We had a great Thanksgiving with the Lymans in Colorado! It was so great, with Christian back from his mission, to be all together again. Seriously, so awesome. There’s something really special about being all together. Here’s our eleven-person selfie. We seriously have the best family. :)

I’ve basically had my Christmas for the year. My mom cleaned out all of her books and gave me like five boxes of young adult and middle grade books, along with a bookcase to store them all. Now we have all our fiction books in one place. It’s neat because a lot of them were books I read growing up or kept on my own bookshelf in my room. But look – the Harry Potter books are included! And the whole Series of Unfortunate Events! These are some of my favorites, and I’m so excited to have them, along with all the others. So Mom, thank you so much for the books!! It’s really all I need for Christmas. :)

(Brother and sisters: Mua ha ha! I HAVE ALL THE BOOKS! One of the perks of being the oldest, I guess… But really, I’ll share one day. Maybe.)

Did you know that this was the OED’s word of the year?

My friend Lisa told me. :) And yes, that’s an emoji. 😂 is actually the word of the year. “Face with tears of joy.” Pretty great, right?

I thought it was timely, because I just had this conversation with my family today. My parents and siblings are in another state and I was telling them I’ll miss them over Thanksgiving.

I only have one thing to say about that text message thread: 😂

Annelise has recently learned how to draw people:

She says it’s a picture of Carson. I love it! I love seeing how kids draw people. And I’m so proud of Annelise! She’s not even three yet.

For fun, here’s the way Carson drew people when he was first learning how:

Carson say’s it’s Mary and baby Jesus (left) and Joseph.

Annelise probably learned by watching Carson. I think it’s fun to see how similar their drawings are.  :) Well, except for the smile. Carson’s characteristic smile is a curved line that goes up so high it touches the eyes. Carson laughed at Annelise’s straight-line mouth. But I bet she’ll master smiles soon. :)