Those chickens were like William's children to him. The very thing that he did for them to help their survival turned out to be their death sentence, much like the occasional situation in which a seat belt ensures a car wreck victim's demise. We felt sick about this for weeks and blamed ourselves, as so often one does when something that tragic happens. "If only..." and "What if..."
I fixed a collage of memories for William, which he has hanging on his bedroom wall. I'd like to redo it one day, though, because four of the pictures are cut off, and they didn't show like that in the preview. Some of the pictures include birds that had already passed on before.
We will always miss them all. They were each special persons; they each had a very special personality.
This picture was taken in terrible lighting; it was to be either that or terrible glare.
Besides that horrible incident, the month of November was a pretty good one. So now I'll move on to the good highlights.
A Trip to the Bookstore
I buy nearly all my books from Amazon now, but there's something absolutely thrilling about a bookstore. I love bookstores. So I took the kids to Barnes & Noble. Trusten picked out a superhero book, Olivia a My Little Pony book that included twelve toy pony characters (a big hit for the horse-lover), and William and I got Lois Lowry's Son, a book that we didn't even know had been written and released. Wow! Were we excited! I could hardly wait to start reading it together with him, just as we'd done The Giver, Gathering Blue, and Messenger. (He had the option of getting a different book, too, as I'd picked this for us, but he passed.)
This book was excellent! William wrote book reports on the other three books, but we read this strictly for fun and nothing else. We both read so much on our own time, but it's a special treat to read a book like this together.
Around the same The Giver was released on video. We bought the movie for our Amazon Instant Video library. It was well done, and we all watched it as a family, as a matter of fact, and we liked it a lot.
We read these throughout the summer and October and November:
William and Science
Burning magnesium powder
An experiment using Coca-Cola
A nude, reclining tea party (the hostess did wear panties, at least)
She likes to bring a lot of her activities into my bedroom, which is a little crazy, but it adds amusement, as I don't miss much. The following is a wedding for which she decorated and in which she was the bride, marrying no other than Spuds MacKenzie, um...who apparently not only is a dog, but also appears to be playing the part of another woman. When asked, though, Liv said that it's a 'he,' but she, "...didn't have any boy clothes" in her dress-up collection.
Painting a grasshopper
We'd included carrots in the garden back in the spring. Carrots do not grow well in rocky soil, and we knew that, but I gave the seeds to Trusten, anyway, to plant, because he loves carrots, and I wanted gardening to be fun for him. Both boys dug these up.
William, while trekking around, found these pumpkins and gourd. They came from things we'd tossed from the year before.
I pulled the girls in the wagon, and Olivia pulled Elizabeth in the wagon. They're best friends.
Sister love!
Food We Ate
That's vegetarian brown gravy, and it's pretty good.
Stir-fried vegetables with fettucine and black (purple) rice with a white sauce
Homemade coconut milk chocolate ice cream....SO good. Stuff is very dark chocolatey, rich in magnesium and antioxidants.
Diffusing Essential Oils
My momma asked me whether I used essential oils, and I do, some. Well, she bought me a diffuser and a set of essential oils. It's very nice, but I decided not use it every day. I read a lot about essential oils, and I was shocked at how many pounds of leaves of various plants it took to make one ounce of essential oil. I learned a lot of other interesting things, too. I love having the diffuser. It's so handy, whether you're sick, need a mood lift or a calm-down, or just want your house to smell nice.
A Walk to the Pasture
The kids and I walked up to our first pasture to hang out for awhile on a nice, sunny day.
Visiting Family
We visited family, and the kids really enjoyed seeing their cousins.
Above: Elizabeth and Layla (five weeks age difference). Liz picked out that dinosaur when we went to Barnes and Noble. Of all the soft and pretty stuffed animals, she insisted on getting that dinosaur, which she loves so much. She likes dinosaurs even better than Trusten.
It was Thanksgiving, and we all ate at my aunt's house. We hadn't been there in two years.
The kiddie table
Boys playing pool. Do you see Liv and Layla hiding underneath, with my Kindle?
I took all these sweet babies outside at my parents', while baby Laney slept, and William played Minecraft.
Miniature Sycamore Forest
Look all those trees! They're all miniature American sycamores (Platanus occidentalis). What a treat! It was fascinating to see the tiny little forest in our front yard, underneath our one of two enormous sycamores. As awesome as it is, though, they'll sadly have to be killed, mowed down in the spring, if nothing else happens to them.
December's post to come soon, and then I think I'll combine January and February in one post. I'm hoping to catch up this week!
Until next time...
