It’s one of my favorite events of the year (because I am a glutton for punishment, obviously)–family picture day.  And trust me, if we had to fight the crowds and go to a studio, family picture day would rank considerably lower on the cool school, but when you have your friend and fabulous photographer doing the shoot OUTSIDE, it definitely makes the day more fun.  I’m pretty sure this is the only way I could ever get Matt to consent to a yearly photo shoot too.   It’s not his favorite day.

This one is probably my favorite of the day!

But this one is a close second.

This is how most of the afternoon went.  It’s totally to Jackie’s credit that we walk away with any pictures where we are all looking at the camera and smiling.

Case in point.  Blake is kind of the goofball of the shoot.

Prepare your heart for melting…

Told ya.

This was Matt’s favorite pose of the day.

Slowest person to get up gets smooshed at the bottom of the pile.  That’s me.

Birthdays never seem to last just one day around here.  On Alexandria’s actual birthday, she woke up to a few more presents and a day of fun with Mom.

She took several Happy Birthday phone calls that day as well.

Guess Who is one of her favorite games right now, and she’s getting pretty good at it.

Showing her present from the Hermons to our neighbors.

That night she picked our dinner spot (54th St.) and our dessert place (Twist).

Dad impressed us with his frozen yogurt eating skills.

Matt must have been in the mood to hurt himself when he invited Blake to play some football out back one Sunday afternoon. 

The girls stayed inside and played .

Somewhere along the line Alexandria decided that she would have a princess party every year, and she would just choose a new princess for each year’s theme.  Snow White was the lucky winner for this year.  And thanks to some web decorating tips (thanks to Jackie for the great party ideas link), we had a really cute Snow White party.

The cake table…before we had the cake on it.

She got to open a couple of presents before the party.  This one is actually the topper for the cake.

Blake’s gift to Alexandria is wrapped up in that giant quilt there.

I’m sure that Papa never thought he’d be helping with the decorating for a little girl’s birthday party, but he cut these wood pieces up for us.  They looked great!  And once the party was over, Blake has had quite a bit of fun with them too.

When I was sending out invitation to the party Alexandria kept saying to me, “Make sure you invite Grandma Foiles (who brings Alexandria’s favorite dessert, homemade ice cream) and Avaryn.” 

After all of the gift opening was over, the kids performed a small play about Thanksgiving.  The night before we’d read the Berenstain Bears book about Thanksgiving, and he was inspired by their Thanksgiving play.  He spent much of the morning before the party working away on his play ideas.

Official play signage.

And after the play, there was some bouncing in the basement!

The less serious bouncers.

And the big bouncers!

It seemed like the kids dressed up in their Halloween costumes several times this year, but I don’t have tons of pictures to show for it somehow.  I think it has something to do with the fact that we crammed many, many activies into one weekend.

On the 30th we had morning church, Dace’s birthday dinner at Dad and Mom’s, Jackie took our family pictures that afternoon (more from that later), and then evening church.  That also happened to be Trick or Treat night in our town, but we skipped it that night since we were at church and made up for it by Trick or Treating on Monday night at Papa and Ma’s house and some of our favorite neighbors by them.

Playing in the tee pee at Papa and Ma’s house.

Blake’s classroom party was Monday afternoon, so I attended that while Alexandria stayed at Papa and Ma’s house.

Waiting for the big parade to start outside the school.

Back at Papa and Ma’s house that night.

And then the next morning we opened our goodies from the Harvey cousins.

On the night of the big World Series win for the Cardinals we let the kids stay up way later than normal to watch what we hoped would be a really great memory.  Turned out, we got just what we were hoping for.

Watching the excitement unfold.

A few weeks ago Alexandria and I enjoyed a girly day together.  She accompanied me at my doctor appointment, and while, prior to the appointment, she was very excited about hearing the baby’s heartbeat, once the heartbeat was audible she was pretty busy with her Super Why game on the iPad to pay much attention.  After the doctor appointment was over, we made a quick stop at Target and then headed to lunch at a tea room, Josephine’s.  It was Alexandria’s first time there, and I’m sure this will probably become a monthly ritual after my future doctor appointment.

While we waited for our table we did some browsing through the store that accompanies the tea room.

Alexandria tried on nearly every piece of jewelry there.

And she made a new friend.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch and of course, dessert!

Blake is in love with this pose right now.

The week before Halloween Alexandria’s preschool class went trick or treating at a local nursing home, and then they went back to preschool for their party.  Fun times for the kiddos.

All the preschoolers and their younger siblings posing at the nursing home with Mrs. Garrison.  Cute bunch!  FYI Alexandria is dressed as Wendy from Peter Pan.  She’s obsessed with this dress.

Planting their “magic” pumpkin seeds.

Sprinkling the seed with glitter to make it grow.  More from this later in the post.

After playing lots of games, eating a snack, and singing some songs, we went back outside to check on the progress of the pumpkin seeds.

Voila, pumpkins!

Thanks to all of the Griffins, we had a super fun weekend at their annual Hog Roast.  Blake has asked several times since then if we could go back next year.

Blake started out the morning “playing with the cat,” which consisted of Blake getting about this close to the cat and then running away from it.  City boy.

Renae scored major points with the kids when she broke out the toys in the loft!

Going to visit some of the animals.

Beautiful view.

Hanging out by the tree swing.

Taylor showing us how it’s done.

The tree swing quickly became Blake’s favorite spot.   Alexandria was happy to pal around with Shea.

Our tour guides took us on a walking tour of the property.

Ginger sporting the leaf hair bow that Alexandria gave her.

Woods and a creek–this place has it all!

Have I mentioned how cute these two were together ALL WEEKEND LONG?  Getting very excited for Thanksgiving time with the Hermons and the Harveys.

Matt thought he ought to sample some of the turnips.  He really did like them, even though you can’t tell from this picture.

Love this picture of Gabriel!

Sampling some turnip.

Back at the hog roasting area…

You can’t tell, but there is a 250 pound hog in there.

Over at the bounce house, there was a whole lot of fun going on…

Gabriel was in love with all the dogs on the Griffin compound.

But even the bounce house couldn’t keep Blake away from the tree swing for long.

The younger kids enjoyed the swingset at Chad and Renae’s house.

This little man is definitely photogenic.  Pretty sure he gets that from his mom.

Lunch time!

Enjoying our caffeine free sodas (about the first time our kids have had soda and they LOVED these orange-cream sodas).

Fire watching crew.

And now for the grand finale….the pig comes out!

It got extra exciting for a bit when the big had some flames roaring out of him, but there was a fireman on duty (Mark Little), so all was well after a bit.

Retrieval party.

Yep, still playing together.

Not to be outdone by a six year-old, Uncle Dace had to give it a shot too.

Meaghan’s turn!

Matt didn’t really trust the tree to hold him up, so he was nervous about swinging.

And that is a wrap for that weekend!  Whew!