The Growing Caldwell Family

  We took a mini road trip all over Shreveport to find Grancy a new tree and then had fun helping her decorate! Poor Charlie had an awful headache that kept him in bed while we did our early Christmas decorating. 

While we were visiting, Grancy had everyone over for an early Thanksgiving celebration.  Charlie woke us up saying that he "slept in the hood!" He's a jokester/! The lake made for a beautiful backdrop for these photos! Grancy hung a swing in a big tree and the kids really enjoyed playing out there! Uncle Les and Aunt Barbara were there and got to hear all about the kids' activities. Gramma was there too. It has been almost a year since we saw her last and it was so good to be together! It was a fun afternoon being with everyone!  

We made a quick trip to Shreveport to spend time with family.  Our first stop was to see Pa Paw. He was eager to have us visit. Sarah Graves brought her flute and gave him a concert and Aaron and Charlie found out what help he might need with his technology.  We had the chance to see Grancy and Ger Ger's new house. Their view of the lake is so pretty! Zoe loves to be loved on! Grancy and Sarah Graves got busy baking a chocolate pie! Sarah Graves knows the recipe almost by heart just like Grancy! What a treat!  

To celebrate their big win Sarah Graves' softball team, the Party Queens, had an end of year celebration. They did their cheer one more time! She really enjoyed playing with this group of girls and I am so happy they could celebrate together!  

A new coffee shop and bakery opened by us and Sarah Graves and I went to check it out. We enjoyed matcha tea latte and yummy, buttery pastry! The mediterranean decor and Italian owner gave it a European feel. I enjoyed our date and Sarah Graves felt very big girl! Fun!  

The next weekend Aaron went camping with Charlie and the Cub Scout pack. As Aaron says, if it's raining, he must be going camping!  As they are finishing up Cub Scouts, the boys have formed patrols and are taking on responsibility for planning and cooking their own meals. On this camp out, the meals might have been the best part! They named their patrol the "Exploding Purple Pancakes" so purple pancakes were a breakfast must! The rain led to cancelling some of the activities; a scout went home sick during the night (leaving Aaron and another leader having to drive him to meet his parents at 1 AM), and leaky tents made for a rough camp out!  Charlie came home so very tired and we figured out a couple of days later that he had strep throat. Yay!   

I think this is the 5th year Aaron has taken Sarah Graves for a Father Daughter Camp Out at Camp Misty Mountain.  They had fair weather, planned their meals well, and no crowds. Plus, on the way back they stopped at  Bucee's!  

Charlie's teacher captured this cute moment as his class walked back from chapel!  

Trick-or-treating went through many different plans. The kids decided it would. e fun to trick-or-treat with friends. Sarah Graves and her close friends from church had ideas to trick-or-treat in matching costumes in a neigh orhood that puts on a haunted house! Charlie was able to join up with a school buddy whose neighborhood does a block party before trick-or-treat.  The plans went through some twists when Aaron's grandfather got sick and we planned to travel to Shreveport to see him; then, Charlie was sick with a stomach virus that we didn't want to take any chances traveling with. Fortunately, the virus was short lived and no one else picked it up. We were able to put our original plans back in place and everyone was happy! Charlie, Ziggy, and a couple of Ziggy's neighbors had a ball covering every street in the neighborhood! By the end of the night their bags were loaded down! Sis had fun with her friends, but they were not hard core trick-or-treaters like she expected

In a really busy season it was nice to take time to be together and carve pumpkins. We did our traditional Halloween dinner of roasted hotdogs with chili and they were so good! Pumpkin carving was a lot of fun!  It turns out Livy and Nay are speedy at cleaning and carving a pumpkin! Sis and I scraped and scraped getting ours ready to carve! Lovie had to have some expert help from Livy! Charlie finds pumpkin guts moisturizing for his hands! There were no tears shed over failed designs or unmet expectations! Just fun times carving together.  Charlie took some time to show Pops his coding projects and explain the work that goes into it. Pops was interested to hear all about it!