Halloween, Thanksgiving, and a funeral.

My last post was before Halloween so I'll start there.

We went to our ward Trunk or Treat. We did a chili cook off and I won one of the 4 prizes with my Chili Mac! I was so happy! Raelan totally understood trick or treating this time and she even said Trick or Treat herself AND Thank You. Last year she wouldn't say either. Bryn was oblivious but enjoyed eating candy.

On Halloween we had a fun little Halloween themed dinner of mummy hot dogs, frog eye peas, eyeball drinks, and a haunted pumpkin patch dessert. Raelan loved it. We then went to about 10 houses in our neighborhood. 

We put a lot of hard work into finishing painting our downstairs. We wanted to get it done in time for Thanksgiving. We LOVE the results, and wish we could pay someone to do the rest of the house because we're sick of painting! We'll do more eventually.

We had lots of leaves to clean up in our yards. It's still so new to us having all these chores to do, but we really enjoy it (for the most part). We had to get a leaf blower to get the leaves off all our rocks. Brynlee loved playing in piles of leaves. I took the girls to a YW activity with me where we raked leaves. Brynlee would just sit in a pile until we needed to bag it, then she'd move on to the next pile. Adorable.

Raelan has still been loving preschool. There have been lots of days off with holidays and sickness, but we're excited to start up again next week. 

They had a little Thanksgiving feast at preschool.

She's just precious.

We hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house with Ammon's dad's side of the family. There were 12 adults and 8 kids. We were really excited to be able to share our home and to actually have the space to do so. I made my first every turkey! Everything turned out perfectly and we had such a wonderful time. I was a little bit stressed the morning of, worried about cooking a turkey and how to coordinate cooking rolls and potatoes. But then I realized how blessed I am that my biggest stress of that day was how I was going cook a ton of food for our awesome family. 

We had a big Thanksgiving weekend. On black Friday Raelan and I went to go see Trolls with my mom and sister. It was such a great movie and Raelan had so much fun at the theater.

On Saturday we spent the day with Ammon's mom's side of the family. We started with bowling, then spent the day at the parents' house eating pizza, playing games, and enjoying family. Raelan had a great time bowling, and Brynlee even enjoyed pushing the ball down the slide a bunch of times.

After Thanksgiving festivities we set up Christmas decor, and got excited over the first snowfall (of maaaaany). 

My Grandpa Smith passed away at the beginning of December. I was able to go with my family to the funeral in Cardston, Alberta. I rode with my parents and we picked up my sister in Rexburg. We then drove up to Great Falls, Montana to pick up my brother at the airport (he flew from Portland), and then the rest of the way to Cardston. We had so much fun being together. We laughed a ton and reminisced about the good ol' days. I love my family. And then it was SO awesome to see all my cousins and aunts and uncles again after a few years.

We sure miss you Grandpa.