McBrayer Mountain Trip 2013

This weekend was our annual trip to the NC mountains with the McBrayers…hard to imagine I have gone 34 of the last 35 years!!!  Its been fun to watch our kids fall in love with and be excited for some of the traditions we have had for so long. 

Big Daddy gave all the kids $5 for "cherokee money" to spend on a souvenir…avery got a stuffed dolphin (it has a 1987 sea world tag on it), griffin got a bow and arrow, and graham got a toy fishing set. what treasures!!

the kids love the campfire…we made smores several times and roasted hot dogs one day…and the adults enjoy sitting around it talking once kids are in bed. 

craft time…halloween masks (addison and griffin)

griffin and clayton

Carsyn and Nina

Last year, we added trout fish to our list of activities…all of the kids got to catch 2 fish each. 

Graham was hysterical. He got so excited once he had one hooked. And he talked trash to his fish as he reeled it in. 

none of the kids wanted to touch their fish!

my girls!

cousins

pretty sure these guys were "over" having their pictures taken by this point!!

Apple Picking

On our way to the mountains this year, we stopped at a little spot to pick apples. I had envisioned an orchard that had some kids activities, warm apple pies, and apple picking….but all we found a little joint that only had apple picking!  And all the low apples had been picked so the kids couldn't really reach any….but they enjoyed it anyway and thought it was pretty cool. 

brent using the "picker"

the kids took turns getting the apples brent picked and we took turns lifting them up so that they could reach apples in the trees.

griff spotted one he could reach

watching daddy

carsyn was in heaven just playing with the nasty apples on the ground!!

"Pumpkin Patch 2013"

We made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch this weekend. We went to a new place this year because our normal place closed down.  Its a little crazy taking all the kids - they tend to want to go all different directions and keeping them together is kind of like herding cats...but we managed not to lose anybody and everyone had fun!

 my sweet Griffin

 this little one wanted to be down and loose...and had a definite opinion of what she wanted to do!

attempting to get everyone smiling and looking at me at the same time is nearly impossible!

 good buddies (most days!)

 corn pit

 they all loved the zip line! 

 waiting for their turn on the zip line

hayride time

 our big girl...

 and little girl

 mommy and daddy...enjoying a moment to actually sit!

 superman!!

Graham's Family Picnic

Our big 3 year old is finally getting his chance to do things for him!!  Graham has been a trooper the last few years, driving everyone to school, gymnastics, soccer, etc....so he thinks he is big stuff that he has finally "arrived!"  He is in school 3 days a week and is thrilled that he is big enough to do car line. And per his request, he is doing a weekly gymnastic class....and playgroup is now primarily  his friends and not the big kids friends!!

The 3 year old classes at FBC all had "family picnics" at school on Friday. I picked up chic-fil-a and headed to the playground to picnic with his friends. 

This is one of Graham's good buddies from both Biblestudy and school - Parker. 

Daddy was even able to sneak away from work for a little bit!

Fun with Friends

On Sunday we had some of favorite people over to cook out and play. We are loving cool weather and playing outside!

Ethan, Avery, and Lucas

my trouble makers

carsyn saw the camera and came over to me, smiled, and said cheese!

Burning off our dinner with a little football!

Word Parade

The second graders at Stevens Creek have a word parade every year...the kids pick a word off of a list, write the definition of the word, use the word in a sentence, and then dress up like the word...

I encouraged Avery to pick a word that would be easy to dress-up like - like sun, temperature, north pole, etc....but she chose DISASTER.....thankfully, her sentence was " A tornado is a type of disaster." Tornado was a little easy to come up with  a costume for!

The teachers read their definition and sentence while the kids paraded across the stage.