Jennings Happenings: November Happenings

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

November Happenings

Here is November summed up in one big blog post! This month consisted of cold weather, Tyler's trips, Jackson's learning, Abbie's bravery and a great life!

Cold Weather:

We really got dang lucky with an amazing fall season! It got a bit cold the week before Halloween. But all of September, October and even the first week or two of November was great weather! Since it was so warm the leaves stayed their beautiful colors on the trees for weeks and weeks and it was so awesome! I don't think I will say the same of winter but I really am a huge fan of Fall! I know people who say "it's so nice to live in a place with 4 seasons" and I've just nodded in agreement but I didn't truly understand it until this year. Just in our 6 months we've watched our tree to go from bright pink blossoms, to green leaves, to orange, and now a bare tree with all our leaves raked up. Next stop - snow! It's been really fun to experience this all with Jackson and help him experience things he never would have in Florida or Arizona.

Jackson was so intrigued with Daddy's new tools

One of the first cold days of the year, I made them bundle up to play with hats and gloves for the first time

He loves wearing winter clothes!

Whereas she pulled this hat off over and over again. Lots of tears when we put on boots and jackets

He tried to golf this day, a little tricky with the freezing weather and abundance of leaves

Our new favorite thing is to get donuts and hot chocolate :)

It was 48 degrees but after a few days in the thirties, they were excited to play!

On the Saturday before Thanksgiving we had some friends over to watch the BYU football game and eat dinner together. We weren't expecting snow but as they were getting ready to leave that night we looked outside to see snow! Jackson was so excited and giddy as he ran around in it! Too bad it didn't last long and was gone by the morning.

The first and only snowfall of November lasted for about 5 minutes one Saturday night!

Tyler's Trips:

With Tyler's new job he was supposed to have much less travel. It definitly is less, but I'm not sure about much less, at least lately! He used to travel to 5 or 6 cities a month and now he probably travels once or twice a month. Since living here he's been to Boston several times, DC, NYC, Orlando, Syracuse, San Francisco, Alabama, and this month he went to Chicago, Wisconsin and Philadelphia.

A little sight-seeing between appointments in Chicago.

After his Chicago work meeting were done, he drove a couple hours north to Wisconsin! He met up with Blair (taking advantage of Mustache Mo-vember) and got to see the BYU Wisconsin Football game at Camp Randall. While the game was freezing and they did lose, he had fun at his first BYU game in 4 years.

Constitution Hall in Phillie

Jackson's growth:

It has been really fun to see the changes in Jackson since he's started preschool. He now has such an increased excitement about the alphabet, letters, and writing. He sings the alphabet dozens of times a day and while I love it, I'm ready for a new song haha. He has an ABC train puzzle from the library that he and Abbie do together at least once a day. He used to know most of the letters but now he can identify them all of the time. He is learning to write letters too and in the past month has learned to write his name by himself (while copying it from somewhere else). He knows how to spell his name J-A-C-K-S-O-N is something I hear him muttering several times a day now. He is learning all of our names and how to spell them. He still gets really excited to go to preschool most days and it's fun to hear his stories about the day.

Abbie's bravery:

OK kinda funny, but she really has gotten much more "brave" While Jackson goes to preschool Abbie has play dates with her friend Alice. One day Alice will come here and one day Abbie will go to her house. At first this was a little tricky with stranger danger Abbie and she would scream every time I dropped her off. Over the past weeks she has gotten so much better and now she doesn't even make a fuss or whimper when we pull up to their house. She can now say "Alice" and has so much fun playing with her little friend.

A great life:

Things have been really great for us this fall. Jackson is growing up and turning into a very fun mature little boy. Abbie is getting more independent and her language (and hair) has been growing immensely. She and Jackson play so well together most of the time! The first thing she says every morning is "Jackson!" and he is so excited to see her! He would cuddle and hug and kiss her all day if she'd let him. He is way more excited to see her than me when we come get him at preschool. They both sleep through the nights, Abbie takes a good nap every afternoon, we're not weaning or toilet training or in any weird phases so yeah life is really good right now! There were a lot of changes earlier this year but we've been in a good place this fall and we've all loved it!