Last weekend was filled with parties, birthday celebrations, trick or treating, costumes, and way too much sugar!! HA! 🙂 While Emma was not born on Halloween she was definitely born in the midst of it. The day we brought her home from the hospital I was handing out candy to trick or treaters while Andrew took David out to trick or treat himself. LOL! Looking back on that, I should have locked us in the bedroom and turned out the lights.😂 Here we are six years later! I can’t believe my beautiful, red headed baby girl is now six! SNIFF, SNIFF!!! She is growing into a beautiful little lady. She has a strong, fiery spirit! She knows what she likes, and there is no changing her mind. (This will hopefully be a good trait when she is older. Ha!) Emma is very artistic, and loves art, fashion and music. She loves school, and is proud to be learning to read. She is also a caring friend and sister. Emma tries to be a friend to the kids who are struggling in her class. (Her teacher told us this.) She also does not like to hear Audrey cry, and will try to entertain her until mommy can come to the rescue.

First of all, I am so happy to be able to visit the school this year and have lunch with my kiddos! My goal has been to have lunch with them at school once a month. They love for mom to bring them something special for lunch. I visited David at the beginning of the month and he requested subway. I was able to visit Emma the Thursday before her birthday and she requested Sonic. Specifically, “a grilled cheese sandwich and cherry slushie”. 🙂

Friday evening Andrew’s battalion hosted a trunk or treat, for which he was sole organizer. He did a fantastic job! I didn’t get a ton of pictures, but the kids had a blast! There was of course, the trunk or treat part, but also face painting, and a bouncy house. I believe the bouncy house was just as much of a hit with Emma and Samuel as the candy. They played for about an hour!

Emma wanted a Frozen party for her sixth birthday. She loves Elsa and for a while especially, she went through a phase where she was singing “Let It Go” all the time. So like I usually do, I went on Pinterest to get ideas for her party. Since time has not been on my side this year, I have decided to order all my kids birthday cakes. I ordered David’s back in June, and now Emma’s. The other two will be getting theirs ordered as well. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to let it go! Ha! I couldn’t resist. 🙂 I bought a few decorations to hang up, some party favors, and came up with a few games. Emma wanted to invite some school and neighbor friends over, so we had a friend/family party. The kids had a blast just playing together! We did frozen tattoos, pin the nose on Olaf, and then they had a snowball fight in the back yard! I was thankful for the beautiful weather that day so the kids could play outside. We had a great time celebrating Emma! (Some of the pictures are courtesy of my sister, Leah. Thanks sis!)

Sunday evening the kids wanted to carve their pumpkins. I always help clean out the pumpkins, but Andrew is the carver of pumpkins at our house. 😉 I believe we threaten our kids every year, that if they want their pumpkin carved they at least have to make an honest attempt at cleaning it out. HA! David is getting better, but he still hates to get his hands in it. LOL! Emma dug right in to hers, and Samuel was having no part of it.😄 He didn’t care much if his got carved or not. At least not until he saw David and Emma with theirs, then he wanted one too. Audrey had a small pumpkin, and we decided to paint a face on hers. Emma wanted to paint it, and so I let her. She did a great job!

For Halloween this year we did not do some of our usual activities. Between time and the cost of things, we decided to take the easier route this year. My parents had a bunch of pumpkins that were given to them, and so the kids picked out their pumpkins early in October when we went to visit their house. We used those pumpkins for carving instead of going to the pumpkin patch this year. We also skipped the trip to the costume store, and reused old costumes with the exception of Emma’s which I found at a local kids thrift outlet. It took a little convincing for David because he wanted to pick another scary mask or something that I probably wouldn’t have let him have anyway. HA. But it turns out the kids didn’t care, and were happy with their costumes. They really just want the candy any way. David was the Grim Reaper, Emma was Elsa, Samuel is wearing David’s old skeleton costume. He is crying in the first picture because David went trick or treating with some friends down the street and he wanted to go too. I told him he had to stay with Daddy, Mommy, Emma, and Audrey to go trick or treat. He was upset because he thinks he is as big as David! Sweet boy! 🙂 Don’t let that face fool you though! He was fine a few seconds later and had the best time trick or treating! Audrey was a pumpkin! This is the same pumpkin costume that David and Emma wore as babies. Sadly, Samuel was too big for it by the time he had his first Halloween. So he is the only one I don’t have a picture of in it. Isn’t Audrey the cutest pumpkin? I just love that smile! She was having a good day, and had just woke up from nap time when I took these pictures.🥰 One of our neighbors across the street has a little boy, Joey, he is about Emma’s age. Emma and Joey are friends, and Emma wanted to go trick or treating with him. His family was nice enough to trust us to take him trick or treating. I am so glad to live in a neighborhood where the kids have friends! All the kids had a fantastic time. After trick or treating we watched Charlie Brown’s the Great Pumpkin and had leftover birthday party pizza. Ha! Yes, the kids were putting candy on their pizza. I only allow it once a year! It is EEEWWW GROSS!

Love,

PK