Ellie's 4th Birthday

Although her birthday isn't until Tuesday, we celebrated a little early with a party yesterday! This was the first party that Ellie has invited multiple little girls from daycare. We've invited our daycare providers previously, but it was just their little family as opposed to the class room setting of her current daycare. Obviously, I was overwhelmed thinking about inviting the entire class considering I am unwilling to have a party outside of our house, but we managed to just pick 4 friends. Ironically 3 of the 4 girls actually have parents that work with Jared or I, so we know them a little bit.

Ellie's request for her party this year was Princess Sofia. It's a very cute Disney cartoon about a little girl who becomes a princess overnight (mom marries the King). So we had activities to decorate crowns with jewels and coloring pages with Princess Sofia for the girls and Prince James for the boys.

Decorating her crown.

The finished product.

\Helping Ryan with his crown.

Although this picture was taken the day after the party, I thought it was hilarious how he put her crown on upside down.

Additionally, I tasked my mom with making the cake again this year. I'm sure I've mentioned before but she made all my cakes growing up so it has a lot of meaning to have my kids cakes made by her too. As usual it looked amazing!

I posted this pic to Facebook too and got a good laugh when a friend from college commented that "I can't lie that it looks like Princess Sofia is doing the gator chomp. Go Cougs!" She's right though and with the victory we had that day it was so appropriate.

Ellie and Ryan have their check up at the doctor on Friday so 4 year stats to come....

Halloween

October seems to have flown by! Hard to believe that we are pushing up against the end of the year. We had a good Halloween run this year. It started with a trip to Green Bluff to pick pumpkins, one of our annual traditions now. Knapps on the bluff is by far our favorite place to get pumpkins. The kids love the animals (goats, ponies, chickens, geese), they have a pumpkin cannon, and tons of pumpkins! We also managed to get Honeycrisp apples for dirt cheap - $1.20 a pound. I should also mention that it must have been the nicest weekend on record for October in Spokane. I think it was like 75 degrees this weekend and thus the entire bluff was packed!

Dad workin' hard pulling these pumpkins.

Ellie went for a short and squatty pumpkin this year.

While Ryan went for taller and slightly thinner....hmmmm.

Ryan started the ride your pumpkin trend. 

 

Now Dad was  really workin' hard.

We waited until nearly the last minute to carve our pumpkins. Between Jared hunting one weekend and in Moses Lake the next, it didn't leave many opportunities. We settled in Tuesday night before Halloween. As usual, Ellie was over it within a few minutes and Ry was never into it. Good thing we went simple with at least one of the two pumpkins. Ellie shows us how its done using a drill!

On Halloween, Jared was in Pullman watching the Cougs play - well for as much of that awful game as he could handle. The boys had taken Pat & Cindy's camper up with them so they were able to go and at least have a good time without needing to drive home that night.

Meanwhile, the I got the kids dressed up in their costumes for their party at daycare! They were so excited and game home with loads of goodies - stickers, cookies, candy, pencils, spider rings and more! Then we headed out to my office for trick or treating there - this has proven to be the best way to trick or treat ever! Its warm and light and you know exactly who that candy is coming from, not to mention that not all of its candy. Some co-workers give play-doh, fruit snacks, and this year I gave chocolate graham cracker "goldfish". The kids get more than their fill of candy and then we don't have to go out in the evening and they enjoy handing out candy at our house.

 

Because some of the other guys went to the game with Jared, I invited the ladies over for dinner and drinks. It was nice to hang out - although the door interrupted us every few minutes and Ellie and Ryan wanted my attention, but still a nice opportunity to chat. I made stuffed pumpkins (ground turkey, wild/brown rice mix, dried cranberries, pecans, and apples) and some spiced cider martini drinks and the girls brought some yummy treats.

 

We sure hope you had a good Halloweeen too! November has already brought us our first snow this morning! Sure glad it didn't stick around too long.