The Pollard Place: November: Gatsby, pies, and family

Red Sign's annual Casino Night came, and it was a blast! This year the theme was The Great Gatsby, and I was SO excited! We got to dress up and invite some friends to go with us this year. We played black jack, roulette, and Craps and won a lot of chips! It was a blast! To prepare ourselves, we watched the movie the night before.

The next weekend was Pinner's Conference! Bryndee and I were supposed to go together, but she ended up being out of town so I invited Aubrey to go with me. We took some cake classes, sewing classes, and a watercolor class. We also spent time just walking around and looking at the booths. It was great!

I ran into Aunt Connie and Alyson here!

Henry sent this little car with me to play with. He is so sweet!

We visited Farm Country. I swear my kids could live here haha. It is always so fun, and Della LOVES riding the ponies. I think we did it four times today because there was nobody else here.

We also visited the Butterfly Biosphere for the first time! They added it to Thanksgiving Point while we were on our trip and I honestly thought it would be something we would do for about fifteen minutes and then go to a different place. But it was so cool! We spent about two hours here. They have a big indoor play place, a butterfly biosphere, tons of bugs and bug talks, and you can hold a bug! Neither of my kiddos wanted to hold the praying mantis haha.

Della was not sure about this tarantula.

We're still going strong with Nature School! It is so fun to get everyone out of the house and out in nature for a couple hours a week.

We had another country date, this time we traveled to Italy! These dates sure are a lot of work, but man they are so fun! We had a delicious homemade meal of bruschetta, homemade meatballs, with our "wine". Then we played Scopa, an Italian card game, and we had a blast! We watched Roman Holiday and made Italian Sodas and ate our desserts I got from a bakery (some cannolis). I love dating my husband!

The kids and I went to Jessica's house to make some homemade pumpkin pies! From real pumpkins! Neither of us had ever done that but it was really fun. They didn't taste so great at Thanksgiving though haha, so we have some work to do.

Rusty's family all came into town for Thanksgiving, and most of them got here by Sunday. Phyllis and Kirk got here in time to watch Henry's Primary Program on Sunday and then hung out with us for the afternoon. Kelsey and Levi stopped by in the evening on their way to Desi's and it was fun to see them too! Before Thanksgiving we hung out at the house with them, played outside in the snow, and went to the Aquarium one day. The kids loved the aquarium, and we used the money that Phyllis gave us for memberships there! We're so excited! The penguins were a big hit.

Rusty's last day of work! This day has been coming for a long time, and I am so proud of him for taking this jump! He left Red Sign the week before Thanksgiving to start focusing on our personal investments. He is going to do great things.

Thanksgiving was at Desi's house this year! We spent a lot of time up at their house playing with everyone and catching up. It snowed a lot, so we even got to play outside in the snow quite a bit which was so fun! We built a giant snowman, and Henry was so excited. The night before Thanksgiving we went out to eat at a Japanese Steakhouse and watched them cook on the Hibachi Grill. Henry was so brave and tried catching food in his mouth! Thanksgiving was delicious! We did dinner with Rusty's family, but my family all ended up going to Jessica's house so we went over for second dinner there and then spent the night there with my parents and watched Christmas movies.

Henry's Highlights

Henry had his first primary program! I got a substitute so that I could sit in the congregation and watch him, and I am so glad I did. He was so, so funny and I was crying laughing. He was singing SO LOUD, and even if he didn't know the words he would look around for a second and then just start yelling, "LA LA LA". It was all genuine, he just loves to sing haha. We had so many people come up after and tell us that Henry was their favorite part of the program. It was surreal to watch our little boy up there. I've thought about that for many years.

He wants to be Sucker the dog like 75% of the time. And Della is Fluff Fluff the cat.
Henry started therapy to help him work through what happened with Rusty's accident. We went twice, but ultimately I felt like it wasn't that helpful. I found that certain chapters from the book I was already reading (tender mercy) called The Whole Brained Child were the most helpful with guiding Henry through understanding his feelings and his emotions. He struggled after Rusty's accident and was very anxious and angry for a few weeks.

Adeline's Adventures:

She has started talking so much more lately! She's talking enough now that I noticed that she can't say "r". It sounds like "haew" (hair) "beaew" (bear) and it's my favorite thing.
Della wants to be naked all the time.

Della's hair is getting so long! She wanted her hair in braids like mine, and she was so happy with them with they were done. She will go up to the mirror and just smile and bat her eyelashes and say, "I so boot-ful".

She is still obsessed with riding Beau. Any time she sits on something (the couch, a chair, a broom) she says, "Me ride Beau!" This time she actually sat on her stuffed horse and was riding Beau.

Extra Pictures

Henry asked me to take a picture of his hat, and then said he would take one of Della.

I made my first cake! Well, fancy cake. It was chocolate cake with a peanut butter buttercream frosting. I don't normally like chocolate cake, but it was delicious!!