November 2018 Part 3: Thanksgivin'

Ah Thanksgivin'! I love Thanksgiving. It was one of my favorite holidays. I missed my family more at Thanksgiving than Christmas when I was a missionary. We always had so many amazing traditions tied to that weekend, traditions that I always try to replicate somehow each year, but always fall short somehow. One tradition was baking pies with my grandma the day before Thanksgiving. Lea was awesome enough to come to my house and do pie-making day with me. We made lots of pie. 

 And Lea got pretty fancy with her crust. I was brain-dead or something and really struggled making pie crust--like a rookie or something. Lea still loved me even though I was temporarily incompetent.

 And it was a ton of fun making pies.

Every Thanksgiving since my mission, I find myself missing the South. This year, I tried my hand at making corn bread dressing. It was SO good, but I think everyone else was underwhelmed. I happily ate it for days following Thanksgiving. 

We had enough pie that each person could have eaten their own pie. We went just a little nuts! 

And I'm pretty sure it was Gabe in the Living Room with the dog food...

As part of our Holiday extended weekend, we went to see "Wreck It Ralph 2." We loved it, and it was fun to go with cousins. 

 And then we made a quick trip to Idaho so Brian could help finish up some electrical stuff on my parents house. I decided that I would put up my grandparents' Christmas Tree for them. That meant we needed to clean and vacuum her living room.

 And someone needs to model the Christmas Tree skirt. It's tradition. I used to do it when I was little, but it won't fit me anymore, so Rachel had to do it.

 And Gabe didn't want to be left out.

 Ta-Dah!!!

 (Grandma told me I had to come back and take it down, but I told her I couldn't make it back until mid-January at the earliest.)

I'm not sure what is going on with this picture because we generally have a strict must-wear-shirts- policy at our house. I do love that Michael is just sitting there, lost in a book while waiting for his shirt to show up.

 And my tiny dancer can't resist busting out her moves everywhere she goes.

 It was really fun to see the new addition all framed up

And still so strange to see the old part stripped to the studs, including the attic gables. This was my room growing up: 

 And here's my grandpa's naughty dog Brutus, who is crazy jealous of Gabe whenever he sits on my Grandpa's lap.

And if you want a house tour of where the house was at this point, here's a terrible video I did while we were there that weekend.