Goodbye

It's been a rough week for our family as Grandma passed away earlier this week. We had the funeral yesterday afternoon and I was glad to see that it was such a beautiful fall day. Grandma would have loved that. The flowers were so beautiful too. Thank you to everyone that were so thoughtful and sent them. There were tons of pink and purple flowers which were Grandma's favorite colors. It was so hard to see Grandpa there alone but I know he's happy that she's in a better place now. They've been married 65 years!!! I don't know many couples that can say that.

All the grandkids and great grandkids sat around yesterday and talked and talked about all our memories of Grandma. There were so many and it was unbelievable about how many things we reminded each other of. A few of my most favorite things that I remember about Grandma are her red sweater that she always kept a tissue in the pocket and sometimes a pink mint or two. I will always remember her cooking. Grandma could cook! And you never went hungry at her house. Although there were some strange combinations of foods like bologna sandwiches with butter (which I still make every once in a while). Her chicken noodle soup, her pies, cinnamon rolls and of course her famous cabbage burgers that as soon as we got the call that fresh cabbage burgers were out of the oven we all would rush over to the house to get some and a few more to freeze for later. Grandma never once forgot a birthday or an anniversary and she always made sure we had a card and a present. She was always so thoughtful in that way.

It was really great to look around and see what Grandma and Grandpa started. 12 Grandchildren and 15 Great Grandchildren! All who loved her so much and will miss her with all our hearts. I love you Grandma!!!

Crazy Corn Maze

Tommy and I decided to be brave and take all 5 kids to the Crazy Corn Maze tonight. I have to admit I was a little worried but I shouldn't have been because they were all great and stuck together and worked as a team to get us out of the corn maze. I've never been to a corn maze and it was so fun! They gave us these questions that we answered a long the way and then we turned it in and won a prize at the end. We wandered through the maze and the kids were laughing and answering all the Halloween questions at each of the stops. Even Bella was a great sport and just gurgled and talked at her brothers and sister. It was a very crisp and cool night and we definately had some cold fingers and noses when we were done. By the time we left the kids were having so much fun they didn't want to leave. Emma gave us a little pouty look and was sad that we HAD to go home and eat pizza.

No Guts, No Glory!

I have to say that this is one of my favorite things about Halloween. I love getting all the pumpkin carving stuff out and helping the boys carve their pumpkins into something spooky and Halloweeny. Of course this year, my boys have so grown up that other than helping them get all the pumpkin guts out, which Cole was nice enough to point out was "really, really disgusting and it's a Mom job", they pretty much did everything else themselves. Kaden carved himself a spider pumpkin and Cole carved a skull pumpkin with spiderwebs. Emma and Braxton carved their pumpkins with Tommy a few nights ago while I was at the store so I didn't get any pictures. But they did an awesome job too. Emma did the best Vampire Cat that I've ever seen. She kept asking me, "Shay do you like my Cat? Isn't it scary?". It made me laugh. Braxton did a coffin pumpkin with bats. He ended up improvising a little but you'd never know. It looked totally professional. So our patio has a family of pumpkins on it, I'll have to take a picture of them when Tommy and I finish ours.

COOKIE MONSTER ALERT!

Tommy Snapped these photos of Bella while she was eating her cookies. As you can see she was thoroughly enjoying the cookies and had them all over her face, her bottle, her hands....pretty much any clean surface that was available.

Football

Because of roster problem Braxton was forced to play Defense and Offense all year. His favorite part was playing defensive end. He had a couple really good plays this year. He misses playing the games but not the practices so much.

Goofing around with Miss Bella

Bella just got a new shirt that has orange polka dots with little black polka dot kittens on it just in time for Halloween. Here's a few pictures of her in her pre-Halloween clothes.

Cole Turns the BIG #8!

Cole turned the big 8 and had a really great birthday. For weeks he's been asking me for golf clubs so he can start golfing with Tommy. So Tommy and I thought we were really funny and put the clubs into the laundry room and told him that we just wanted him to use Tommy's clubs (laughable since Tommy is 6'6"). Cole totally believed us and was such a good sport as he opened present after present that was golf related. After he was done opening all the presents I told him to go into the laundry room to get the plastic forks for the birthday cake. He opened the door and there they were and his face was priceless! I didn't get a great picture of it but he was so surprised and he was laughing and jumping up and down.