It's Great to be Grateful! (Thanksgiving 2014)

We kicked off November with a graduation of sorts. Michael graduated from law school in May, but you're not technically a lawyer until you take the bar and are sworn in. He took the bar at the end of July, found out he passed at the beginning of October, and finally (finally) was sworn in to the Colorado bar the beginning of November. We asked one of Michael's friends to take a picture of our family, which he kindly did, and then, before we knew what was happening, Michael's friend asked this perfect stranger to jump into the picture with us (which he kindly did). The smiling gentleman behind us is none other than former Broncos great, Karl Mecklenburg.

One of the perks of being at a large law firm (in addition to the somewhat unpredictable hours) is that occasionally you get to do something really cool, like sit in a box at a Denver Nuggets game. And Michael was thrilled when he found out the visiting team would be none other than the Cleveland Cavaliers, featuring his favorite modern player, and possibly the most gifted basketball player of his generation . . . Anderson Varejao! Actually, Michael tried to get a picture of LeBron on the big board, but wasn't quick enough with his click (man, blogspot really needs to update its spellcheck: a red squiggly appeared under LeBron. What is this, 2002?).

We enjoyed some warm weather this month, and young Isla really enjoyed the swing. We can already tell she's going to be a great athlete. Just look at those thighs!

These two kids sure love each other.

We had a really cold snap at the beginning of November, so we dug out Micah's old winter clothes. Michael thought Micah's hat was just way too small (his head HAS grown), but there was actually a different problem: Michael put Micah's hat on backwards! Boys!

Isla had her first taste of rice cereal in November, and she liked it much better than Micah did. At least, she didn't spit up right after eating it. She also has two bottom teeth now. Our little girl is becoming a young woman!

See? She's already driving! And she can drive stick! We decided to spend Thanksgiving in Utah with Sarah's family. Michael's firm has an office in Salt Lake, so we were able to go up the Sunday before and spend almost a full week there. And the weather, on our drive and in Salt Lake, was perfect!

Micah's a cool dude! (even in his mom's sunglasses). The kids did great in the car, and we made good time.

On Thanksgiving morning, Sarah, Anna, and their dad ran in a 5K turkey trot in Farmington. Michael and Micah were their adoring fans, cheering them on at the finish line, while Isla (that Martha!) stayed home to help Grandma Skidmore make Thanksgiving dinner. And, as the picture shows, Sarah finished far ahead of the pack (and far behind some of the other pack). She had a great race, and a great time!

Team Skidmore/Robertson! Sarah definitely earned her after-race doughnut.

Grandma Skidmore's Thanksgiving rolls were eagerly anticipated by the Roberson family. And they were gone all too fast, disappearing by lunchtime on Friday!

Isla Grace and her GREAT-grandma Dorene. They had a wonderful time together. And despite what it looks like, Isla does NOT have a mohawk (usually).

Thanks to Grandma Skidmore's hard work and excellent cheffery, we had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with the Skidmores, the Wells, and our good friend Abev. Michael's and Micah's MVP was the sweet potatoes. Even without marshmallows on top, they were amazing! And no, we don't want to know what's in them. As long as we don't know, we can pretend it's a healthy vegetable dish instead of the buttery, sugary sweet potato pudding that it tasted like. Sarah's MVP was the raspberry jello, and Isla's MPV . . . well, Isla's MVP was probably whatever Sarah's MVP was.

Isla's ready for seconds!

The day after Thanksgiving, we went ice skating in Bountiful. Can you tell from Michael's graceful form that he's been skating his whole life? It was a blast!

But the best part . . . 

. . . was watching the zamboni with Grandma!

Hallowmas Eve and Other October Occurrences

A couple of weeks before Halloween, the Skidmores invited us to go to a Punkin' Chunkin' event in Aurora. Amateurs (I use that term loosely, only because the big-money sponsors haven't yet discovered the sport, and because Oakley doesn't yet have a line of anti-splatter pumpkin goggles) build catapults, cannons, and trebuchets to launch pumpkins as far as they can over the  fruited plains of Eastern Colorado. The cannons launched their gourdian ammunition between 2,000 and 4,000 feet (that is to say, they told us that's how far the pumpkins went: when a cannon fires a pumpkin fast enough to send it 2,000+ feet, you can't exactly SEE it fly).

We had a blast, and we learned that when you're a middle class family that builds a huge cannon to launch pumpkins on the weekend, the only place you can store your giant cannon-on-a-flatbed-trailer is on the street in front of your house, which could make for interesting discussions with your neighbor.

Foreman Micah, making sure everybody's working hard.

"Hey you!! Get back to work! You think these punkins are gonna chunk themselves!?!"

"Don't worry, cousin Aimee, I won't let them launch you."

Sarah and the kids continued their adventures at the zoo through the month of October, going about once a week. From the first time they went to the zoo in September, Micah has wanted to ride the little train, and they finally got to go. Sarah is the only one who appears to be having "fun," but Micah and Isla were awake, alert, and interested - if not obviously happy.

Micah and Sarah also collected spare change from around the house to save up to ride the carousel. After a couple of weeks, they had enough. He chose the leopard -- he has a Little People leopard at home that he likes to play with. He was somewhat trepidatious at first, but he ended up having a great time.

And the hippo statues are a perennial favorite. One of Micah's new games (has has so many "games" -- the "running game," the "spinning game," the "tiger game") is to pretend his dad is a hippo, climb up on his back, and then slide down, just like he does to the bronze hippos at the zoo. He also has a chant that he learned at story time at the library and that he loves to sing to his grandmas and grandpas: 

Hip- Hip- Hippopotamus,

Got, Got on the city bus

All, all, all the people said

"Help, help, help, you're squishing us."

And then he squishes his cheeks together with the palms of his hands. It's like a 9.7 on the Cuteness Richter Scale.

Beautiful Miss Isla is a trooper. She goes wherever her mom and brother go, and rarely complains. We've taken to calling her "Smiles" and "Smiley" because of the big grin that immediately consumes her face whenever anyone smiles at her.

Micah was a monkey for Halloween again, just like last year. But we're big believers in "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," and we think he makes a frightfully cute monkey.

The whole gang at the Lakewood Ward / Alameda Branch trunk-or-treat party! I think we consumed far more candy that we distributed this year. But hey, at least Halloween is the last of the "food" holidays until St. Patrick's Day, right? right? . . . ?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, we also went to "Boo at the Zoo" on the Saturday before Halloween (what can we say? we're animal lovers. Plus, we already sprung for the pass, so it's free on the margin, and that's tough to beat). As we overheard one clever gent say as we waited in line in the parking lot, "[The] place [was] a zoo." There seemed to be thousands of little kids there with their families, all dressed up in their Halloween costumes -- flocks of Elsas, gaggles of Annas, tribes of Spider-Men and Captain Americas, and even a small hive of bumble bees, like this little one pictured below.

This picture of Micah reminds me of Jabba the Hutt -- he just looks so content after a day of collecting candy.

Our monkey standing in front of monkey island, where the real monkeys "hang out."

If he were wearing some Baby Gap clothes, instead of a monkey suit, you'd think he looked pretty stylish with this fashion-model pose.

I couldn't choose which picture of Isla I liked best, so you'll just have to look at all of them.

Sarah made a "spooky" Halloween dinner for us, with these ghostly baked potato pizzas . . .

. . . and these weird witches' fingers . . .

. . . and these glasses of green goo . . . 

Horrifying!!

Oh yeah, and these cute little sweet potato jack-o-lanterns :)

We'll be looking out for you next month!

Readers' Roost

Halloween and its aftermath is a busy time for us (making costumes, toilet-papering houses, binging on bags of discount candy, etc.), so we haven't had as much time to read, but we're committed bibliophiles, so we've managed to get a few good hours in. Michael is reading and enjoying a couple of comic books he borrowed from Caleb - Cul de Sac and One Big Happy, and Sarah is starting to re-read The Work and the Glory, thanks to a kind sister in our ward who has gifted us all nine volumes. Micah has been enjoying Curious George and the Berenstain Bears. We were saddened to learn that Stan and Jan Berenstain have both passed since we last enjoyed their books, when we were ourselves in the bloom of youth. Those bears are a wonderful, moralizing bunch, and we're glad that Micah is enjoying them as we did.