Thanksgiving is such a fantastic holiday! I feel like it is so perfect that a day devoted to giving thanks is also the kick-off to the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ! We have no greater blessing than God’s gift of His Son! And I am going to take this opportunity to say that I have a testimony of the living, resurrected, Lord, Jesus Christ. I have a testimony that He was born in Bethlehem to a virgin mother; that He lived a perfectly sinless life; that He suffered and died for my sins and those of all who will ever live on this earth. I have a testimony that He was, indeed, resurrected on the third day! And I have a testimony that He lives today and that He leads His Church–The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints–through His Prophet, Thomas S. Monson. And the testimony that I have of Him truly is something to be thankful for!

Anyway, our celebration this year was particularly lovely! We spent Thanksgiving with just our nuclear family, which turned out to be great for several reasons. One reason was that we didn’t have any kind of dead-line on getting our food ready–it was a really good thing because we didn’t defrost our turkey long enough. 🙂 Another reason it was great was that the kids got to take their normal naps, and therefore better enjoy the day. It was also fun because there aren’t very many times when we get to spend an entire day with all of us together!

This was our Thanksgiving Dinner!

 

Thursday evening, we set up our Christmas tree! Fay LOVES the Christmas tree! She loves putting on and taking down ornaments; she loves when we have all the lights on; and she loves getting “Christmas tree medicine” when she has “owies.” Carter also got really excited about putting the tree up. He could tell that something significant was happening, even if he wasn’t quite sure what it was.

On Friday, we got a Black Friday deal of a new couch. It actually wasn’t a deal from a store, and the couch isn’t really “new.” But the couch is new to us, and it was a great deal, and we bought it on Black Friday!

We had a great Thanksgiving! And we are so grateful to be an Eternal family!

I can’t believe we are half way through November already!  Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK! Josh has two fly-out interviews in the next month (one in Salt Lake, and one in San Francisco)! There are only two more weeks of classes! It’s all just so exciting! (Especially the part about school being close to over!)

We had a fun Halloween. Fay dressed up as Rapunzel, Josh dressed up as Flynn Rider, and Carter was our sweet little Pascal. I dressed up as “So and So” from Teen Girl Squad. Apparently a lot of people grew up in the dark, because there were very few who appreciated my “mock UN medal.” 🙂

In other news, Carter now has four little teeth. He loves standing (with help), grabbing at anything and everything, and riding Fay’s little tricycle (also with help). Fay loves drawing–she can do some pretty impressive spider drawings–as well as running in the hall, and playing doctor or picnic or sandwich. Fay and Carter are SO CUTE together! If Carter sees Fay he is instantly happy and starts flapping his arms! Whenever Carter wakes up from a nap or for the morning, Fay will happily exclaim “Good morning, Carter!” They LOVE taking baths together. Fay actually refuses to take a bath without Carter now. It makes me so happy to see them be so sweet and happy with each other.

Josh’s job hunt continues. We have realized that applying for jobs is much different than applying to schools. When you apply for schools, you start about a year in advance (or more depending on your program). Job hunting doesn’t quite work that way. But people are being patient with us, and seem to still be excited about Josh even though he won’t be available to work for another 6 months. We are excited about going somewhere new, and Josh is REALLY looking forward to being able to do actual programming instead of reading math textbooks all the time.

Other stuff has been going on (like work for church callings, and watching Studio C) but I know you all really just want to see pictures. So here they are!