These are a little belated, but we partied it up this weekend celebrating some special birthdays...
Gan Gan! We partied at Pappadeaux's. Three kids makes for an interesting dinner. I hope i'm running around as much as GanGan when I'm her age. 
and my future son-in-law Benjamin! He's saying.. no pictures please...
This is him at the beginning of his birthday cake 
and this is him at the end. 
I think he got into it the most of all the Graesser kiddos. For some reason it was REALLY fun to rub into his eye.
I think he got into it the most of all the Graesser kiddos. For some reason it was REALLY fun to rub into his eye. 
We were also celebrating the new engagement of my cousin Blake. He was presented with the East "ball and chain." My grandfather gave it to my father when he married my mom. From that point on it's passed from marriage to marriage. This is it's 7th pass. That's pretty amazing considering all the moves and houses it's been in. 
By the way, it's very strange to me that my "little"cousins are now starting to get married and bring their boyfriends to family events. I'm think I'm having my quarter-life crisis about five years late. Life is moving WAY too fast. These are my formerly "little" cousins. To give you a little perspective on my freakout...when Blake and I started dating, Leslie and Heather were in pre-K and now they're graduating from high school and Courtney (in the middle) was about two!!!!!
We ate WAY too much as usual. My aunt Michelle and cousin Courtney made tons of yummy gourmet fixins. Here's Courtney with a new tradition, the 2nd annual Thanksgiving Rice Crispie Treat Tukey. Hey, I never said we weren't strange =) 
Today we maet the Graessers at the mall to start planning a potential 30th bday/7th anniversary trip together! Anything with 1 kid is difficult, but with 4 it's pretty near impossible! The girls wrangled the kids while the boys planned away. We did manage to squeeze in one trip around the mall in the train.
Emmy and Ben took a romantic fireplace shot for the wedding album. 
It's pretty ridiculous to me that the mall is already fully decked out in Christmas gear, but I guess i better get in the spirit. It'll be here before we know it! 
We finally got there and there were a whole lot of other Mommys and Gigis there. There were a few Daddys there but none of them looked very happy. After we walked around a little while to look at sparkly things, Gigi and I sat down on the floor to have lunch. She was nice and let me eat her tato and play with her bottles. 
After that we went to look at more sparkly things and things that look like mommies toys she keeps around the house. You know, all of the stuff mommy and daddy say no no when I try to take it down and play with it. Since daddy wasn’t there, mommy even let me ride on her shoulders for a little while! 
I looked at lots of people and pointed at the ones that I really liked. They liked me too and told me my bow was pretty. I don’t know why everyone likes these bows so much…I just like to take them off my head. I even decided it was time for an outfit change. I wanted to show everyone my versitility.
After we were there for a couple days we took a ride on a train. I got to point some more and dance a little bit. 
Everyone liked my dancing. Mommy, Rara and Gigi looked really tired. I guess they aren’t used to going all day without their nap. I will have to teach them how to do that one day. I don’t know what the big deal about this whole nutcracker thing is but I liked seeing my Gigi and my Rara and getting held by my Mommy so much! Maybe next year Mommy will let me bring that house home! 
(Emmy says, Look! ... this is getting ridiculous) Squatting is her new "thing"
It's hard to believe that this was ten months ago....(about the same amount of hair!)
Since it happeneed to be Emmy's lunch time, we decided to stop at a BBQ place in Tomball before continuing on to Magnolia. We were back on the road around 12:15 p.m. only to meet traffic just north of Tomball. I won't go into too many details but the 10.8 miles (which Kristen was so good to continue reminding me of as the tenths of a mile ticked off her IPhone) took approximately 1.5 hours.
For those of you who have never been to the RenFest, it is a mass confusion of some of the oddest looking and acting people you have ever come across. We joked that no matter what you liked, or what you wore, at the RenFest there would always be someone that looked more ridiculous than you. And many people there take that very nugget of information to heart. Its a place where so many let it ALL hang out, and I do mean ALL...Sure, there are tons of families there, but everything from the dress to the entertainment is not really family oriented. Or, to some, maybe it is...Emmy is small enough that she won't remember a thing...
(Petting zoo #327 of the festival season...but the only one with a giant drugged out donkey!)
Kathy bought Emmy a maiden's flower headdress
and I enjoyed an adult beverage. We took in the sights, sounds and experiences that the age of Renaissance had to offer. I laughed when Tim said "I think that some of these people have a very loose interpretation of the Renaissance." So true Tim, so true.
(Scary monkey carousel...as you can see from her face, Emmy was not amused)
No, no, no, our RenFest experience can be summed up in two words, eighties rock. Yep eighties rock. For it was eighties rock music that our neighbors stuck in their car, as we were in ours, blared loudly even after Kristen had asked them nicely to turn it down due to our sleeping baby. Eighties rock that the drunk lady from that car dirty danced to outside my car window, so close I felt like smacking her with my door.
(Our favorite thing about the Renaissance Festival...this goat)
Very memorable. Not to mention that Emmy, Abby and Jackson had a paparazzi section that outnumbered them 3 to 1.
We lit up the night with 4-5 cameras and 2 video cameras catching each moment Abby waited patiently for Emmy, who is not as agile and does not quite understand this Halloween thing just yet, and the moments when Emmy, catching on, would grab a piece of candy from the bowl and then make a mad dash for Mom as if she just had gotten away with something amazing!
The girls and little guy were a huge smash amongst the creatures and parents and others criss crossing the neighborhood streets. We did however enjoy other people's take on Emmy's costume. As you are all aware from the pictures we have posted previously, Emmy was a skunk for Halloween. There really is no question. I'm not sure how you could get the black costume with a white stripe lining the back mixed up with any other animal, monster, goblin, Disney character, etc. Those roaming the neighborhood had other ideas. "What a cute bunny!" said one candy giver as we walked Emmy to his door. A bunny? Seriously? "Look at the cute eskimo!" remarked one small girl walking with her parents in the opposite direction down the sidewalk. To which her sister retorted, "Thats not an eskimo, its a horse." The hits just keep on coming.
So we grabbed the little one and made the trek back to Megan and Keith's house where we surveyed the haul of candy our young daughter had gotten, but cannot eat.
Little does she know that we intend to utilize her cutness factor for at least two more Halloweens in order to get candy for our own consumption. I don't think she'll care. Heck, just give her a Laffy Taffy with the wrapper still on and she is good for the entire night.
One holiday down, several more to come as we make our way towards Emmy's first Thanksgiving and first Christmas. Each will more than likely be more out of control than the next. She's going to love every second as will Kristen and I. Life sure is changing, for the better.
And to close it off, Blake made me add the pictures, so I'm putting this one at the end.. just becasue it makes me laugh.
Blake did the disgusting guts job. We briefly considered roasting the seeds and then thought about cleaning them out of all the goop and said, nah. 
Emmy got her finger in the pumpkin and had a bite. She did the shudder and gag pretty quickly, which is pretty hilarious considering that she gladly munches on dirt and would LOVE to lick that pumpkin stem. From then on out sat and munched on a milk duds box and was quite happy. This is as close as she got to the action.
I tried to take a turn and cut the eyes, but we ended up having to do emergency eye surgery. One of them is stuck on with some kind of nail that Blake dug out of the garage. Carving pumpkins is harder than you think. Blake carved up a gigantic mouth and we decided on no nose this year. Our pumpkin looks a little drunk, but hey, that's ok. 
