothers

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year. It was nice to have everyone together again after not getting together last year. Covid is still around but at least this time those of us that could be vaccinated were, and some of us had gotten the booster shot as well by this time. I didn't manage to get a picture but Tristan had his first Covid-19 vaccine on November 16th- he was so excited. We were able to get him scheduled soon after it was approved for his age group, 5-11. We'd been waiting so long for him to get vaccinated. Unfortunately, it didn't come soon enough and he did get Covid in September from school, but thank goodness none of the rest of us in the house got it, and his symptoms were mild.

For Thanksgiving, I even cleared space for wrestling but it didn't happen. It seems like something about having get-togethers at Grandma's house (Mom's) makes the kids want to wrestle. They did play a long game of football. Jon turned his ankle over a few times (shocker).

Whitney and Kinleigh

football is on in the front yard

Tim stuck Korbin in the basketball goal

 

October 2021

 

Tristan joined 643KC 11U team this year- fall ball. Four kids from Pleasant Hill play on this team.

Tristan and his friend Tristan playing fall soccer for the Railsplitters

Soccer Youth Night at the high school soccer game

Trees starting to change colors

Tristan brought me these leaves because he knows I love fall leaves. 

Zinnias hanging in there, not ready to be done blooming yet.

Boys picking pears in the backyard, fighting over the fruit picker and throwing bad ones to splatter them against hard objects like trees or fences.

front fall display- we grew the gourds behind the chicken coop

Jordon batting at the end of season inter-league play. I was so proud of him- he asked to pitch and ended up striking out 2 kids that were older than him; he's 13 and playing 14U and the other kids were 15 or 16. I hope he keeps pitching but he hasn't decided if he wants to or not...

Tree starting to turn colors at the pond....not be as much color with leaves this year, maybe due to not enough moisture/ rain this year.

Zinnias still going strong, and Don striking his best Lil' pose.

We visited the Pumpkin Pad this year outside of Lone Jack, and had a great time together on a warm fall day. We enjoyed the big jumping pads, the corn maze, throwing velcro tennis balls at the bulls eye targets, slides and swings, and shooting tennis balls out of compressed air cannons. Also found some cool pumpkins and gourds to bring home with us.

Halloween! As usual, Jordon waited till the last minute to decide what was going to be his costume, so he ended up being a baseball player and wore his jersey. Tristan was his favorite football player, Kyler Murray. Mom had a wig screw-up; ordered a braided wig from Amazon but it had a goofy leopard headband and we could not figure out how to make it work, so Tristan ended wearing one of Dad's skull caps, but later took it off when he actually made the rounds trick-or-treating with friends.

We went to the Thorntons' this year and the boys were able to trick or treat in Ryder's neighborhood. Here are Ryder, Tristan B, and our Tristan.