Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a fun-filled turkey day with lots of food, family, and friends!!

My sister's in-laws always do a big breakfast and then a football game at the park. We have sort of added it into our tradition, too, and have gone for the last couple of years.

Hudson and Karsten had their own fun making mischief on the sidelines. Karsten kept picking up all of the cones and stacking them so there weren't any boundaries left for the game!

Hudson decided that he had done enough waiting. He has really attached himself to my sister Kaitlyn these last couple of weeks and was literally crying for her. He wanted to run out there, but I didn't want him to get trampled. Aunt KD was nice enough to let him play with her, and when she couldn't carry him anymore one of Scott's friends toted him around for a bit!

Later that day we had Thanksgiving with the Graves side of the family. Abe's sister Melissa got engaged to Rob, so they had their parents meet in the middle to get to know eachother. We had lots of turkey and great food, and the boys had fun playing outside.

Hope everyone had a great Turkey Day!

P.S.- Thanks Jessica for telling me about Picasa so I could do these collages!! :)

Soccer game

We went to see Hudson's cousin, Brecken, play soccer a few weeks ago. I had to chase Hudson of of the field a couple of times, but it wasn't a huge deal because it was just a bunch of 4 and 5 year olds playing (not too serious yet).

Brecken in his uniform

Hudson and Karsten playing their own little game.

I don't think Hudson has learned the rules of soccer yet :)

Grandma Mary and Papa Kurt gave the boys a fun ride back to the car!

Rock out!

We had our friends, the Carpenter's, over for dinner a couple of weeks ago. Hudson and their little girl, Indianna, had a fun time playing together!

They both tried out the drums.....

And then Hudson took on some singing.

It was so cute because Hudson kept calling her "Nanna."

Thanks for coming over, we had a great time!

Family photos

We went and got family photos taken with my dad a few weeks ago. It was somewhat challenging trying to cram all 9 adults and 5 children into a little Sears studio, but we all managed to get in there.

Karsten was not in the mood to take pictures .... but most everyone else is looking

Then when Karsten decided to look, my dad pulls this face :) What can you expect with so many people in one photo.

This wasn't Abe's favorite pose, but still blogworthy I think.

This was our favorite family shot

This one wasn't planned... we thought the photographer was done but Hudson was smiling so cute so she snapped it.

Hudson and Brecken.

Karsten wasn't in the mood to take a photo with his brother, so Hudson decided he would fill in for him.

Our handsome little guy... He's getting so big!

Boys, Boys, Boys

On Abe's side if the family, there are only boy grandkids. We think it is really fun, but also tease that whoever has the first girl will be the "favorite." Shawndel had the great idea of getting them all together for a photo shoot. Lauren's sister, Ashleigh, was kind enough to take some super cute pics of all our boys!

I think this is one of the best ones. It sure was a challenge trying to get them all to look in the same direction, much less get them all to smile!

All our Boyz

Hudson wasn't too cooperative. He was too distracted by the dogs and toys (big surprise). He was in a good mood, but kind of wondering what was going on. He pretty much gave us this same look in all of his pictures.

But still super cute, and totally handsome :)

This is definately my favorite pic of the day. I had to toss him up in the air, catch him, and hurry and pose to get this smile out of him. But he loved it!

6:15am

3:15am- crying....maybe he'll go back to sleep.....gets louder.....guess I better check on him....molars are the worst- just come in already!..... tylenol, bed with mommy and daddy....

4:15am- back in his own bed.... sing twinkle twinkle and he's good to go.....

5:45am- more crying??.... motrin.... bed with mommy and daddy.... nope, he refuses and insists we go out on the "towch".... baby einstein.....

6:15am

Halloween Festivities

We started off our Halloween celebration a week early with a party at our friends' house. We ate tons of good food, played some fun games, and carved some spooky pumpkins.

Not everyone is pictured here, but aren't those sumo costumes hilarious?! Todd was dying in his, so we had to take this picture quick so that he could change out of it.

Abe pinned some clothes to himself and went as "static cling." I was a "ceiling fan." Go Ceilings!

Abe carved a pretty cool pumpkin. We actually used one of those stencil things because we wanted to go beyond our traditional triangle eye, jagged mouth pumpkin. In case you can't quite tell, its a ghost with "BOO!" carved under it.

Some people, on the other hand, weren't quite so lucky with their pumpkin. For some reason Todd and Cam's pumpkin was as hard as a rock- literally. Nothing was working to carve it, and they kept breaking knives, so they had to break out a hammer and chisel!! No joke.

Here are all the finished products. The one on the far left is the one they had to use the hammer and chisel for.... can you tell??

Thanks so much for such a fun party Briana, we had a blast!!

My good friend, Tenille, who lives across the street decided to be adventurous and make some sugar cookies with her little guy. We were lucky enough to get to join them to help cut them out and decorate them. The boys actually did surprisingly well and we all had a blast making little bats, pumpkins, ghosts, and such.

Getting ready!

Tate and Hudson both did a pretty good job cutting out the shapes (with the assistance of their mommies, of course).

I was trying to decide if Hudson cut out as many cookies as the amount of dough he ate. I kept trying to stop him, but he's so quick it would be in his mouth before I knew it. I think we will wait a little while until we try play doh.....

And of course he had to sample his treat after it was done, too. He actually just licked the frosting off at first, but he eventually took a few bites of the actual cookie.

We had a fun time getting into the Halloween Spirit!

Thanks Tenille and Tate!

On Halloween night our ward had a trunk or treat. We got all dressed up (sort of) and met some friends and my dad and Mary there.

Hudson was the cutest puppy ever!

His friend, Tate, went as a skunk. They were so cute. Neither of them was really sure what to think of the other in their costumes! They just kind of kept looking at each other and giggling.

Our family photo

Hudson loved the trick or treating. He actually went with my dad to my sister's trunk or treat the week before so he learned what it was all about. My dad said that he didn't really care much for the bucket at first, but once he realized that people were putting candy in it he would NOT let anyone else help him carry it! Even when it got heavy he just tried to use both hands, but wouldn't let anyone else touch it. I had to hide it from him after he got home.



Hudson and Tate tried to snag all the candy before the trunk or treating even started. Hudson kept putting more in his bucket, counting them (trying to anyway) as he put them in. He filled his bucket, and then when he wasn't looking we dumped it back in the bowl. When he picked up his bucket he looked so confused because there was only one candy in it!


We met another friend, Porter aka Batman, along the way. This was the best we could get of the 3 of them. They were all very distracted, obviously. Hudson was checking out the candy he got and wouldn't look up.

We also ran into one of Hudson's girlfriends, Josie. They have a love/hate relationship. It was funny because I don't think either of them realized who the other one was in their costumes! :) We'll give them the benefit of the doubt because it was getting really dark.

PapaK (as Hudson calls him) and Mary joined us for the fun.

Hudson had to relax and enjoy the fruits of his hard labor.... I have no clue how many suckers he ate that night. Suckers and M&Ms seem to be his favorites.

Hope you had a happy Halloween!!