Emma is Three!!

Emma turned three years old this past week.  She's lived in three different states in her short life - Illinois (where she was born), Utah and California.  She wanted to have a unicorn birthday party.

On Emma's actual birthday we had dentist appointments.

She did great at the dentist and even got a special birthday present from the dentist.

A few days later the kids had a day off school so we went to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate Emma's birthday.   Emma was very excited.

Ma2 (Scott's mom) was in town to watch the kids while Scott and I ran a half marathon in Monterey.  She helped us out at Chuck E. Cheese.

Emma got a birthday lollipop

Later on we played a few party games at home.

Pin the horn on the unicorn

A unicorn hunt out in the yard

And a unicorn piñata

Everyone got a turn at the piñata

"...it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn."

 - Firenze from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Grant was the one who eventually got the unicorn open

Poor unicorn

Emma helped me make and decorate some cupcakes.

Happy Birthday Emma!  She did a good job blowing out her candles.

She went on a little treasure hunt to get her presents.  The big kids helped her open gifts.

 Happy 3rd Birthday Emma! We're so happy to have her in our family. 

Bonus photos!!

In between party activities Anna and Matthew got haircuts

Anna got hers cut to chin length

And Matthew just got his cleaned up a little

Halloween

We had a lot of Halloween fun this year.  Here are the kids at a school reading event.  Costumes were optional.  Grant didn't want to wear his so John also opted out.  Matthew dressed up this year as Link from The Legend of Zelda (a Nintendo game).  Anna dressed up as Dorothy and Emma was Rapunzel.

Emma playing on the playground while we wait for the costume parade to start.

Emma was eager to start the parade

She was one of the first ones up there.

Anna saw lots of her friends there and they all helped Emma walk around in the parade

Anna with some friends

Matthew found some of his friends too

Emma had some footwear problems during the parade

Anna with one of her church/school friends - twinsies

Grant with a church/school friend

After the costume parade the kids got to go into some of the classrooms where the teachers read a Halloween book and then gave out treats.  It was lots of fun.

Another night we carved pumpkins.  Emma decorated hers with stickers instead of carving.

Matthew outsourced some of his work to Anna. 

 He doesn't like scooping the guts out and Anna doesn't mind doing it.

Scott did a lot of work too on the kids pumpkins

Matthew's finished pumpkin

Emma's finished pumpkin

Left side, top to bottom: Scott's, Anna's, and Emily's

Right side, top to bottom:  Grant's, John's Emma's

Far right top is Matthew's pumpkin

All ready for Halloween night!

Halloween night we had the traditional pumpkin shaped pizza

Getting ready to trick or treat

Trying to assemble everyone

Scott as Gaston (Beauty and the Beast villain), Matthew as Link, Anna as Dorothy, Grant as a Fireman,  John as a Policeman, and Emma as Rapunzel.

Scott and I as Gaston and Belle from Beauty and the Beast. We got lots of compliments on our costumes.  Even children recognized who we were.  So that made me happy.

So excited to trick or treat!

Our neighborhood, with the houses pretty close together, is a great trick or treating neighborhood.  You get a lot of bang for your buck.  Or a lot of candy for not too much walking.  Plus there are lots of kids and friends in the neighborhood.  Here are Grant and John's candy pumpkins wearing their hats part way through the night.

All the kids got tons of candy.  Anna went around with her friends.

Emma and John started to poop out earlier than the other kids.  I started taking those two home early but John had a change of heart and took off running to catch up with dad.  So I ended up walking Emma home, who was tired but also didn't want to be done before the other kids.  She cried a lot on the way home.  Here we are passing out candy at home while waiting for the other guys to come back.  The kids had a great time and got SO MUCH CANDY!!  We need to pace ourselves.  Happy Halloween!!

October

Here are some of our (non-Halloween) adventures in October.  Halloween fun to come!

Scott and celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary.  We hired a babysitter - a boy from our ward.  We don't leave our kids with babysitters much and I was worried that the boy would hate us afterward but it seemed to go well.  It was nice getting away for a date.  We went to the Melting Pot (a favorite fondue restaurant of ours) which was decorated for Halloween. Matthew will be old enough to babysit for us soon!  We're trying to train him now.

Grant playing goalie.  He's one of the smallest and youngest on his soccer team, but I think he's had a good season.

Matthew reading Pinkalicious to John and Emma.

Anna's school friend made her this ghost.  Anna wanted to make something in return and we ended up with this pumpkin.  I am not crafty so I felt bad that I wasn't more help.  Anna's friend (the one who made the cute ghost) takes sewing classes and Anna wants to start taking them too.  After getting the pumpkin sewed Anna said it was good that I wasn't good at crafts 'cause then she can teach me something. 😆 

Anna also made this unicorn completely on her own using a glue gun to assemble it.  It's a birthday gift for Emma who loves unicorns.  She has a small sewing machine but likes using her glue gun instead.  I should get her into those sewing classes.

Emma put on my running shoes and said she was going on a run.  

John's favorite stuffed animal (a brown dog) fell in the toilet.  I told John we were going to put the dog in the wash.  John was very worried about the dog in the washing machine.

John stayed to watch his dog for a long time to make sure it was ok.

Matthew got an award at the school district this week.  He got a perfect score on the language arts portion of the big California state standardized test.  That's the superintendent shaking his hand.  These are other kids who also got perfect scores on either the math or language arts portion of the test.  

Way to go Matthew!!