Gobble, Gobble giggle - I love Thanksgiiiiiviiiiing!

Mae's 1st Thanksgiving was upon us, and this year we spent the official day with the Kraatz family. We headed up there Wednesday night so that we have a full Thanksgiving day to give thanks for our little Mae Day.

Dusty's Aunt Sandy and Uncle Ron joined us, as well as his grandfather, Poppo. This was only the second time for Aunt Sandy and Uncle Ron to see Maebry, so there was PLENTY of loving to go around for our little bit. She was a trooper and played hard all day/evening. She had her first Turkey Day dinner...sweet potatoes (her favorite) and oatmeal...truly worthy of the pilgrims to be sure!

All of the food was delicious with dad doing the turkey, mom rockin all of the sides and Aunt Sandy made sides and desserts...including a very yummy Ooey Gooey PUMPKIN cake! Man, what a finish to a great meal!

As you will see, Maebry even tried to make it through the A&M game...but eventually...the proverbial tryptophan got the best of her...good ol mommy's milk, does the trick every time!

PS. Yes we know the Aggies lost...stupid field goal! BUT, it was a great game..and there's allllways next year!

Yep, I'm hip, I'm cool. This is my homie Aunt Sandy. Let's EAT!

NO! REALLY! Lets EAT!

Now, this is more like it. More sweet potatoes getting in my belly.

And thanks to my dad, I now have my after-dinner finger. I wished he would have put some mint flavoring on it. Jeez.

Then I get after-dinner kiss from my mom. Jeez-louise!

Daddy and Mommy love this smile. Who wouldn't!
PS: I think I just tooted...wink, wink.

Ugggggh, they are going to win right, Poppo? Go Aggies!

The onesie says it all. The End and what a good Thanksgiving it was.

Remember, Remember Mae's first November...

Well, as you could tell by the slight delay in posting...November FLEW by! We had such a great last few months of the year and Maebry really turned some corners. She really started rockin the solid foods and becoming a big girl!

Maebry also was able to see all of her wonderful family much more often, thanks to the holidays and such. As you will see, we tried to get pics with Mae and her rogues gallery of grandparents and cousins cousins cousins!

How cute is this picture. Me, my Grand-daddy and my Tootsie (aka my dolly)!

Here I am caught with my Grandpa Lloyd, and it seems we don't like flashes.

Shhhhhhh, I am sleeping. Thank you Grandma Susan.

Here I am with my favorite gal pals (aka the cousins most likely to get me in trouble). JK!

Ok, seriously this is guy who will totally get me into trouble. Well if trouble means reading comic books, playing video game and one day working for NASA. Oh yeah, and this guy owes my dad a million dollars.

Boy, do my cousins love me or what. Here my other cuz Kolton. We looks so cute in are matching brown stripes.

Next are some photos into the Adventure Land of "Eating with Mae!"

Are those sweet potatoes?! NUMMMMMMY!

Ok, do I have little bit of Oatmeal on my face. You can be honest.

Just another sweet photo of me eating...oh yeah, naked total in...you should try it some time.

Lastly, it just me and my Daddy, hanging out at a Fredericksburg Trade Show and eating from a bottle. As per usual!!

Yeah, bring on the Turkey. Gobble gobble gee, Gobble Gobble giggle. I wished Turkey only cost a nickel.

Mae's dearest Great-Aunt Kathy

This is in memoriam of Kathy McCarty. My family lost a dear member on Sunday, November 8. She was 60 years old and lead a great life. She was always there to give us hugs and welcome home, she would wish you well and kiss you when you had to say goodbye, she'd help you when you were feeling ill, tend to your plants when they needed reviving, and she just loved us, plain and simple.

My Aunt Kathy was married for almost 40 years, had two awesome kids and two lovable grand-kids. She was a great daughter to my Mamaw, a great sister to my mom, a great aunt to my cousins and I, and a great great-aunt to our daughter.

WE LOVE YOU AUNT KATHY.

Kathy McCarty RIP 1949 - 2009

Please tell Papaw hello from us all. We love and miss you so much!!

Parties, babies and more - Oh!, Novemeber

The last two weeks have flown by and we have not been too timely with our blogs here lately. So here is a nice and condensed version.

November started with some birthdays earlier in the month. First weekend in November brought about Maddie's BIG first birthday, Jessica's baby shower and a week later, Maddie's daddy, Matt had a birthday party.

First, here are some pictures from Maddie's, Matt and Savannah's daughter, first birthday. Boy, what cutie. You will just love, love her tutu. And her sweet Grandmother, Savannah's momma, made this great birthday ensemble. Oh yeah, and Savannah's dad bought a toddler bouncy-house for Maddie...TOO fun! We can't wait to see this thing at many more b-day parties. Well, if Matt and Savannah don't mind of course...wink, wink.

Here is the cute Maddie Birthday outfit I was talking about. Way to go Maddie's Grandma!!

Look at Maddie eye-balling her cake mound.

Nummy! Birthday cake!

Our friends Keith and Michelle taking care of our little miss. Mae is friend to all laps.

Here is Maddie amongst all of her gifts. What a haul!

Here is Maddie enjoying her birthday present from us. A Rody! Too CUTE!

Here is our little miss enjoying another lap, but this time she was a little sleepy.

The next day was baby-celebration-palooza. Abbey came over and picked me up a little before noon and we headed to north Austin to get ready for Jess's shower. We had a safari themed shower for her and her baby boy, who is due at the end of February or beginning of March.

It was a ton a fun and Abbey and I didn't get home until after six that evening. We are very grateful for Shara and her great house for hosting the event. We are also super excited for Jess and Mark and their baby boy. We can't wait to meet him and give him more hugs than humanly possible. And yes, Dusty and I will try to see how many that really is.

Here are the pictures from Jessica's shower. Please note that I, along with slew of other hostesses put together the shower for Jess. Hope you enjoy.

Here is a picture our the cute safari-themed cookie jars. Abbey found this cute theme on a blog and we borrowed it. Yeah blogs :)!

Here are all the ladies enjoying a shower game. It was a memory match game with cute prizes. Way to go Shara for coming up with this game...go Skor bars!!!

Here is Jess opening some of her baby shower gifts. We loved being able to get Jess her baby boy's bedding.

A week later, we celebrated Matt's birthday. Here are some more photos from his 30 plus one birthday party. We went over to their house for another Saturday get together. They made pizza's on the grill and we enjoyed watching Maddie eating her daddy's bday cake...yet again too cute. And later Dusty and I learned we have no business owning "DJ hero" because boy we would not be good at this game even after some showed us how to actually play it. Sorry, Matt and Jason, you guys can have at it.

Here is Matt and family ready to celebrate his big day.

Mommy and Maddie ready to get their cake-eating on.

Matt's Transformer cake. Too cute!!

And now, here is the Transformer cake enjoyed by Maddie. Black icing and all.

We tink it's Maebry's first Halloween - Fables and Fairytale style

Halloween is definitely one of the Kraatz's favorite holidays! Our whole neighborhood goes all out and we get tons of trick r treaters. This was our first Halloween with Maebry and it was soooo much fun! First, here's a look at our neighbors doing their thing!This was an entire family of psycho clowns harassing innocent passers by! VERY scary but way fun!
This was a haunted house put on by our new friend John Minton who lives a few blocks over. There was a line all night with kids and adults alike looking for a little fright!
Here is the only shot of the '09 trio! Peter Pan, Capt. Hook and little not-so-thrilled Tinker Bell.
Here we see Daddy Hook and Mae Bell sitting outside ready to pass out candy to all the kiddos!
Too sweet precious Maebry posing with her Tink tutu, flower headband and onsie...she really didn't mind rockin the costume! Good pick mommy!

As many of you may know, we throw an annual Halloween bash with a different theme each year. This year we went for "Fables and Fairytales"! Our friends really went all out this year with some fantastic costumes. We had an absolute great time and thanks so much to Grand-Momma and Grand-Daddy Kraatz for watching Maebry that night...you did a great job!
Here we see the three little pigs and our good friends Jason, Kim and sweet little Faeryn! Way to go on the bacon!
This was a Kraatz Halloween first...we had a band play! The Hatchetmen played about 20 minutes or so and were awesome! They did ukelele and drum covers of old punk rock songs...needless to say Dusty and Kye had a field day! Thanks for playing guys!
Here we see our elvin friends Matt and Savannah! They knocked this one out of the park! Nice tights Matt =)
A little pic of our decorations in the house. We had our lights in full effect this year, forming a tree in the middle of the room...to go with our "Haunted Enchanted Forest" theme.
Here lies little Franken-Mae! Maebry rocked her skeleton onesie many many times the weeks around Halloween...too cute!
Thanks to Grandmommy and Grandaddy, Maebry had her very own PUMKIN OUTFIT! We took sooo many pictures of her in her outfit, but this face was the one we just had to share.
Mommy and Pumkin Mae posing in the yard. Mommy looks so pretty and Maebry...well, let's just say she was juuuust about done taking pictures for silly mommy and daddy!

We had such a great Halloween '09! Can't wait for next year! Thank you so very much to all of our parents/grandparents and friends that helped make it a great time.

Mae - 4th Generation baby

The past weekend snuck up on Dusty and I. We have been feverishly working on our annual Halloween party and knew the annual Kraatz-Raab family reunion would also be celebrated in the month of October.

Maebry was able to visit another set of great grandparents but this time from Dusty's side of the family. This marked the first time she was able to meet her Great Grandfather on Dusty's mom's side, "Popo" and Great Grandmother on Dusty's Dad side, "Nanny". Maebry smiled and laughed with them and you could tell that both Nanny and Popo really loved getting to spend time with little Maebry. Here's some proof,

The reunion was a big success with a nice turn out and great weather, other than the crazy wind! You'll notice in the pics below that hair was a lot of fun for everyone...well, everyone except Maebry...her little head of hair looked picture perfect at all times =) ...we think she might have got a little wind burned...poor baby.

The entire family loved on Mae and played with her feet and hands. Maebry smiled for everyone and melted a lot of hearts. She did such a great job staying pretty happy and overall, our trip to the reunion was a big success! From meets and greets to smiles with shades on to annual family auction. Here are the pcitures from the 2009 Kraatz-Raab Reunion -

This weekend was the first time we took Maebry to Fredericksburg to stay a few nights at Grand-momma and Granddaddy's and boy did they love having her in the house! Maebry played quite a bit for them, had several nice naps in her swing, ate many a meal at the dinner table on mom and dad's knees and really just had a grand 'ole time!

Now we are back...still unpacking and getting ready for the big Halloween extravaganza this weekend! Dusty and I really love Halloween...especially when it falls on the weekends! We have our annual Halloween bash on Friday "Fables and Fairy tales" themed. Maebry will be staying overnight with Dusty's parents (crossing our fingers that she doesn't make it too terribly rough of a night) and then Mae Day is coming back in town for Halloween night to pass out candy and experience her very first Halloween!

Everyone have a very safe and fun Halloween! Hope to see you all soon!

D, C and M

PS: Here is a cute picture of Mae in her new Bumbo. She looks so cute.

Look at Mae, we think she is saying, "Don't miss with me Bumbo."