Thanksgiving Weekend

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Hutchinson, KS with Jon's parents. Our time was filled with amazing food, playing some Wii, shopping (with a great friend - without any kids!!) and just hanging out relaxing and enjoying each other!

My mother-in-law, Jeanie, hard at work preparing our wonderful Thanksgiving meal!

Isn't it beautiful?! We are truly blessed!!

After dinner we forced ourselves to go for a walk.

My three little blessings!


Dessert time! This dessert, Frozen Chocolate Mint Dessert, was amazing!

Carrot Cake, YUM!!

Luke really enjoyed the chocolate mint dessert!


A little post-dessert playtime.

I know this isn't a very good picture, but I was SHOCKED that Wal-Mart had EVERY check-out open on Black Friday! There sure were a lot of people there! But I got what I was after, so it was all good! I LOVE going shopping the day after Thanksgiving!! I am pleased to say that I am finished shopping for my kiddos aside from their stockings!! (And those are almost finished too!)

One of Luke's favorite things at Grandma and Grandpa's house is playing with their dog, Toby! As long as Toby is in his cage and not getting too close to his face, he loves him! We heard a lot of, "Dah, dah, dah...". That's Luke-speak for "dog".

Ben, Abby and Luke with Grandma & Grandpa Grief.

The Grief guys.

The Grief girls.

A Night at the Symphony

Jon and I love to hear a live symphony/orchestra and thought we would take the older kids to see the Bartlesville Symphony Orchestra. It was fun to not only go, but for the four of us to go out without Luke. Like any toddler, he can be a bit difficult at times! (To say the least!)
Getting ready to leave. We thought it would be fun to get dressed up for a change.

Ben and Abby at dinner at our favorite restaurant, Frank & Lola's, before the concert.

Of course, they had to have a silly shot!

Awww...aren't we cute?!

Waiting for the concert to start. (Yep, in the nosebleed section!)

The theme of the concert was the 1812 Overature. When the cannons shot, this is what came out of them! It was very cool! It looked like rainbows shooting across the stage!

We can't wait to go again!!

Twilight

Yep, I am one of them! No, not one of those crazed teenage girls that goes all ga-ga for Edward Cullen and Jacob Black, but I have read the books and have now seen both movies! They are definitely out of my norm, but I wanted to see what all they hype was about and I felt like I was the only one in the world that hadn't read the series.
I had the opportunity to go see New Moon on Thursday night before it had really been released! It's all in who you know! We have a friend that is the manager of the movie theater here and he was showing the new movie to his employees the night before it came out. He offered the girls in my small group to come along if we wanted to! How do you pass that up? Free movie, free pop, a night out with the girls! I'm in! What fun!!

Ben's First Band Concert

Last night was Ben's first band concert. It was so nice to see the progress he has made since just the beginning of the school year. There are two middle schools here and they got together for this concert. That was fun for Ben because 1. If you know anything about Ben you know that he likes to be seen. He likes to be on the stage. 2. The boy sitting to his right (in the picture below) goes to the other school, but his one of his buddies here. (They played football together last year.) Both boys are first chair at their school.

Waiting for the concert to start.




This song was for the trombones only. Can you figure out what song it is?



I think they sounded pretty good for only starting two and a half months ago!

I really wanted a picture of Ben with his trombone, but I didn't want to embarrass him by making him take it out.

Ben and his friend, Pierson.

Leaf-y Fun!

This was a few weeks ago, but I was hoping to get a good picture of all three kiddos together before I posted them. Well, Luke decided that the leaves were terrifying and wouldn't cooperate for my picture. Oh well, Ben and Abby had fun playing in the leaves!

Ben thought it would be great fun for him and Luke to jump into the leaves together. Mind you, this was as soon as they came out and Luke had no idea what was going on. It looked like fun until...

Ben threw him into the pile! This was the last time Luke had anything to do with the leaves! He didn't even like it when anyone else was in the leaves! I guess we will try again next year...

This was Ben's favorite way to "jump" in the leaves. He preferred to slide into them.

Can you find Ben?

Couldn't resist!

The safer option, the swing. That way he didn't even have to touch the leaves!

My babygirl!

My Buddy!

Abby's turn at sliding into the leaves.

Luke saw that we were raking and wanted to help...from a distance...

Ahhh...

So sweet! Abby LOVES her baby brother SO much!!

Me and my babygirl!

Me, Ben and Abby took some pictures like this last year and thought we would try again this year. However, Jon was home, so we thought we would have him do it for us. It just didn't turn out the same. It is cute, nonetheless!

The saddest part of the whole leaf thing, now we need to get out there and get them all raked and bagged...YUCK!

Fun, Fun, Fun!!

Oh, the fun you can have with an old paper towel tube!

You can roll your cars through it.....

You can pretend to be Captain Hook (even if you don't know who Captain Hook is!).....

You can use it as a way to move a ball through the house...

Then, when you are finished playing, you can destroy it!
So many things! And it will keep you occupied for a long time!

Sesame Street Time!

This is what I see most weekdays from 9-10am. Luke loves to watch Sesame Street, but he is completely captivated when Elmo is on!
(Ha ha! It looks like Elmo is looking at Luke!)

Why do kids feel the need to stand so close to the t.v.? I just don't get it!

Will My Family Ever All Be Well?

Not too much has been going on around the Grief house. Besides going to the doctor, that is. We have had too much sickness going on here. Luke was into the doctor last week for another ear infection. Those sure are getting old! I am praying that this first round of antibiotics will take care of it! Every time Luke has had an ear infection it has taken three rounds of antibiotics to get rid of it! I thought for sure that he would have tubes by now.

Ben was home from school on Friday feeling absolutely horrible. He had been vomiting in the night, had a fever, achy body, sore throat, white spots on the back of his throat...all the signs of strep throat. Jon took him to the doctor on Saturday morning (I asked him to take Ben because they probably think I am the most paranoid mom ever with as often as we are there!). They did a quickie strep test and it came out negative. I am still not convinced, three days later, that it was correct. It is now Monday and Ben still has a very sore throat. I just don't know what to do. This is the third time Ben has been sick since school started! So much for perfect attendance.

As I type this, Jon is laying in bed not feeling well. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE???

Silence is Golden...or is it?

Peace and quiet is a great thing. Peace and quiet with a toddler in the house is even better! But quiet in the house while the toddler is NOT napping...Scary! I left Luke playing in the living room to go fix him some lunch. I called him to come eat and he didn't come. Ok, called him again...still didn't come. I realized, "Uh-oh, it sure is quiet! I wonder where he is." I walked into the living room and sure enough he was playing quietly...in the dirt! What a boy!
I was going to take a picture of him before I washed him up, but he had the dirt in his mouth and was trying to get it out. I don't think he cared for the taste.

Fall Beauty

Who doesn't love fall? I have recently decided that while it is no longer my favorite season, I DO still love it! With the awesome temperatures and GORGEOUS colors, what's not to love? (Aside from the fact that the leaves are falling off the trees means that winter's just around the corner.....) For a very long time I have wanted to have a red maple tree in my yard. When we moved to Oklahoma I got just that! I have marveled at the changing colors of my maple tree every day for the past few weeks. It is so amazing how they change a little bit every day! I love how, at a certain point in time in the fall, the trees actually look like they are glowing! My tree looks like that right now! On Saturday I went out to look at the tree, but this time I got right up close to it and admired the colors. It was amazing how one leaf could have four different colors! All on one leaf!
You will have to click on this picture and view the larger image to see just how amazing these leaves are! You can see every little vein running through it!
Couldn't resist a sweet fall picture with my man!

I am so thankful to God for His gorgeous display at this time of year!