November

November was a fabulous month that just seemed to fly by! It was filled with reaching goals, spending time as a family, and thoroughly enjoying the beginning of the holiday season.

This month I feel like I had a burst of energy (due to Blake's great new sleeping habits) and have been extra motivated to set and accomplish goals. I reached my weight loss goal and have been working to maintain. Hello, maintaining is just as much work as losing in my mind. It's a mental game of not getting complacent. 

Then for a new challenge I decided to organize every drawer and cupboard in my house. I didn't have energy and was a little sleep deprived last spring and the spring before that I was finishing up my degree so it was a much needed spring cleaning project. That took the majority of my focus the first two weeks of November. 

With that done, I decided to tackle a life goal of reading the Book of Mormon in a short amount of time. I found a 30 day challenge online and thought it would be perfect for me. I'm on day 14 and it's been such an amazing, meaningful 'project' to work on. Once I'm done, I'll share more of my thoughts and feelings on that. 

Then before I knew it, the week of Thanksgiving was upon us! We started the week off by having our good friends from Chicago, Jessie, Dustin, and Clara over for dinner. They were in town for a wedding and we were so happy for the chance to see them! 

The next evening we hosted an early Thanksgiving dinner with all of Matt's family. It was my first time making a Turkey and I was so pleased with how it turned out! I used an Our Best Bites recipe that called for a 24 hr brine and then some tender love and care before putting it in the oven, but all the work paid off. I also did stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, and squash and then my mother and sister in law brought rolls, green beans, potato casserole, sweat potatoe suffle, and 6 pies! We had a ton of delicious food. It was a great night to be together as a family.

The only picture I took that evening was of the table setting. 

After that meal was cleaned up, we packed our bags for my parent's Bear Lake Cabin. My dad tasted our turkey and loved it so I quickly helped get their turkey in a brine before we made the drive. 

At the Cabin we had another amazing Thanksgiving dinner with my family, Grandparents, and a few cousins. It was so fun to have a little get-a-way in the middle of Matt's school semester. We played lots of chess and other games, celebrated my little sister's 13th birthday, exercised, watched way too much football and basketball, went down to the beach, and made gingerbread houses. And in the middle of all that we also relaxed. :)

And that is pretty much how our month of November went. Now onto Christmas!