some snapshots from thanksgiving month, before we left to drive to arizona for thanksgiving …

august working on half-kneeling and side-sitting at physical therapy:

babies in the swing on a warm afternoon, and the perfect contained “play pen” for crawling-everywhere evie:

a truly delicious meal at a mexican place in american fork en route to the mount timpanogos temple for date night // a truly delicious snack for our darling little babes:

a sunday afternoon in rock canyon with cousins:

my brother and his family moved away from provo in november. we were beyond devastated about losing both him and my other brother who had moved from provo in september. we are looking forward to visiting both of them and their families in nyc come april!

getting accustomed to costco shopping (ian loves his pizza rolls!), and some batman face paint at a ward party:

the art room exploding with little boys’ creations:

commemorating guy fawkes day by making some effigies and burning them in our driveway:

and doing some sparklers too! missing the fun of bonfire night / fireworks night in the uk.

gorgeous leafs on campus (after dropping off moses at kindergarten on fridays when i have a babysitter, i often went to the byu library to work on catching up on this blog!):

swimming lessons and cards for gabriel made by moses (“the beams coming out of your face in the drawing means you’re the best brother ever.”):

moses had a lot of dental work done in november. we had taken him to the dentist regularly in london, but it turns out the standard of care in the usa is very different than in the uk … he had to be put under and get two spacers (after extractions) and five silver crowns. he thought the whole thing was awesome and he is so proud of his new hardware, haha. i miss his old smile, but also adore his new extra shiny smile 🙂

one day moses decided to give himself and his kid brother haircuts…

which called for proper haircuts at a haircutting place (ian usually cuts the boys’ hair):

we ended up with a still-very-visible bald spot and a short buzz, haha.
assembling and decorating turkey cookies that grammie gave us:

gabriel’s turn at the dentist (he had some work to be done too, but much less – only one silver tooth for gabey!), and a birthday card for his cousin emmeline – improving on writing so much!:

gabriel working on his beloved “preschool book” (moses also has a “kindergarten book” – just these little workbooks i got at costco that they both were obsessed with in november) // moses building something awesome with lego (we had started working together on colour sorting which has made the building process a lot smoother!):

we hiked to stewart falls in provo canyon as a family, on one warm-for-november saturday. all that was bright yellow was by then brown – but still pretty golden. it was a fun adventure!

gabriel and moses had their first primary program at church! they missed doing this in london because of covid so it was pretty exciting that they got to be a part of a children’s musical presentation in sacrament meeting this fall. i loved that gabriel started out the entire program by going to the microphone and very confidently and loudly saying “i love jesus!” they both sang and listened and i was absolutely beaming from the pews 🙂

a sunday adventure in spanish fork canyon, building teepees and bridges:

the babes in their new bear suits, ready for some winter hiking on our upcoming roadtrip // the boys playing in our coming-together playroom (couches on order):

an art class at the byu museum of art with moses one morning while gabriel was in preschool:

i got to go to the beyond van gogh experience in salt lake city. i met my mom and dad and my sisters saren and saydi there. it was so cool – feeling like we walked right into van gogh’s paintings (he’s my favourite artist of all time!). it was wonderful to be there with fellow art-lovers and just marvel at all the changing projections.

after sunday dinner at my parent’s house in park city, grandfather got out the treasure chest. there are no words for the joy of watching my children delight at the same exact experience that i adored as a child. my dad got out the little toys and put on a little show with them just how he used to when i was the one hiding my eyes, squealing and giggling.

we worked diligently on our thankful tree this year – collecting leaves from around provo and pressing them in old textbooks and labeling them with all kinds of things we are grateful for. this will forever be one of my all-time favourite things to do with my kids! we had to take a photo together with the completed tree before we took off to spend the holiday in arizona!

so much to be thankful for – even and especially in a crazy, hard year.