November 2012

We had a great Thanksgiving with cousin Aaron and the Rusch family.  I’m thankful they’ve taken us in like family.  I successfully made my first pumpkin pie, my first pecan pie, and my second sweet potato casserole (last year’s was a bust).  They turned out great for our 2nd Texas Thanksgiving.  It's kind of bizarre that I'd never made these All-American classics before.

I think we have a new after Thanksgiving “Texas” tradition – the corn maze!  I never imagined I'd find myself racing through an enormous corn maze:  Aaron and Ben, versus me and Jon, versus Caleb going solo, and it was soooo fun!  We had the best family day and topped our adventure off with a stop by the Blue Bell Creamery Ice Cream Parlor. 

After Thanksgiving, I purchased a P.E. program.  I’m very impressed with it so far.  It gives me 30-60 minute lessons that build on themselves.  I see a big improvement in both boys’ coordination and strength, even though we’re only getting to it once or twice a week.  Caleb has even noticed feeling happier after a lesson, which makes me a happy momma.  Way to go endorphins!  It works muscle groups, coordination, reaction time, spatial awareness, etc. in intentional ways.  The kids are getting much more from this program than they were getting from just playing outside as their exercise.  Plus it gets me out there playing and engaging with the kids in a new way.  Overall, I’m hopeful that this will impact the health and fun of the Hartshorns, as well as teach the ability to take care of oneself - a skill I'm not great at. I want better for my kids.

Caleb is growing like crazy! He is a quarter of an inch taller than 25 days ago!

I decided to attempt to propagate some of my herbs and to over-winter the parent basil plant since I live somewhere now that experiences actual winter and freezes.  The propagating worked really well for my pineapple basil and my rosemary.  They love my window sill and are rooting splendidly.  Additionally, I learned that if I put the bottoms of grocery store green onions in some water and set it in my window, they’ll grow! Now I can just trim off what I need when cooking, plus they're cute.  I’m thrilled with all this new gardening knowledge!

One Friday and Saturday we really packed in the fun!  Ben had his Fine Arts Friday classes, we had new friends over for a fun afternoon, and we spent the evening at a birthday party at a gymnastics studio.  Then Jon and the boys spent the whole night lake fishing on a boat with our neighbor.  Then we went to a pecan farm festival in the morning, shortly after the boys walked in the door from fishing.  We enjoyed watching a potter work on her pottery wheel at the festival and took an informative and relaxing 45 minute wagon ride through the orchards.  It was a gorgeous fall day.  After we got home the boys crashed hard and I decided to make some pasta from scratch.

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