Happy Thanksgiving

    Wow! Just like that Thanksgiving break is almost done! It's gone by really fast and it's been really great. I have loved having a break. It will be hard to get back in gear tomorrow with work but I think I'm ready...I think. Some highlights...having a shed show night with my friend Lisa, soup and pie night with the Millers, movies, games, and of course the food (which I really need to start cutting back on stat btw).  I'm trying to not get too stressed thinking about Christmas stuff. It's so much work! I'm going to try to cut out any extra stress by focusing on simplifying and prioritizing. 

2020 has been such a dumpster fire in so many ways but it's also been a pretty epic year for the Cannon household. We put a lot of time and money in our house this year and every time I drive up and see my new paint job it makes me SO happy and I couldn't be more in love with my floors. I'm so grateful to have landed my dream job...it has a lot of uncertainty with prospects for next year as well as the doom and gloom of taking lots of college classes to get either an endorsement or a Masters degree in FCS but let's think about that next year. I have my family and my health and those are most important things to me. I have a lot to be thankful for.

Oh and I did a post just with our family pictures so don't miss it!

Lazy morning cuddles.

Ryan lost his two front teeth just in time for Christmas. Makes me so happy! Ha.

My little boy is getting SO big.

Thanksgiving dinner! It was good. I can't get the picture to flip. Ha. Oh well.

I made Corbin come out of his cave to help me make some rolls for Thanksgiving dinner.

Gabby made a small bowl of cookie dough guesstimating the amounts and then made tiny cookies. 

The girls crafted and made some presents to go under their tree. So cute! 

Here are their covered cardboard presents. 

Family Pictures!

I've been wanting new family pictures FOREVER. I wanted to get them done this summer and bought all new summer outfits for it but could never get a time from my friend so I finally returned the outfits. I was able to coordinate a time in October so I scrambled and got some outfits (SO HARD) and we got our pictures taken. It was well worth the wait and let's face it, fall time is my favorite so it was probably all for the best, and definitely worth the wait. I'm SUPER happy! 

Christmas is Up!

  I know people have strong opinions about putting up Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving but I don't care! I wanted them up and I put them up! I feel this year more than ever I'm excited to have some Christmas cheer in the house. With all the stress of 2020 it's nice to have a cozy beautiful space to hang at home. I have NO regrets! Scott even put up our outdoor lights which he HATES doing so much but he did it anyway. I'm so happy to be home and soak it all up! I have a tree in our main room, in my bedroom, a tiny one in the shed, and the girls have a tiny one in their room. Love it! My friend Jaynee gave me her old tree and it looks beautiful! It makes me so happy! 

The last week of school with my students was good. I will be sad to be online with them for the next while but I was happy we got a month with them in person. We made my mom's recipe of taco soup and almost all of the students loved it so that was fun. So many of them were surprised it was good. It was funny. I got a craft ready for a homework assignment for my junior high kids and just decided to do it with my high school kids. On Thursday and Friday with my high schoolers we made holiday rice krispies balls (rice krispies in balls sprinkled with Christmas colors) and made a mason jar candle holder. It was fun. 

I'm so excited to have the next week off. I love a teacher's work schedule so much! We don't really have any plans. Scott has to work Wednesday and Friday so it's not long enough for us to go to Arco. We usually go to Arco for Thanksgiving so I will be sad to not do that this year. I think this might be our first Thanksgiving at home. I will try to do something fun with the kids. I don't know what. I want to have them all help me do some cooking. We will spend several days getting ready making some homemade goodness. Well that's all! 

Gabby made a bunch of snowflakes to hang in the girls' room.

Lights up! (I may or may not buy a bunch of candy canes to line the other side of the walkway).

Shed tree!

Not sure if that wreath will last. It's annoying to shut the door with it. It looks cute for now.

The green lantern Gabby made. That is the one I'm having my students make.

Our old Christmas tree. Now in my room covered with the kid ornaments. 

New tree! LOVE!

Cutest!

Back to Remote Learning

This last week was pretty much same old same old. I think Thursday night the Boise School District decided to go back to remote learning after Thanksgiving break until mid January. I'm disappointed because having kids in person is much better but I think it's probably the wise choice. It's so much harder to get the kids to turn in their work online. I love just making them get their work done when they are in person. Oh well. Meanwhile for now West Ada has the kids K-5 going to school full time now. I don't know how long that will last. Gabby and Corbin get to go back to school this week since they've been on a forced quarantine. 

The Millers came over and Scott hosted a Dungeons and Dragons game. Most of the kids dressed up and had medieval food and adventure. Corbin rolled the dice and his Fighter was stricken with a magical sickness. Gabby's Cipher (psychic warrior) tried to find some berries to make an antidote but lost her footing and was washed downstream in a freezing river, so Piper's Druidess (shape-shifting sorceress) had to transform herself into a Unicorn (of course) to chase after and rescue her. Then the whole group returned to their camp to find it overrun by bandits and had to use their powers together to fend them off and rescue the poor caravaners they were traveling with. Lastly, they had to escape into some ancient ruins from a mysterious and deadly storm of purple wind which disintegrated anyone left un-sheltered, as nearly happened to Corbin again due to an unlucky roll of the dice. Then they celebrated surviving their first adventure by enjoying (no really!) Scott's homemade Quince cobbler with Vanilla ice cream. Epic Night!

Nothing much else to report. Just one more week until Thanksgiving break! I'm excited. Scott only has Thursday off so we will do our own Thanksgiving more than likely. I'm really really really tempted to get out the Christmas stuff ASAP. I just might. That's all! 

Creepy

So it begins!

Playing their own side game.

Scott's dish!

Birthday Weekend!

 Things this past week were a little intense with the election shenanigans. I don't think about it a lot but I could feel the tensions people were feeling around it. I was also more tired at the beginning of the week adjusting to daylight savings. I wish they would do away with it already. I was ready for the weekend for sure! It's hard to keep track of which of my students are in person and who is at home and who has taken the test and which assignment students need to be working on. It's a lot to keep track of and plan for. It was parent teacher conferences for my kids last week. My small three are doing great and hitting all the marks in school. I wasn't sure how Ryan's report would be but he is on grade level on everything and is doing great. Corbin is going through a learning curve in Middle School. Some of his grades are not good and it's mostly because of missing work from absences so we had to have a conversation around increased responsibility to make up work and check in with his teachers in Middle School. He will bring his grades up I have no doubt. Unfortunately he is going to get further behind because he was sick on Wednesday and he can't go back to school for 10 days. I'm SO annoyed. I get it but it's beyond annoying. He can only go back if he gets a negative covid test. He isn't even sick anymore so I don't think he could even get tested so he will be home this whole week. UGH! Gabby too, she was also sick and can't go back to school. This year is a dumpster fire and I am over it! 

In more exciting news it was my birthday on Friday. It was a chill day at school and my co-worker Janet, who I love, bought me flowers and a cookie cake. She is so nice. Scott also bought me some flowers and candy. After work I went to the mall and bought myself some new clothes and a new coat. I love new clothes. That night we went to dinner with the kids and watched The Sixth Sense with Gabby and Corbin and they didn't even think it was scary. What the! Saturday morning I went to my niece's bridal shower. I was a little freaked out to go because I really don't want to get covid, mostly because of work shame around it, but I went and tried to be careful. My sister in law Christy threw it and she does such a good job with stuff like that. That night we took our kids to the Miller's house for the night so we could have the house to ourselves. We met our friends at Kyotos as is my birthday tradition. I was also worried about going to that but decided to anyway. It feels like a balance between having caution and also living life. Afterwards our friends came to our house and played games. It was SO fun. Sunday morning Scott and I headed to the Millers and we had a birthday breakfast and got our kids back. Tonight Scott is making me stir fry for dinner. Was I spoiled this birthday or what? I have to admit....I love my birthday. Ha. 

Gabby daddy cuddle. We watched the Buffy musical, so good. Ha. 

Scott's flowers on the left...love them! Janet's on the right.

B-day Dinner at La Casa Mexico

Party time at the Miller's house.

It snowed! They built a cute snowman. Should have taken a picture.

I love playing games!

Kyotos! Love it!

Christy setting up Brynn's shower. The food was SO good!