October 2013

 For Ava's 7th birthday I came up with the great idea to throw her a surprise party.  It was cute and the girls had fun but that night as I tucked Ava into bed, she told me that she likes family parties the best. That's my girl. :) I was happy to hear it.  Friend parties are way to much work anyway and I'm afraid that being "surprised" is just, well... embarrassing.  I remember Jeremy threw me a surprise party once and I think my face stayed bright red during the entire party.  Ava is also like me when it comes to loving planning things out.  I have always thought that planning for and looking forward to something is half the fun.  Here are some pictures from her party with all of her cute friends and cousins.  The one and only.

 Over Fall Break Jeremy got ambitious and decided to put in a pine wood floor in the part of our bathroom that had carpet. (Who puts carpet in a bathroom or kitchen?) We have lived with it like that for over six years... so to say I was excited to see the nasty stuff go would be a huge understatement! Ava called it her birthday floor.  It's really pretty. Jeremy and his little helper Luke did an amazing job!  Plus it only cost us around $60.

While the boys put in the floor and Ava and Ruthy played out in the rain together,  I painted an awesome Harry Potter sign to hang in our porch for Halloween. The kids and I finished reading the first Harry Potter a few weeks before Halloween so this was going to be our Harry Potter Halloween.

Two soaked little girls.

Grandma Barker and Rice took us all out for Ava's birthday dinner, her choice... she chose the Sizzler. 

Karen, Katelyn, Laura and Thomas came out to pick out pumpkins with us. 

They had the cutest pig there. He made a bawk bawk bawk sound, like a chicken. He was so funny. We expect to see him in a Cadbury egg commercial this spring.:) There was also a huge slide for the kids. It looked like a lot of fun so Karen and I decided to try it out.  Karen went down first...head first like the kids.  She quietly waited for me to go down head first too.  It wasn't until I hit the bottom in a huge heap that she started laughing at how I too had the wind knocked out of me and we compared the huge bumps on our shins. It was not as fun as the kids made it look.  We watched as another mom tried to take the slide head first. We could barely hide our laughter as she slowly eased her hurt body off to the side and just sat there in pain for a long time. We felt a little bad she got so hurt but anytime we caught sight of her hobbling around the pumpkin patch we busted up all over again.      

So many choices.

For Grandma Barker's birthday we all ate at Tepanyaki.  The kids looove this place... I think that's why Grandma always chooses to go there.  It's one of those cool restaurants where the chef cooks all your food right in front of you and does fancy egg spinning and knife throwing tricks. But the best part is when he throws a shrimp at you and you are supposed to catch it in your mouth. Good times.

The kids tried to carve their pumpkins this year to match their own crazy teeth. They did a good job. Ruthy even got down and dirty in the pumpkin guts.

Luke decided to be Harry Potter for Halloween, so notice the scar on his pumpkin.

We had a fun Halloween party with Halladays, Sarah, and Dobby ;).  Sarah let us borrow her life size Dobby from her library. We put him in our window. He looked pretty creepy and real. We ate chocolate frogs and drank butter beers and watched Harry Potter.

We talked Jeremy into dressing up like Hagrid. He looked hilarious! Ava was Hermione, Luke was Harry, Ruthy was Little Red Riding Hood and I was Professor Trelawney. Can you tell we all loved reading the book together. 

Doesn't Ava look so happy in these pictures? Before trick-or-treating she ate two whole bowls of chili and then gobbled down tons of candy throughout the night. By the time we got home she was not feeling so good and blew chunks all over half my kitchen. But even half a kitchen full of puke is not enough to stop me from getting that all important family Halloween picture. I stood there staring in disbelief at the incredible mess in front of me and Ava still standing there with her hands over her mouth. I think I muttered somethings to myself and as calmly as possible wiped the puke out of her hair and off of her face, plopped her up on a stool and told her to smile. After pictures Ava finally escaped to the shower and I spent an hour scrubbing down my kitchen with bleach. It was not the perfect end to a fun day.  Poor Ava.

Ruthy as Little Red Riding Hood and Inny (Indy) as the Wolf. We took these exact same pictures with Ava 5 years ago with Indy in the same spot with the same dress.

Happy Halloween!!