Halloween Preview

We had a costume party today with our mom's group. Thank you Becky for a wonderful lunch and for letting us play!! Here's a preview of how cute Halloween will be for the Graves!

Pumpkin time

We went to the pumpkin patch with our young families community group Sunday. It was windy and crowded, but a very cool place. We did have fun chasing the kids around and letting them feed the animals, ride the hayride and pick out pumpkins. Last night we carved the Graves' family FIRST jack-0-lantern! It is a milestone for us that we are sharing with you. Charli was super excited and Chloe was oblivious. Now every night Charli is so excited to go outside and light the little candle to make it glow. (Right now she's watching "the great pumpkin charli brown" with Justin again so I am taking advantage and typing). We have lots of halloween fun coming up the rest of this week (as I am totally sure you all do too.) So I am going to be in blog heaven getting to see all of your pictures and share in your halloween family fun. I am excited to share with you all too. We have a costume party tomorrow and then we are actually going trick-or-treating for the first time. We usually go to a carnival, church, the zoo. But this year we are going to visit some family and then trick-or-treat here. Can't wait to share it all with you!

Here are all the kiddos lined up on the hayride. We have so many cute little ones!!

The making of the jack-o-latern....couldn't resist this picture because of Charli's grossed out face at the inside of the pumpkin....cute.

What a mess...

Does anybody else ever have 4 loads of clean laundry piled on top of the dryer waiting to be folded with one more load in the dryer and another washing in the washer? And the dry ones have been there a couple of days and are all wrinkled now. I also have about 2 days worth of dishes piled in the sink with the dishwasher full needing to be unloaded. Lots of cheerios, dried up peas, rice, and various other pieces of old food under my table. No beds are made and NO toys are picked up. Every room in the house has toys covering the floor. Sometimes I feel like the only person that can't keep up with it all. I even stay home everyday with my kiddos and still can't get it all done in a timely fashion. I mean if you are home everyday...shouldn't the house be a little bit cleaner? I feel like if I was to walk into your house right now, it would NOT look near as bad as mine. And mine is a regular occurence these days. Ha. I do love a clean house and I do try....but man, sometimes I just gotta let it go and do other things. Other things like....go to church, swing outside, play hide-n-seek, cook, bake, read, talk on the phone (or text), work on church stuff, drink coffee, paint little girls' fingers and toe nails, and actually LEAVE the house. Anybody else have a hard time with all this?????

Happy Birthday Charli!!

I know its taken me almost a week.....been a busy week! But here are the pictures of my beautiful baby girl's 4th birhtday party (I know she's not a baby). We did have a great time. It was a beautiful day. We had friends and family travel from out of town to celebrate with us. We are so lucky to have friends and family that are so great to us. It really was fun and nice to see everyone. I couldn't decide on just a couple of picutres....so here are several....prob way too many!!

Here is princess Charli. It was a princess and pirate party.

Little sister kept sneaking food off the table. She's a mess!!

Thank you so much everyone that came. We had such cute little "pirates" come and play! We had a lot of fun.

Chloe wanted to be a princess too....for about 30 seconds.Dad demonstrating to Charli how to use the barbie headset microphone and guitar. I am sure he's glad I included this picture.

Charli got her first bike later that day after the party. She could ride it immediately....so proud. She rides it everyday. We are going to have so much fun with age four. Even though I was sad to see "three" go, I am looking forward to "four."

I'm Still Three

Well, I didn't think I would really get a chance to blog today, but I had a small little thought today and wanted to write a little. Justin and I took Charli to her 4 year old check up at the doctor today. We made a really fun day for her (because she had to get a shot). By the way, she was very brave! Last year she just shook all over and cried and cried. This year the doctor wanted to give her the flu mist and Charli freaked out about something being in her nose, so she ASKED for the shot. What? Well, she sat real still and watched the needle go in and everything. She didn't even flinch. Wow! Now, afterwards was a different story. Those of you who know us well will remember the stories of her dragging her leg out of the doctor office and limping after her two and three year shots.....and of course, today....she walked out of the office with her "arm broke" and she held it by her side for HOURS because it was broken. We even took her to get ice cream and she could only use her good arm! Ha!

Well, to get to the point, our moment that this is about was in the elevator. I told her to push the 3 because that was the level our car was on. She pushed it and yelled, "hey that number matches me...I'm three." For some reason my heart actually jumped and I was so happy and said, 'YES you are three! Yeah you are STILL three!" I am so happy today that she's still three. Four sounds so old and too big. I guess I was already thinking she's four because she turns four Sunday, but she's not. She's still three. I will celebrate that everyday the rest of this week. Ever since that moment, I ask her like once an hour, "how old are you?" And she yells "THREE!" I love it. She will never be three again. It actually hurts to watch her grow up. Birthdays are hard on mamas.

Second Cup of Coffee

I am having my second cup of coffee right now. I love it. I look forward to it everyday. I drink one cup immediately after waking up. Then after I feed the kids lunch and get Chloe down for her nap everyday I drink a second cup of coffee. Its the most relaxing time of my day! I didn't do this until I had Chloe (I have called her my second cup of coffee baby!). Now if it gets to be 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon and I haven't had my second cup of coffe I can tell!! Hate to be an addict, but I think I am. This is going to be a busy week, so I don't anticipate much blogging until its over. Its Charli's 4th birthday this weekend and we will have lots of friends and family in town and have a party. I will definitely post some pictures afterwards. We are having a princess and pirate party for her. Most of her friends are boys and when she wanted a princess party, we decided to add the pirate part for all the boys. She is super excited....and I have to say, I am too. I love watching her get excited and have fun. Birthdays are never more fun than when you are little. I hope she has the best time ever!

Three quick stories...

Just have some stories I feel like sharing. You know, my mom calls blogging my therapy. Guess it kinda is in a way.

Anyway, first story. Yesterday I picked Charli up from preschool and she was sad. She came home and didn't want to eat her snack (and that is a BIG deal!) So she crawled up in my lap and this is how the conversation went:

Me: Charli what's wrong today?
Charli: I'm sad.
Me: Why?
Charli: I don't know.
Me: Did something happen at school?
Charli: No.
Me: Did someone say something to hurt your feelings?
Charli: No.
Me: DId you get emarrassed? (she gets embarrassed sometimes...)
Charli: No.
Me: Well what's wrong?
Charli: I love my old house. (oh....and my heart just melted)
Me: Oh I'm sorry, I am sad too about that sometimes. Its okay to be sad.
Charli: I didn't want to move. (heart....breaking more)
Me: I know. I am sorry. Its okay to be sad some. But lets find a way to feel better.

Then I told her that its mommy, daddy, and Jesus' job to help her feel better. So I asked her, "What can we do right now to make you feel better" ( and i woulda done just about anything.) She said "play in my room!". Charli's fave thing in the world is for me or daddy or nana or whoever to play in her room for hours. Justin calls it her "love language." So we did! We played hair dresser. She brushed my hair, pretend cut it, "painted" it black and purple. Then after about 30 minutes of fixing my hair she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek and said, "I love you very much mama."

Second story. Today is kinda turning out to be our family day now that Justin's decided to take Fridays off. We've always had Thursday off after a late and long Wednesday with youth. Its weird and nice to have a new day to spend together. Anyway, so today Justin decided to spend some time just Charli and him time. So they went and bought "Hungry, Hungry Hippos." They played it together for awhile and she loved it. It was very fun to hear (didn't see because they were having charli and daddy time). Then after that, they ate lunch and watched Its a Great Pumpkin Charli Brown together. I think that's so great. She's lucky to have such a great daddy.

Third Story....this one really is quick. At the gym today there were lots of people dressed in either OU or Texas stuff. I guess some of them started mouthing and then this huge trainer dude started yelling (as loud as he could) "Booooommmeeerr" and then, the whole gym (and its a big gym) started yelling back "Soooonnnnerrr". It was crazy. They did it for about 5 minutes. Made me laugh and Justin joined in with them. Go sooners.

Baking

I love, love, love to bake. I have not been baking much (but cookies like every other week) for a couple of years because Justin and I have been working on losing weight and I have been alternating between being pregnant and then watching what I eat, then being pregnant and then watching what I eat. I am still watching what I eat, but want to get back into baking! Charli LOVES to make things with me and I absolutely love to bake in the fall. I have mentioned how much I love the fall and I have decided to take advantage of Charli's age and "helpfulness" and bake! I have the perfect idea....we have launched many of our community groups on the weekends now....so I am going to bake for them. That way I can sample some of the yumminess and then not have to eat all weekend on the baked goodness. Yeah!! So, I have some great recipes.....a good coffeecake, good pies, good cookies....but I know there's more out there. Send me some yummy fall and holiday recipes that I can make and share. This weekend Charli has decided she wants halloween cupcakes...so we'll do it.

Hank

Okay, so I know most of you don't really care about my mom's dog.....but everybody loves a cute, fuzzy, puppy pic! So this is Hank. He's a 3 month old parti schnauzer. My mom says he was very shaky, timid and lonely when she got him and now he's just as bouncy and crazy as can be. He actually does follow them around on their heels. He bites too (because he's teething). And he loves to be held. Can't wait to see him! He's coming to visit soon, just hope the girls (especially Chloe) don't traumatize him!

Our weekend

We had another fun filled and busy weekend. Friday we went to the fair as a family. I am not a fair person...don't really like it. But we went for Charli and Chloe. Charli kept asking and asking to go to the fair and she loved it. She got to pet all the animals, ride a pony, and ride a few rides. Chloe also loved the animals, tried to steal Charli's popcorn, and cried and cried because she wanted to ride rides too. Charli wouldn't even get in a bounce house until after 3 years old, but Chloe wants to ride the tilt-a-whirl now. She's my adventurer. (She is currently untieing my shoes while I type). I actually made it through the fair without eating anything fried or on a stick as well! Very happy about that. It always sounds good and smells good....but then makes me feel gross after I eat it anyway.

This is Chloe stealing Charli's popcorn by the handfulls!

Then here's Charli on the pony and rides.

Justin's parents also visited this weekend. We celebrated by getting Randy his favorite cake ---that strawberry one from Queenie's. That's two weeks in a row for us. Charli was so happy. Happy Birthday Randy! Charli is singing to him in this picture.

Church was good as well. We are launching community groups this month. And our neighbors/wonderful friends started a young and married or engaged group and it turned out so well. They actually had people come that do not come to Foundations Church and they asked if they could bring their neighbors. Very cool. They are so great and I know will have a great group to come to. Thanks for all your prayers.....God is doing great things!

More of those moments

This is a tag-0n to the previous post and then I will promise to move on. Our little Charli is about to turn four and she is so grown up. I really don't like the growing up....something about it hurts my heart everyday! And Charli has had a really difficult year, so I find myself having lots of emotional moments with her and about her. But I really know that God has helped her. There have been so many answered prayers recently about her that I have prayed. God is with her and helping her and she has been so sweet. She loves to cuddle. We have had another busy weekend and she was pooped. She just curled up in my lap a few minutes ago and fell asleep (at 7:30!!). And Justin was jealous....he even tried to lure her away from me at first get her to cuddle with him. But I got lucky this time. :)

More to come about our fun weekend soon! Have a great Sunday tomorrow.

One of those moments....

I was just reading a book to Charli. Charli got this book the Christmas before Chloe was born. I remember so vividly reading it to her all while I was pregnant. (She was 2 when she got it.) There is a page in the book that has a train on it. Everytime I got to that page near the end of the book she would immediately stop and point to the train and yell "choo choo, choo choo." I never could finish reading the book because she was so excited to see the choo choo. That used to annoy me because it happened so often and I really wanted to get through the book once ---not sure why now. Today she brought me the book and we haven't read it in months. This time she listened intently through the whole book and even pointed out certain letters she is learning while we were reading the book. She told me about the animals and clouds. And when we got to the choo choo page, she didn't even mention the train. She was snuggled up next to me when I finished and I leaned over and kissed her forehead and told her she was growing up too fast. She just grinned and snuggled in more. It may not sound like much now that it is written down, but my heart broke a little.