A Memorable November

This will be a consolidated post that includes 2 special family visitors, Drew's 7 month birthday, and my birthday too! 

For starters, one of my favorite people came to Indiana and got to meet Drew: Uncle Ed!

We're so happy he included us in his very thorough itinerary! We enjoyed showing him our house and what life is like for us on a daily basis. He was there to greet Anna when she came off the bus! We went out for pizza before he left. We had a great time catching up!

Next up, I had some special Kate time as we went on a candy cane tour at McCord's. These are the 2 candy canes that we shaped while we were there! We were suffering through various illnesses throughout this month so Drew didn't get to come.

Kate took a turn for the worse after that so I was the only one able to attend Anna's Thanksgiving program at school. Each family made a feather in this turkey. It was a neat representation of all the families in Anna's class! (Ours is the long yellow one on the top left.)

Her teacher, Mrs. Winstead, does such a good job teaching her Kindergarten class! I'm so glad she was placed in her class! Here she is wearing a turkey hat; she sure loves her class well.

Next up, Papa came to visit for a Thanksgiving/Christmas celebration! We won't get to see him for Christmas so we celebrated with him early. We didn't take any pictures of it, but it was super fun and I think everyone was happy with their early Christmas gifts!

He bought them these precious matching Autumn outfits for our kids! (His cousin Cindy embroidered them.) I didn't get a great picture of all 3 smiling, but that's OK, I got a much better one for the Christmas matching outfits he got them - I'm sure I'll place it in a future post!

Papa brought Dixie and Belle and our kids were thrilled to play with them and boss them around. (Here's a quiet moment where they are all watching TV together, haha!)

Drew even enjoyed extra attention from them!

Drew turned 7 months old!

He does such great smiles that it really doesn't take me long to capture these!

Here's the comparison shot of Anna, Kate, and Drew at 7 months:

It was also Thanksgiving Day that day! Drew wore the same onesie that his sisters wore for their first Thanksgiving.

Here's that comparison shot though they are not the same age (9 months, 8 months, 7 months, respectively):

We took a family picture to commemorate the day, but it was a little challenging to get everyone coordinated:

When we added Papa into the picture, it turned out better!

We also had one of our favorite babysitters, Jennifer, join us for the occasion! Here's the whole group including the dogs:

We did a very small amount of Black Friday shopping and Drew would rather have been sleeping!

Lastly, we celebrated my birthday with dinner out and followed by a cake at home!

Anna is getting pretty good at taking pictures with filters and cool angles. The cake was delicious!

Curtis did a great job making his first homemade cake for me and it was definitely better than anything he could have bought for me! :)

Fall Festivities

The first half of the Fall season has been off to a great start! Our lovely RUF intern Carrie did a great job capturing our first professional pictures as a family of 5. I'll post some of my favorites. Kate decided not to smile until the end, but we still got some decent ones. :) 

I'm really loving the way they all turned out. If you are interested in seeing others, I shared more on Facebook!

One of the places our family tries to go each October is Exploration Acres. The weather didn't work in our favor - Curtis and I tried to go there on a date, we tried to go as a family, Anna even planned to go there for a field trip at school. In the end, only Anna made it there and it was after the field trip was rescheduled TWICE. Yes, it wasn't ordained for the whole McDaniel family to go this year, but here's a few from Anna's field trip:

She's in the middle with the purple beanie.

The kids buried their Kindergarten teacher in the hay!

Here's what she looks like when she's NOT in the hay. :)

She was excited to get her little pumpkin!

I have several shots of Anna in front of this measuring stick, but not every year. This compares Anna in 2015 with her now in 2018. She's grown a lot! I'm thankful the chaperone took this picture so I could add it to my collection for comparison!

 I haven't done a good job of posting about RUF this semester. even though it has been going amazingly well. If you want more information about how things have been going, feel free to click here. 

One of our favorite RUF events is the pumpkin carving event!

Anna loved carving with her big friend Evan!

Kate got in on the action too.

Drew supervised!

There was a family photo booth there!

Gotta love Drew's mustache!

Here's the group shot with all of students and their carved pumpkins!

We also carved some pumpkins at home. Curtis made this nice UF (University of Florida) pumpkin.

And lastly, Halloween.

Drew's first!

Anna and London are bus buddies and they both were Wonder Woman!

Kate was Hello Kitty! This was the perfect costume for her because she is always acting like a cat and meowing! This is the first time she is wearing a different costume that Anna didn't wear. At this age, Anna was a mermaid!

Drew was a handsome giraffe!

Anna, Kate, and Drew in the giraffe costume for their first Halloweens. 

(2013, 2015, 2018)

Curtis also dressed up as George Michael Bluth from Arrested Development. He preached in this because RUF large group fell on Halloween!

Halloween family shot!

We trick-or-treated with our good friend Lydia (and her mom Hannah) for Halloween! We both were husbandless for the evening so it worked out pretty nicely.

This is my favorite picture of Drew and Lydia!

Action shot

Drew was looking down, but it kind of worked out pretty well for this picture! I am so thankful it wasn't raining, freezing, or snowing for this Halloween (we've had all of those since we've lived here!) The McDaniel kids have plenty of candy to last for the rest of the year now! We've got more fun planned before winter arrives so I'm sure I'll be posting again soon.