october 2015.

Ohhhh, my!

Looking through our October pictures just makes me smile!

For a lot of reasons.

Miss Emma had her SEVENTH birthday!!!

Can you believe she's seven??

We sure love this spunky little girl who keeps us on our toes!

Those eyes!! My heart melts!!

She had fun with her photo shoot with mom. That was all actually the next day.

On *the* day ......

Letter pancakes for breakfast:

So spoiled, she got her whole name, instead of just her first initial.

We still got away with just a family birthday party. I have a feeling that by next year, she may be asking for another friends party.

Alyssa got her a t-shirt so she could show off some school colors!

"Heavy heavy hangover, thy poor head...

whatcha gonna do with a bonk on the head?"

(Waiting for that bonk!!)

(Whoops! Another t-shirt picture. But what a big personality!)

Phone calls from faraway aunties are the best!!

(The hat came from the OTHER sister. I see a competition with sisters and college apparel going here!)

Onward .......

Emma played soccer again this fall.

I know, it sounds like everything is about Emma -- but seriously, ... Cameron won't pose much for the camera, and the rest of the kids are gone!!

Soccer has been good for her. She has fun, makes friends, and gets the exercise that she needs.

Of course, she spent a good deal of time just playing with her ponytail:

... and chatting it up with her friend!

And, by the end of October, we get to our annual pumpkin-carving.

Cameron and Emma cleaned their pumpkins together. (I'm pretty sure that Cameron also  finished cleaning her pumpkin for her, cleaned my pumpkin, and maybe Todd's pumpkin, too! He gets extra points for pumpkin cleaning this year!)

She was so focused as she put her pattern on her pumpkin .....

(I was playing around with camera settings that night. Sometimes, I almost know what I'm doing with that!!)

Our final group of jack-o-lanterns was a smaller bunch. You can sure tell that we have less carvers living at home this year!

Todd was especially impressive with his own jack-o-lantern (he enjoys doing the intricate work on these things), as well as working hard on Emma's "Frozen" pattern. She was so thrilled to wake up the next day and see it glow.

Brandon & Cecilia decided to have Baby D's blessing on November 1st, so we made the trip down to Utah so we could be there for the blessing. More about that in THIS POST.

Cecilia made super-cute matching Halloween costumes for the kids....

Emma, of course, had to be her favorite new princess.....

 

She thought that wearing purple eye shadow, mascara, and sparkles was just maybe the best part about her whole look!

(Brandon and Cecilia matched, too!)

Poor Miss Alyssa wasn't feeling too well that evening ....

I love this picture of Todd and Darius!!

What a cutie!!

A lot of the photos I edited the scratch on his forehead out. But, in the interest of full disclosure, there's the scratch on the poor little guy's head!

Meanwhile, down at college, .... Darcie has been having an absolute BLAST:

....      uhhhhhh, that's a lot of blue foam, there.

She goes hiking with the roommates and friends ....

And they had a blast at the football games:

And finally ---

I absolutely loved how our mums bloomed this year around the patio:  

That one in the middle hadn't yet opened up, but it was just as pretty as the others!

Flowers make me happy!!

october adventures. 2014 version.

In my mind, October will forever be the month of Emma's birthday. She kind of has the month all to herself. Especially after the rush of all the September family birthdays. 

One thing in particular about our Em that I treasure, is our snuggley chats at her bedtime, which are part of our whole bedtime routine. We talk about four things:

1. What was your Happy Time today?

2. What was your Sad Time today?

3. Angry Time?

4. Frustrated Time?

My answers usually vary. But her answers are almost always identical. I'm sure she'll grow out of giving me the same answers all the time, but for now, I'm loving this.

1. Her happy time is always, "Seeing you."

2. Her sad time is always, "Missing you."

#3 and #4 are always, "Didn't have one."

Wouldn't it be wonderful to dance through life with never an angry or frustrating moment? She's pretty well-grounded and doesn't have any separation anxiety, so don't let her #2 answer fool you.

She reminds me a little bit of my own younger self.

When I was her age, I would go downstairs to my dad's "corner", and sit on his lap to tell him goodnight. And we would talk and talk. He never got tired of my questions. Looking back on that, I used to never understand why my siblings all labeled me as "Dad's favorite". But as a parent, now when I look back on that, I realize how that habit of mine must have endeared me to him. Still miss my wonderful dad!

So, I'm starting off October's summary with photos of our super-sweet birthday girl:

Well. Sweet, and spunky.

Our weather in October actually remained quite nice .... nice enough for playing outside without a coat or jacket!

So, that scarecrow had been out on our front porch, and one windy/rainy afternoon, I brought it indoors, to keep it dry and prevent its falling over repeatedly. Two days later, I discovered the praying mantis on it. INDOORS. While I think a mantis is cool -- I want them in their own habitat. Not in mine!! OUT the door it went!!

October also had a lot of school, band, and spirit stuff going on for Darcie. It was her senior night for marching band:

I love her band friends -- they really rock!

Darcie was the lucky recipient of a check from our bank, through their. "Pays for A's" program. She was totally surprised by the giant check they presented to her at the high school's homecoming rally:

Alyssa and Emma and I snuck down to the school, and we surprised her, too.

The totally hilarious moment was when we were trying to be unobtrusive, and stay out of Darcie's line of sight, so she wouldn't see us and we might have to confess as to our purpose for being there.

And then she walked right in our direction (we turned our backs and tried to look small), and she was about five feet behind us, talking to someone up in the stands above us!!! And she did not clue in that it was us standing there. At all!! Todd says that it comes down to  the fact that people see what they're looking for -- and she wasn't looking for us. Obviously!!

So, we were a surprise to her, too:

Love her personality!

That night was the halftime performance at the homecoming game:

And the next night was the Homecoming Dance:

(You might have noticed that a few of those dance-night friends are the same people as the band-friends.) I love that she doesn't worry about boys or boyfriends, or any of that awkwardness. She just goes with friends, and she just wants to have fun. Hmm, sounds like a Cyndi Lauper song!

I feel lucky that they let me hang around and take photos of them. It's good practice for me!

And finally, Halloween:

I was kind of happy that Emma did not choose to be a princess for Halloween this year. Not that she wouldn't have been adorable, but it's kind of nice to change it up. Can you tell what she is?

She wouldn't let me very close to her eyes, so this is as good as the face paint got. The costume came with a head piece, but it was one of those that has the child's face coming out of the character's mouth -- which always seems kind of weird to me. So I opted not to use it, and we did makeup and hairstyle instead. And, we had fun braiding pipe cleaners into her hair, too!

She got together with an "Elsa" and an "Anna" at our church Trunk-or-Treat activity:

And then we really played with those braids when we changed clothes afterwards at the annual pizza party at Grandpa & Grandma's house:

Some of the other kids also dressed up for Halloween:

Well. Sort of!!

We're looking forward to welcoming Andrew -- Alyssa's fiance -- into the family this spring!

So exciting!!