Thankfullness

This November many blessings were brought to our attention. It really has been a great year in the Graves' household. We have experienced many firsts this year, and it's been quite an adventure.

This Thanksgiving we spent the afternoon with the Andrews' side, and then spent the evening with the Graves' side of the family. It was nice to spend a good chunk of time with my family. It's been a long time since we've all been together. It was loud and crazy, just the way I like it. Of course how could it not be with 7 grandchildren running around. This year my Memaw Mary came down from Ft. Worth to spend the day with us. It was nice to have her and Papa Harold hang out with us. So, here are some things that I feel Thankful for.

Crazy faces that MIGHT stick

Memories

Warmth

(if you've ever been to my mother's house you understand why I'm thankful for this)

Pumpkin Pie and Reddi Whip

Passion
Chris has been full time at NewChurch Georgetown for a full year now. I can't believe it's already been a year, AND on the flip side I can't believe it's ONLY been a year!



Kissing Cousins

Hanging out with the ones you love

All the Men

Little Women

The Andrews' Line carries on with these 3!!!

Silliness

Family

The future

Little Girls, Little Girls, Every Where I look, I See Them

A school that encourages family participation

A Love for School and Learning

Spooktacular Halloween

This Halloween was Super fun! Halloween fell on Sunday, so naturally at church we had a Costume Contest. It was fun to see all the kids dressed up, but it was interesting to see all the outfits the adults came up with. My 2 favorite were the pregnant nun and the burning bush!

That afternoon we had a neighborhood festival. There were games, entertainment. a fun photo booth, and a costume contest. We ended up Trick or Treating with the girls' cousins, Kaylee and Emalee.

My Cheerleader and Angel/Ice Princess (she didn't want to wear the halo)

KK and Emmy


They were good buddies. Emalee took great care of Mac the whole time.

Heavenly

Aby and Sami

We then met up with Gomer and Jackson. They were very anxious to get started walking the neighborhood.

These girls have been friends forever, and both love Miss Bonnie to death. We get this shot of all three of them every year.

D-O-U-B-L-E

D-O-U-B-L-E

T-O-I-L

&

T-R-O-U-B-L-E

So happy to be Trick-or-Treatin'

2 boys, 2 girls, and a pumpkin patch

For the past few years we've meet up with our buddies the Arlitt's at some pumpkin patch. This year we skipped out on Sweet Berry Farms and went to a local church's pumpkin patch. The neat thing is the kids had a blast even without all the extra activities to do. (And it was a lot cheaper)

Here are the two munchkins being held against their will to take a picture =)
**Notice the sleeveless dress in OCTOBER!**

Here is sweet Thing 2, and she actually looked AND gave a smile.

Thing 1 has the picture taking down to a pat =)

Teague trying to decide which pumpkin was right for him.

Mac and Teague chased each other all over the rows of pumpkins.

The highlight of the visit was getting up on the big tractor! Troy and Teague were in their element, but my girls were fascinated by the tractor.

She couldn't get enough of taking this tractor for a spin.

Mac also searched high and low for the perfect pumpkin.

Apparently nobody liked this one. I really liked its character.

We brought home the most perfect pumpkins. They got a face lift with some stickers.

Here they were singing songs about pumpkins. We actually didn't carve a pumpkin this year. Which was kind of sad, but at the same time I didn't miss the clean up =)

A night with Shy Tree

Shy Tree recently played at the Historic Cotton Exchange in Temple. It was a wonderful night out listening to 2 of my favorite musicians do what they do best. It was fun to sit with friends as well and just be.

Alison getting the party started.

Mike and Lisa. My how nice it is to go out with them and know that it's not a short visit!!!
Brittany and Chris
Us girls!!!

Chris and Alison jamming out!

Leasha and Brian showed up. That was a nice surprise.

Josh!!!

This was such a great show!! So glad I get to follow them around and be a Groupie =)

Dropping Eggs and Bear Picnics

Aby's elementary school had lots of neat activities planned during the month of September. The first was Egg Drop day. Each child can make a container for an egg to be placed in, then dropped off the firetruck ladder. Aby and Chris worked together on this project. They ended up taking a plastic container filling it half way with flour, then placing the egg in, and topping it off with more flour. This idea was taken from Pioneers. They would travel across bumpy country side and placed their eggs in the flour so they wouldn't break. We decided to try it out, and it worked perfectly. There were definitely some creative containers made.

Here is the view from our back gate.

Egg going down.

Kinder patiently waiting their turn.

Declaring the end

So proud the egg made the drop.

Aby's class has Mystery Readers. Chris was excited to take part in this activity. He read the book Song and Dance Man. He brought his guitar and sang The Hokey Pokey and the ABC song with them. They had a wonderful time.

Aby was very excited that Daddy surprised her.

Another exciting activity was the Teddy Bear Picnic. All the kindergartners walked over to the park that is next to the neighborhood pool. They each had their teddy bears, and of course bear snacks.

McKinley loved getting to take part in this activity.

Sweet Aby and Beary. Beary won the Most Friendly Bear Award!!
Sami, Mrs. Liz and Bear

Me and my sweeties