October & November

 Eve turned 6 months at the end of September and just kept growing and growing.

  

Eli took these cute pictures after a feeding:

The many moods of Eve:

She's mostly pretty happy, though.

Another photo shoot in a cute dress:

I love these cheeks:

In our YW group, we did a challenge to write a conference quote on our driveway and this was what I did:

I thought this selfie Eli took was pretty cool:

Speaking of Eli, he started karate at an awesome studio and loved it:

With his instructor, Dustin:

We met up with Chris and Lisa and kids at Seascape for a fun beach day:

We grabbed dinner at Erik's Deli before we headed home. It was a long day but SO fun:

Joe and the kids found some huge clams there and they cooked them up the next day:

The were a little gritty with sand but tasted good.

Natalie made this amazing pie one day:

Halloween was pretty quiet. The youth put on a drive-thru trunk or treat that was fun for the girls and I. We weren't sure if anyone would be trick or treating or not because of the pandemic and it turned out no one did in our neighborhood. We went to a couple of houses on our street that had lights on and then called it good. We also didn't buy pumpkins in time and they were completely out. All we could find was this one tiny one to carve:

We were on an Office kick. :)

Eve got a chance to wear the bunny costume that everyone else wore:

The other kids' costumes:

(Katniss, Yiga clan guy from Zelda, Grindelwald, and a Ravenclaw wizard)

The weather finally started to cool off enough to try on a winter outfit:

Nate made this cool domino thing:

Some more cute Eve pictures:

She managed to pull a bunch of wipes out one morning:

One nap, Eve slept like this on her hands:

This is what she looked like when she woke up:

We all love when Eve falls asleep on us:

Nate wanted to make the artisan bread one day and he did it all himself. It turned out great!

The week leading up to Thanksgiving, Pres. Nelson challenged us to post each day about something we were grateful for. I did it (despite my love/hate relationship with social media). Here is what I wrote each day:

I’m going to kick off this 7 day gratitude challenge with something simple. I’m thankful for ginkgo trees in the fall. They make me so happy. I want to plant one in our yard here.

Today I’m grateful for this match made in heaven: pebble ice and Dr. Pepper:

Today I’m grateful for chubby baby thighs:

The older my kids get the more I realize that the best gift a parent can give a child is to let them know that they are loved no matter what. My parents did that phenomenally well. They lent me their confidence in me until I could build my own. For that I am eternally grateful.

Today I’m thankful for kids that know how to bake.

Today I’m grateful for prayer. Praying (almost) every night helps me to focus on the few beautiful moments of my day. It especially helps on those days when the good moments are really hard to find. I can always find some moment to be grateful for. Prayer helps me to develop gratitude and draw closer to God. When I was a kid I started a list of all the times my prayers were answered. Eventually, I stopped keeping track because there were too many to count. These days, prayer for me looks less like making requests and more like this painting I love by @caitlin_connolly_ —“an opening found between heaven and earth”. I’m so grateful for that opening.

Today I’m thankful for the these 5 and for Joe. It was a quiet Thanksgiving by ourselves with not a lot of frills since half of us are sick (just bad colds, we think). We miss being with extended family. But, everyone pitched in here and it’s been a great day. I’m so thankful my family. They are so darn easy to love. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Despite missing out on extended family time and some sickness, we had a good Thanksgiving.

Check out this spread:

Our pies were also excellent. Natalie is perfecting the art of berry-pie-making. Look at how non-runny that is!

The high school had an online auction and I was able to get a session of family pictures. I loved how they turned out:

At the end of November, the boys finally got to start in-person school! It was only for 3 hours, 4 days a week but at least it was something. Eli was the first person to start and it was pretty surreal dropping him off to get in line for his temperature check. They were so happy to not have to be on zoom all the time.