Uncle Clare's Retirement Party

This fall one of our favorite people in the world, Uncle Clare, retired from his job at the Department of Agriculture. In honor of him and his retirement, a few family and friends got together at Uncle Clare and Mammy's house to celebrate Clare and this momentous occasion. We had coffee and a huge selection of desserts. Everything was so good!

Isn't Tammy's centerpiece so beautiful? 

This is one of the pumpkins from Clare's pumpkin patch.

Harley Clare was looking cute as always.

Tammy's famous bread pudding. It's DELISH!

The award Clare received from work. 

Eli also got a surprise at Clare's party. Mammy gave him his first

CD of George Strait. He was so excited and couldn't wait to sing "Check Yes or No".

After desserts and coffee, Clare opened up some of his gifts. Tammy gave him a job jar for when he gets bored now that he's retired. Clare read some of the slips inside and they said "Load the dishwasher", "Wash clothes", "Vacuum", etc. Sue was having a fit thinking Tammy had written all these things to make Clare work instead of enjoying his retirement and then he told her that they were all blank :) He was just doing that to get to Sue...totally worked like a charm :)

Clare and his family

Eli and Uncle Clare

Congratulations on your retirement, Uncle Clare! We are so excited that you get to travel, spend time with your family, and do what you want to do now :) We love you!

The Tooth Fairy Comes to Visit...Twice!

Well, it finally happened. The Tooth Fairy was finally able to make a visit to our house! What excitement!! All last year in PreK-4, Eli's bottom two teeth were very loose. I really thought it would have happened last year, but those teeth held on pretty well. Every time he would say something about them being loose, I'd wiggle them to see that they weren't quite ready to come out. I kept telling him that it would be very soon. After months and months of wiggling, it was time. One night when we were sitting on the couch, I asked him if he wanted me to try to pull the loosest of the two teeth. He agreed and with one quick tug it was out! He was shocked that he didn't feel a thing and so happy to have one of his loose teeth out! We cleaned up his tooth, rinsed his mouth out, and then sent this picture to all the grandparents. It was such an exciting time!

When Zue-Zue first found out that his bottom teeth were loose, she bought Eli a book about loosing his teeth. It came with a little tin box that he could put his teeth in for when the Tooth Fairy came to visit. She also gave Eli the Tooth Fairy pillow that his daddy used when he was little. Eli was so excited to get to use both.

He put his tooth in the tin box and tucked it inside the pillow. Then before going to bed he had me Google how much the Tooth Fairy paid for the first tooth. We found several articles that mentioned kids who had received $5 for their first tooth because it was such a special event. We read his book about loosing his teeth and then he went to bed. When he woke up in the morning, his tooth was gone and the Tooth Fairy had left him a receipt for his tooth and a sparkly $5 bill. Eli was so excited!

Then exactly a week later, this happened...

He lost his second loose tooth so the Tooth Fairy got to make a quick return trip to our house :) She didn't pay $5 again, but he was pretty excited about the two sparkly $1 bills he got for his second tooth. For now, I think we're done with visits from the Tooth Fairy. Up next are those two top teeth and I'm just not ready for that yet. He's already growing up way too fast for me. I hope those teeth hold on for a long time :) Plus, the Tooth Fairy could use a bigger space in between teeth to save some more money ;)

My Garden's Last Burst of Color

With fall approaching I wanted to capture my flower garden's last burst of color before I had to replant for the winter. This summer was such a good year for our flower garden. We had rain every week at the perfect time and I ended up not having to water one time. Huge thanks to the Big Guy for all that wonderful rain this spring and summer :) It sure did help make my flowers bloom beautifully!

A Trip to Uncle Clare's Pumpkin Patch

Every year Uncle Clare plants lots of pumpkins in his pumpkin patch. We've never helped harvest pumpkins before but this year we did and it was so much fun! This is definitely a tradition we hope we can continue next year. We got to their house and loaded up on the trailer with Zue-Zue, Mammy, and Harley Clare. Then Uncle Clare drove us around to the pumpkin patch where we got right to work harvesting pumpkins. 

Mammy and Uncle Clare's grandson, Brian, met us out there and he decided to search for the biggest pumpkin in the patch. I didn't get a picture of it but he definitely found the biggest one of the day!

Harley Clare wasn't that interested in the pumpkins this year, but I know next year she'll be toddling around trying to keep up with everyone. This year she was pretty content just to be in someone's arms. 

Josh used to help Clare with his pumpkins every year so this was a chance for him to relive the "good ole days." See how excited he looks :)

I thoroughly enjoyed my first pumpkin patch experience and can't wait to do it again!

Look at how many pumpkins we harvested!

The best part was that after we harvested all the pumpkins we got to pick some out so we could put them by our front door. Thanks for this fun experience Uncle Clare!