Thanksgiving Week

Thanksgiving week was so much fun! 

Abby didn't have school on wednesday so we put up our outside christmas lights that morning. Then the girls helped me make our pies that afternoon. Two pumpkin and a snickerdoodle pie! Wednesday night we went to the Old Spaghetti Factory with my Dad's family.

I started out Thanksgiving with an amazing 6 mile run with friends. The sunrise behind the temple was so incredibly breathtaking! I was overwhelmed with gratitude that morning. I'm so blessed to live the life that I do. 

Then we relaxed all morning. We watched the Macy's day parade. We all got ready and headed over to my parents. I helped my mom finish up the food and then everyone showed up and we feasted! The food was, as always, fantastic! 

Then my Dad's family came over and we had a huge pie party. We had 4 pumpkins, 1 pumpkin creme, key lime, banana cream, 2 chocolate, 1 pistachio, snickerdoodle, cherry, berry and 2 apple! SO MUCH PIE! It was great. 

We ended Thanksgiving Day by going to see Moana! And it was amazing. Seriously amazing. I loved it! The girls loved it. We all want to keep listening to the music, but its Christmas music time! The struggle is real! ha ha. 

Then Friday we went on a fun hike and had lunch with everyone. That night everyone came over and had s'mores in our backyard. I love our fire pit! 

Saturday Kyle worked. The girls and I went out to get some more Christmas decorations and made Christmas cookies for our Santa Cook jar. I had a photoshoot after Kyle got home. Then we had dinner and went out to get a real Christmas tree. We had so much fun picking it out! We brought the beautiful thing home and tried to put it up. Its so hard! The stupid thing toppled over and pulled one of my shelves out of the wall. It left a huge hole. So Kyle ran out to get some dry wall patch stuff. Luckily you can't hardly see that anything happened. Now I just need to get the shelf back up. We finally got the tree stable but it stands at a huge angle. So we twisted it so it looks like its straight but it is leaning straight up against the wall. So funny. But it smells amazing. Kyle has been a good sport, but I think this will be the last year that he lets me get a real tree. 

The girls were great troopers on the hike. Abby hiked the entire time! I was so proud of her. Juliet was not a fan of the hike. She fell right at the beginning and kept telling me how tired her legs were the entire time. But she had a pretty good attitude. She made it the entire way out and then we took turns carrying her back. She told me "don't ever take me on a hike again". Unfortunately we will go on more hikes. Sorry Jules! 

My hero putting lights up on the house. Luckily a previous owner had put little light hooks all over the house so all you have to do is loop the lights strands in there. It was scary having him up there but the house looks great!! 

Kyle marked his pumpkin pie. Ha ha! 

The most incredible sunrise. The picture doesn't even begin to do it justice! 

The place cards I made for the dinner 

My mom knows how to lay out a table. So beautiful! 

PIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (not all pies are pictured) 

This was Jane playing the morning after Thanksgiving. She sure looks like she is having a fantastic childhood. 

Abby wanted pumpkin pie for breakfast after Thanksgiving. 

Jules was seriously knocked out after the hike. She had been sitting next to me whining all afternoon. Finally I said lets just lay down and relax for a little bit. No joke 30 seconds later she was snoring. 

S'mores!! 

Me when we put the tree up the first time. So happy. So naive. 

After it fell. All Christmas spirit gone. Stupid, beautifully smelling tree! Eventually it will be funny. But not this Christmas. Not yet. 

I love the Christmas season. Thanksgiving is amazing and this one was perfect. But let the best of the Holiday season begin!!!!!!!! Wahoo!!!!! 

Field Trip with Abby

First field trip ever with my Abigail!! I am so grateful for a husband that has an incredible career where I can stay home and do these fun things. I am fully aware of what a blessing that this. I jumped at the opportunity to be a chaperone and it didn't disappoint. Abby was very proud of having me there and that felt great. I had three other sweet kids in my group. It was very fun! We went to Schnepf farm again, but this time we got to pick out a pumpkin! So much fun. It was so fun to see Abby interact with her friends. She is so big and so sweet. I just love her. 

I can't wait to for all the field trips in the future! 

October

October was a fantastic month! So much happened. These past few months have been really hard on me and Kyle. But towards the end of October things started changing for the first time in a long time. All I can say is that I am so grateful for him. I'm grateful for our relationship. Even when we struggle, and every relationship struggles, there is so much strength. We are are so different, and sometimes those differences don't work well together. But our commitment to one another and our deep love for each other and for the beautiful life we are building means everything to us! We have had to work hard, and we will continue to work hard but things are getting better. I am so grateful for him. This life I am living is incredible and I wouldn't have it without a loving Heavenly Father and a husband willing to work so hard to give it to me. 

Sorry for all the mushy but I want to remember the struggles as I post all of these beautiful pictures from the month October. I am so blessed! 

We love this piano. It has already brought so much joy into our home! 

We went to a really fun movie night at the park. Our friends have this screen and projector and they played a bunch of kid halloween movies. It was a great night! Jules kept standing up right in front of the screen blocking everyone's view and jumping around flapping her arms totally oblivious to anyone else! We kept yelling her name and she was so engrossed in the movie she couldn't hear us. I had to keep going up and making her sit back down again. She cracks us up. 

We all got our teeth checked by the best dentist in town! So fun to see daddy at work. He is seriously rocking it. October was a fantastic month for him! 

We made halloween sugar cookies. Jane was a big fan. I love this little girl. 

We went to the pumpkin patch with my family. It was a perfect night. The weather cooled off that evening so it wasn't totally miserable to be outside finally! We went to Schnepf farms for the first time and we all loved it. They had a petting zoo, rides, and a spooky train. We paid the little extra to ride the "spooky train" after dark. My mom had done it the year before with Jason and Sarah and said  it wasn't too scary. Well they had upped the scary factor. It was super scary! Jules and Abby kept their heads in everyones laps the whole time. I was even a little spooked! We all had a good laugh. I would ride it again! Just maybe without kids. Ha ha. 

I love painting their nails! They always pick the funniest combinations. Jules had a different color for her right hand and left hand. And then two more colors for each of her feet! 

I've let Abby split a meal with me a couple times at restaurants and she thinks it is the coolest thing ever. I love sharing things with her. Its so fun! 

We went to the pumpkin patch by our house to get our pumpkins to carve! Watching Jane carry around that tiny pumpkin was a highlight of the Halloween season. 

This is the only picture I got of the trunk or treat! It was so much fun! Our jumping spider broke so our trunk wasn't as cool as we wanted it to be. So that was a bummer. Our ward put on a good party. Lots of food and music and candy! I dressed up as bell wearing her blue dress. Our theme was princess. 

These pictures are from the beginning of the month. I made bread on conference saturday! I might have to make that a tradition. It was super yummy and the whole house smelled like fresh bread. 

Changed in fairy wings dancing to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Conference was amazing! 

I love this girl and her imagination. It is the best. There is always an amazing creation when she is playing. 

We watched Saturday afternoon conference in the tent! Also a fun tradition. 

Abby and I colored together during the Sunday sessions. 

I love her. Jane turned 18 months old this month!!! I'll write a whole post dedicated to that. But seriously why must she insist on growing up? 

Look at these gorgeous flowers I picked from our backyard? So beautiful! 

We love our daddy! 

My grandpa is the best! Our ice maker was broken on our fridge. It was the worst! I need ice. So we kept buying it from McDonalds and Sonic. The bags took up so much space in the freezer and it was such a pain to get the ice out of the bags. We had put the ice in the dispenser but then it got jammed. We had someone come to look at it and said it was going to be SOO expensive to fix and that it would be a huge, huge pain. I was so bummed out about it. I mentioned it to my Grandpa who is a super handyman. He used to own an appliance store so he came over to look at it. He ordered the new ice maker and installed it. And changed out all the filters. I didn't even know where the filters were. He showed me some awesome stuff to keep the fridge maintained and running nice. Now we have ice! And it works like a dream. Juliet held the flashlight for him. It was pretty dang cute. I'll always cherish this picture. Its so fun to see my girls get to have such awesome relationships with their great grandparents! They are lucky girls. 

Crazy hair day. This is the best picture I could get. If she isn't in the mood for a picture you aren't getting a picture. 

We discovered a kids yoga channel on youtube. Super fun! 

We took a trip to the "Fishy store". It is soo far away!!!! But it was fun to go there again. We miss some of our fun things from Colorado. 

I've been major training for my race in November!! I've been feeling so good. I never though in a million years I would ever break past a ten minute mile! And now I've done it. It feels amazing to progress like that. 

I love this picture of Jane chilling during the movie at the park. 

At the beginning of October we had a "spooky dinner" and watched "The Nightmare Before Christmas". We had chowder in bread bowls and I love how the decorations turned out! 

Kyle worked all of fall break. My dad was gone so he worked extra long hours. The girls and I still tried to do some fun stuff that week! We went to the mall to get halloween costumes and got pretzels for lunch. So fun! It made me very excited for future girls trips. 

Trying on the costumes! 

More pictures from our family trip to Scheps Farm. 

Jules loves best friend Mema! 

I convinced Abby that Kyle's favorite animal is a pegacorn. She keeps tracing/drawing them for him. 

This picture is proof that we survived stake conference. Stake conference and little kids is the WORST! But the little snippets we caught were amazing. I am so grateful for the gospel. It brings us so much peace and joy. 

I made Halee's halloween costume to match her newest American Girl Doll. 

My kindergartener is a genius. I love this girl! 

After party shot of the trunk or treat at Abby's school

Making cookies! I love that Jane hopped up there with us to join in on the fun. They are all getting so big! 

I snapped this picture one day while we were out together just the two of us. I love her so much. I want to remember her just like this. 

My last minute attempt at being Belle for halloween. 

The loot from the trunk or treat! 

So gross! 

Carson and Andi came for a visit! It was fun to meet her and spend some time with Carson.

SaveSave