Kids School Parties

This post is a little behind… I already had it ready and never posted it… But since I have nothing ready to post and I’m exhausted, (and because it’s my blog and I can post what I want :) here you go… A 1 month old blog post.

Here’s some pictures of the boys’ school “Birthday bash” parties. Their school celebrates the birthday of the school’s namesake, which  happens to fall right around Halloween.

On this same day, Gracie’s school had an “Imagination Celebration”. It was also her last day of preschool.

Her sweet teacher got a cookie cake for the class to say good-bye to Gracie!

We love Ms. Heather! She was a wonderful teacher to Gracie!

It was a very busy and fun afternoon!!

Thanksgiving

I had a helper getting the pecan pie and pumpkin cheesecake ready the night before Thanksgiving.

We went to Jason’s parents house for Thanksgiving this year.

Rhett was pretty excited that Gracie and I made Oreo Balls!

It snowed!!

Contemplating drink choices with Grandma.

Uncle Bruce, came from PA, Jason and Braden
There might have been a little trash talking going on here between the Viks fan and the Packer fan… ;)

Aunt Cathy and Uncle Guy slicing the ham

Jason had some help testing out the turkey!! My parents went to spend Thanksgiving with their parents and siblings in Louisiana, so Russ and Aggie and the kids came to spend the day with us! (This is my nephew -in case you didn’t know!)

Handsomest Turkey Carver Ever! I caught him in the middle of sampling here…

Fried Turkey= My True Thanksgiving Love Forever
My bubba fried up not 1 but 2 of these gorgeous, delicious babies! I’m still eating leftovers 2 days later! Amen!

My plate. Oh boy… I almost didn’t finish it. But I pushed through and made it happen!

Beautiful Sunset to end the day

 

We had a wonderful day with family time and great food!!!
We have so very much to be thankful for.

Drug Free Parade

The Friday before Halloween, the boys’ school had a drug free parade around our neighborhood. I walked down to the park to watch and take pictures.
(And wave and say, “Heeeeyyyy” to my babies! One day, this would definitely be considered embarrassing to the boys. But on this day, it wasn’t! Score one for Mom!)

Heeeeyyyy Rhett!

Rhett sporting his vampire teeth and his “No drugs” sign.

Police escort

Braden and his buddies

Annual Pumpkin Carving Party

The week before Halloween, we went to Russ and Aggie’s for their annual Pumpkin Carving Party. It was a beautiful but windy day. We ate and then got down to business!

Gracie giving PaPa some sweet sugars!

Pumpkin Carving Madness!

Poppy and Ela

Gracie was so proud of the top of her pumpkin because it had curly hair like hers!

She’s getting serious!

PaPa observing Rhett and giving him some pointers. He was very excited to get to do it all by himself this year. Also, he got to do not 1, but 2 pumpkins! Braden and Daddy missed it this year because of a soccer tournament, so Rhett got to do his brothers too.

Tre loved painting his. He was very into it!

I helped Gracie with her carving.

Mamma and Rhettster= True Love Forever! :)

The “little ones” painting away.

Here’s PaPa working hard on carving MeMe’s “warty” pumpkin. Russ and I basically made him try to carve a witch’s face onto the warty pumpkin. He spent over 30 minutes on it. We couldn’t wait to see it! All he had carved out was 1 tiny little part! He said the flesh of the pumpkin was so tough, it just couldn’t be done with a “regular” pumpkin saw. It would’ve needed some power tools! So- we didn’t get a warty witch. But, he tried! And he had a sore hand to prove it!

We had a wonderful, fun family day. Thanks for having us over and feeding us again this year Nanny and Poppy!! We’ll look forward to next  years’ Carving party!

Happy 32nd Birthday Daddy!

The kids wanted to make Daddy a birthday cake for his birthday. The only problem was, they couldn’t decide on what kind, what design or who would be in charge of the decorating.

So, I did what I had to do to make everyone happy!

Everyone got their own cake!

I was already in the kitchen baking this particular October weekend because I had 3 cakes to make for cake orders. So, I just whipped up some extra cakes for the kids to decorate.
I ran out of the time and energy to make the icing from scratch, so they used store bought icings.

Gracie’s was strawberry
She used a very large amount of cream cheese icing!
She loved spreading it.

Braden’s was 1/2 strawberry and 1/2 chocolate
Here he is “spray painting” his cake green.

Rhett’s was chocolate
He’s concentrating on the decorating!

Of course, Gracie’s cake was pink and purple!

Rhett’s is a purple t-shirt with a yellow “4” in it. “Favre” at the top.

Braden also chose a Vikings theme!

Daddy was banned to the office while the decorating was going on.
When they were finished, they blindfolded him and brought him into the kitchen.

  
Surprise!!!

Daddy was very proud of all the kids and their cakes! The kids were so proud as well. They were all talking at the same time wanting to tell Daddy all about theirs. And of course, we had to sample a piece of each! Yummy!

Inked

For my Mom’s Recent “Big Birthday”, we got inked!

She has wanted a tattoo for 30 years, but has never gotten one. SO- since she was having a hard time with turning this particular number, we needed to go do something fun!

We’ve been talking about it for a while, but even a week before her birthday, we had kinda decided not to do it. Then at the last minute, we decided, “what the heck- let’s do it!”

She had an idea to put all of her grandkids’ names on her foot and I had decided I wanted to put the Amharic “Love” on my wrist.

It is something special to me, because Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia. The written language is absolutely beautiful. I chose “Love” because it is, in a word, what defines my life. God loved me enough to send His son Jesus to die on the cross for me so that I might spend eternity with Him. I love the Lord my God with all my heart, all my soul and all my strength. I share a love with my husband that is so beautiful I can’t put it into words. I am blessed with the love of 3 beautiful children that I love fiercely and with all of my heart. I already love my daughter that I am “waiting” for- it’s a love that I can’t explain yet- a love that has consumed me in a way that I never expected so soon and without yet knowing her. I have the love of parents, a brother and a sister in law, a niece and a nephew. I have the love of my husband’s wonderful family. Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins. Friends. The love in my heart and life is just overflowing- I am truly so blessed.

So Love it was! Every time I look down at my wrist, I will be reminded of all of this wonderful love!

Then Mom decided she’d wait a while to do the grandkids’ names- since there’s another one on the way!- and just start with something small.

So, we got matching tattoos! She had similar feelings about the Love theme and felt it fitting for her as well. And how special to have matching tattoos too!

I got a few recommendations for Brainstorm in Fayetteville, so that’s where we went.

We would both highly recommend the shop as well as our artist, Kyle. He was very sweet, made us feel very comfortable and we feel like he did a great job.

I was a little afraid that I’d chicken out if I didn’t go first. My mom wasn’t the least bit nervous, so she happily obliged.

Before we got started, looking a little nervous, but ok.

Right when he got started. Not looking quite as cool anymore!

Trying to be cool… at first I didn’t think it was quite as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Coolness factor= 0. Not gonna lie. Hurts my pride to show you this picture, but trying to keep it real. He told me that the middle letter, right in the middle of my wrist would be the worst. He didn’t lie. It was twice as bad on this one!

Almost done!

Freshly inked!

Like I said, Mom was super cool. Not nervous.
A Rock Star, actually.

She watched the whole thing! I couldn’t do it! I was afraid I was gonna pass out! I was impressed by her bravery!

Brand New, Fresh Tattoo!

Love!

I’m sure this is a birthday we’ll never forget!

While I’m so glad that I went through with it, I don’t have any plans to get anymore tattoos at this point. I didn’t embrace the experience like Mom did. It was some of the longest 15 minutes of my life! Mom, on the other hand, would still like to get a tattoo of all of her grandchildren’s names at some point. Maybe I’ll just go along as the photographer next time! :)

Love you Mom! Hope your birthday was a very happy and memorable one and that you always remember laughing at me when I was laying on the tattoo chair trying not to pass out. :)

I love you!