Basketball & Holiday Prep

November brought basketball games and Christmas decorations...

For the first game of the basketball season, spectators weren't allowed due to COVID.  I was bummed - it is a lot of fun watching the kids' games.  Luckily, one of our friends, who helps Danny coach, did a Facebook live of Colin's game, so I at least got to watch that (when the connection was good).

 

The next weekend, spectators were allowed to the games.  Each team was allotted a certain number of spectators.  Each school had clusters of seating spaced out; it worked out well.  Thankfully, the league has allowed spectators at every game since.

Remember the picture of Colin, Mason, & Brantley from flag football? (The Three Amigos)  They're back at it again on the same basketball team this season 😁

I was able to get a video of Colin making a basket.  I missed Cadence's first basket in a game...ever.  I didn't have my phone ready in time!  I was able to get video of her assist at a later game, though. I'm so proud of how much they've learned and how far they've come.

We warned Colin that we'd have to move the folding table out of the office after Thanksgiving to make room for the Christmas tree.  We worked hard to get the 1000 piece puzzle done that we started in April!  It was the most difficult puzzle we've worked on yet, but we got it done!  We rolled it up and said we'd frame it.  

When Thanksgiving is over, the kids ask 102,343,289,232 times to put up the tree.  Our artificial tree was bought before pre-lit trees were popular, and each branch is individual.  It's quite a process to put up the tree!  Cadence was a big help and assisted with the assembly of the tree while the boys were at a fun flag football game the day after Thanksgiving.  I think I put the lights on in record timing and we were putting ornaments on the tree that weekend.

Nice November Weather

One weekend in November, we had gorgeous weather, so we took advantage of it...

While Danny and some of the other dads/coaches from baseball were at the ball field prepping the field for winter, the kids and I took a stroll around Sunbury.  We made a stop at the library, grabbed some doughnuts at Yumee Donuts, and enjoyed them on the square.

That Sunday, we peeled and cut all of the apples that we got at the orchard and made a huge batch of applesauce.  I'm always so happy to have delicious homemade applesauce to freeze and enjoy throughout the year.  The apples were a little older than we had anticipated, so the peelers didn't work out.  We had to do everything by hand!

Afterward, we picked up Mason and went for a bike ride and a picnic lunch at McNamara Park in Westerville.  It was a great day to be outside!

Halloween 2020

Halloween fell on a Saturday this year - the kids spent part of the day making a pile of leaves and jumping in it and hiding in it...they're in there somewhere!

Boy, was it an ordeal getting our hands on Colin's Halloween costume this year.  We couldn't find any DJ Marshmello costumes in the stores, so we had to order one.  It was just a mask and a shirt.  When the costume arrived, it was just the shirt!  I had to call customer service more than once to get a mask shipped to us.  Here he is trying it on when it finally arrived.

The kids were ready!

A snow leopard Beanie Baby and DJ Marshmello

After our Halloween plans changed due to COVID, our friends, the Lastivkas, invited us to trick-or-treat in their neighborhood.  "Beggar's Night" was originally going to be on the Thursday before Halloween, but the weather ended up being horrible.  Sunbury ended up moving the night to actual Halloween.  It was sunny and unseasonably warm - we lucked out!  The Lastivkas had plans in Kentucky that weekend, but we ended up trick-or-treating in their neighborhood anyway.  We met up with the Gesacions, who we know from baseball and basketball, and Brantley tagged along with us all night.  Halloween was interesting this year - some people had candy chutes to keep socially distant and others just had candy out on tables instead of placing it in kids' bags.  I think it worked out well!

Can you tell it was an election year?!  This house was a riot!

We were so busy before Halloween that we ended up carving pumpkins on November 1st!  Better late than never!

The kids were pretty self-sufficient this year - I barely had to help clean out the pumpkins and they did all of the planning and carving themselves!  I was very impressed!

The 2 clowns with their finished pumpkins!

The many faces of Colin...

Fall Photo Sesh

It had been over 3 years since we had family photos taken.  I found Grace through a friend on Facebook, who had her family photos taken by Grace.  Grace posted that she was doing fall mini-sessions in October, so I reached out to her and I'm so glad that things worked out!

Grace Sowers Photography