Happy Birthday Brent!

Brent turned the big 3-5 yesterday!

I've tried to get him stocked up on Green Egg supplies so he got some wood chips and an automated thermostat system. We have loved our egg and this will only increase the love!

We had chocolate pound cake...

and invited the Rays to join us for family night at the club!

Ethan, Griff, Graham, Avery, Lucas (everyone  hot and sweaty from some bounce house fun!)

an attempt at a family shot with our wild kiddos!

Gammy's Visit

Gammy spent all of last week here with us. During her visit I realized that unlike years past, her visits now will always be more crazy than before. With kids in school, Gammy merely jumped into our busy schedule!  There wasn't really time to do extra stuff or go places special while she was here. But it was fun to have her "see" our life - she ate lunch with avery in the cafeteria; took the kids to gymnastics; enjoyed family night at the club; had a class picnic with Griffin; watch the big kids soccer games....and spent a some time with the "littles" while the big kids were at school!

Brent cooked some ribs on the green egg so Gammy could experience that as well!

Griffin's Family Picnic

At the beginning of the school year, each of the preschool classes at FBC have a family picnic. 2-3 classes at a time invite their families to enjoy lunch on the playground in effort to get to know the other parents/children in your child's class. Griffin had his picnic last Friday - so Gammy was still here and got to come!

Day to Day Life!

Until tonight, I had not posted a blog in almost 3 weeks! I'm a little behind and life has been a little nuts this past week...so I'll be catching up this week!

Avery is now in school all day, not getting home until close to 4:30 most days. That doesn't leave too much time to play and hang out with Griffin. These 2 have been side by side since he was born and are really good playmates. I can tell that they have missed each other. On the weekends, they have been asking to have "rest time" together - so they spend some good time playing with just the 2 of them.

They wanted to have a tea party together on this particular afternoon...so I fixed a plate of goodies and filled Mrs Potts with juice and they sat outside laughing and playing for over an hour.

 

This is what our late afternoon and evening look like on many days. Love our driveway - lots of room to ride!

 

These 2 have gotten to be good buds while Sissy is away.

 

I couldn't help but giggle while watching Griffin play basketball in his crocs and super hero undies!

This is what the kitchen counter looks like most afternoons while I am cooking dinner. Avery has about 15-20 minutes of homework each afternoon. She sits up at the counter to work on her spelling and math...Graham insists that he work on his homework too...and Griffin is getting great practice by copying Avery's spelling words.

And Carsyn just hangs out watching the chaos that we call life!

Toothless!

Avery has had 2-3 fairly loose teeth for months now. One top tooth is loose because she face planted on the floor at the cabin while attempting a "super spin" dance move. The bottom front 2 are legitimately loose. She has been so anxious and excited to lose her first tooth...

And Sunday was her big day! She and Brent had been scheming about the best method to pull her first tooth...

... so they tied a string around her tooth...

 ...and hooked that string to our lightning mcqueen remote control car...

 ...hit the turbo speed button...and out came the tooth!

Avery had a "laugh or cry" moment at first but then was super excited!

 her toothless grin!

She was thrilled that the tooth fairy heard her request and left the tooth for her to keep!

Labor Day Weekend

We packed our crew up and headed down to the McBrayer cabin for a long weekend...filled with lots of work, lots of fun, and too many kids!! 3 of my siblings were there along with their families - we had 9 kids, ages 6 and under...can you say pure chaos?  But it was only a glimpse of what Christmas will look like - 14 adults and 15 kids ages 7 and under! (makes my head hurt just thinking about it!)

The older kids really enjoyed each other and did a great job playing with /entertaining one another. Brent, Joel and Preston worked on the tree fort/playhouse that Nina and Big Daddy are making for the kids for Christmas. Griffin loved being able to help and thought he was really big stuff that he got to use the drill and that he could hammer real nails.

 Avery, Addie, Kale, and Saeran

(addie and saeran are peyton/ann's; kale is preston/leeann's)

Graham is 100% obsessed with tractor and four wheeler rides. He talks about them all day, every day...regardless of if we are at the cabin or not.

trying out the play fort

 yes, they are all in pj's and sitting on the four wheeler! they were patiently awaiting the homemade ice cream churning on the front porch!

 Celebrating the September birthdays!

 Clayton (haley/joel's) was attempting to join the party by grabbing  a birthday hat!

Nina filled up water balloons for the kids...

and then they attacked her!