November

The month started out with Eve falling asleep inside her pool ring during quiet time :):

I loved this selfie Lizzie attached to one her letters after she got her hair cut. We love reading about her adventures at BYU:

A beautiful morning at the canyon:

I also saw a crawdad in the middle of the path at the top of the canyon. How did it get up there??

Eve got to go to a birthday party at Jump Time and loved playing with her best little preschool friend Emmett:

I loved this picture:

George snuggled up on my legs:

Sleepy Eve fell asleep reading a book:

Like father like daughter:

Sometimes they also fall asleep together:

Another fun boys activity that ended at Orange Leaf:

Natalie and I had the awesome opportunity to drive to Seattle for a Lauryn Hill/Fugees concert! It was super fun. The drive over wasn't bad and we made it in time to check into our hotel and grab dinner at a really nice place. We were a little wet from the rain, though:

Natalie had some amazing butternut squash soup and I had some delicious scallops.

The concert was awesome!  It opened with a DJ just playing a bunch of throwback jams to get the crowd going and a big highlight was singing "No Scrubs" with Natalie and the whole stadium :). Then Lauryn Hill started and did most of her hits. My favorite parts were when she would slow it down and sing a pared down version of them. Then the Fugees came out and the energy really got going. I loved that they got to do their solo stuff too--Wyclef sang "Gone Til November" and Natalie and I went crazy, and Pras did "Ghetto Superstar". Of course "Killing Me Softly" was one of the best moments. Anyway, it was a fun, but late night.

The queen herself:

We slept in and then made our way back the next day. It was a fun trip!

Cute Daddy daughter pic:

An apple pie we made together: Joe made the crust, Eli made the filling and I put it together:

Beautiful Idaho sunrise:

Me and my baby girl:

I loved this BeReal of Nate too:

Eli had his orchestra concert. We were all blown away by how good he did. They had adults filling in since they are short on kids and it really sounded great. I was glad I forced Eli to do orchestra since hw grew to like it by the end.

One day after storytime, Eve and I were at the park and there were leaves falling constantly. We had fun trying to catch them in the air:

Eve had her Thanksgiving exhibition for school and it was really cute:

Little feet:

Natalie had an early birthday party here at our house. She went with a Bachelorette-themed one and they seemed to have a lot of fun:

Eve's amazing bedhead:

We drove to CA for Thanksgiving:

Eve loved getting in the pool even though it was freezing!

I got to take everyone to Bob's at the Marina and they loved it. Eve especially loved walking out on the dock:

We had a great Thanksgiving! Delicious food and great company:

We also had fun walking to Laughlin Park:

My mom and I also walked Eve over another time:

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was really special. I was up early and couldn’t sleep anymore so I went down downstairs and Mom was up for her walk too we went together. Then we got dressed and ready. Mom wanted to recreate a picture we had taken with Grandma Stone and Lizzie and Natalie so we did a girls only dressy picture. I’m not sure any of us were satisfied with how they turned out but I’m glad we have them. 

Then it was time for Joe, Lizzie and I to head to the Sacramento temple for Lizzie to receive her endowment:

It was so wonderful being in the temple together. Definitely couldn’t keep the tears from flowing. We also had Sis. Rogers (wife of our stake president from our Sacramento days) as the matron who talked to her. Another tender mercy was the name I was given was a Korean name and Mom’s was a French name—both have significance for Lizzie. It is crazy to me that I went through the temple almost exactly 20 years ago myself. We were pretty starving after that so we stopped and got some really delicious Greek food—Lizzie’s favorite: 

Then when we got home Chris and Lisa and Lily were there so we got to catch up with them and have Dante’s together that night. We also watched the last of the BYU game which was exciting until it ended so sadly. We had fun spending time together that night—playing the slap game and then talking to Dad and hearing about his mission and high school days. It was a really nice trip.

My kids were sad that they missed a crazy amount of snow while we were gone but it was still there when we got back. Eve loves making snow angels:

We'll end the month with some selfies:

It was a great month!