Birthday Girl!

I love my birthday. Love love love it.

 

 This year we started off the celebration by going out to dinner at Beckett's Table. Everything was delicious, and Molly even ate soft cheese and LIKED it (best present ever)!

After dinner we all headed back to play games at our house and all the girls hopped in bed to be funny. Luke came in and thought it was the coolest.thing.ever.

 

My actual birthday was Sunday and Dustin surprised me by canceling all of his church meetings. It was so fun to have him home. We even got out the Christmas decorations and started putting up the tree -- one of my absolute favorite things to do!

 

After dinner we headed over to Kristin's for dessert. . . which ended up end up being a surprise dessert party.  My favorite kind. Kristin knows me well.

 

Everyone brought one of my favorite desserts -- Montana sheet cake, chocolate chip cookies, coconut gooey butter cake. . . I loved it all so much that I ate a serving of everything. I think there were 9 desserts there.

Monday we celebrated at the gym -- which meant I got to wear a weight vest the entire workout. Boo!

 

Kristin also knows how much I love party hats. I feel badly for subjecting everyone else to them non their birthdays because they are not easy to workout in. Especially since the straps are obviously man-sized.

Luckily I had burned those extra calories so I could eat the cake Susy brought over.

 

 All weekend long people stopped by with flowers, cards and little gifts. It was perfection. I got to wear my sweet new puffy vest out for birthday lunch with my girlfriends. I had been dying for one forever but I kept saying they were too impractical to justify the expense.

 

It was such a perfect birthday weekend and I can't thank my friends and family enough. I am so lucky to be surrounded by so many thoughtful and wonderful people. One of the gifts my friends got me said #loved on it and I definitely felt loved that weekend.

November Random-ness

I cannot even remember what happened in between Halloween and Thanksgiving anymore. But according to my phone. . .

We took family pictures! They actually turned out well!!

Young Women in Excellence.

I bought a gingerbread man kit and became a HERO!

I worked out with my favorite work out friend!

And we went out on a date with our other favorite workout friends! Dinner and bowling.

 Pink Ladies vs. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Girls won!

A little sickness sprinkled in the mix. You know you're in trouble when Luke wants to sleep.

Cold early morning soccer and football games. Look at that cranky face!

School projects! In 4th grade the kids do a cereal box report. We all had a good time coming up with ideas for Nate's project on Midnight Magic.

 

It was a good month.

Diwali!

I'm so far behind on blogging that I'm not sure I even remember that some of these things happened!

My lovely girlfriend, Divya, was kind enough to invite our family over for her annual Diwali party. I wanted to dress appropriately for our first authentic Indian party so I rounded up some clothes and we showed up looking so fine.

I think Dustin was probably the highlight of the evening. Everyone was so impressed to see a 6' 4" man in traditional Indian wear.

My kids had the best time just running around playing games.

It was a wonderful evening and don't even get even me started on the food!

Week in Review: Sports Edition

Monday: Soccer practice for Sadie.

Tuesday: Ellie and I both have tennis lessons. I am terrible. 

Ellie and her friend Chloe made me proud with matching work out outfits.

Wednesday: Football practice for Nate.

Thursday: Soccer for Luke.

Friday: My girlfriends and I dressed up 80's style for our gym that morning. It was Halloween, just remember.

 

We had so much fun planning it, but I'm not sure I got a great workout because I was so worried about squatting too much of jumping too high for fear of a wardrobe malfunction.

It was also FUN RUN day up at school. I only got pictures of the youngest two.

I about died when I showed up and Luke had my headband on from my costume that morning. He kept yelling, "This is so much fun! I'm having so much fun!"

 

Luke ran 34 laps and Sadie and Nate ran all 36. 

Saturday: 9 mile run for me, football for Nate, soccer for Sadie and crossfit for Dustin.

Nate's team won, 30-6, and Nate scored his first touch down of the season. He looked amazing on defense as well with a whole lotta pulls and a bunch of rushes.

 

Sadie's team won too! Sadie plays defense and her team managed to pull off a shut out.

That night I took all the kids down to a Crossfit competition at Dustin's gym.

 

 His partner was Sadie's 2nd grade teacher so she was extra excited. It was a fun week!

Halloween

Halloween is a lot different when your kids are all in school. This year there were no preschool parties or playgroup parties.  Other than the Ward party, we had no excuses to dress up until the big night!

Ellie planned a group costumes with some of her friends from church. They decided to all be Alice in Wonderland characters and make tutus. Sadie was feeling a little left out, so even though she wasn't trick-or-treating with them, we let her dress up in the theme too.

Sadie made an adorable little white rabbit and when I dropped Ellie off, I even got a quick picture of her with the girls who were there already.

We made a quick stop to trick-or-treat at some of our favorite neighbors and then headed up for a party at Kristin's. Nate probably had my favorite costume -- Abraham Lincoln.

My brother-in-law, Kyle, knit his awesome beard.

We ate food and did candy duty while the boys took the kids around.  Dustin and Luke came back pretty early since Luke decided he had enough candy.

He loved spending the rest of the night passing out candy and playing with Charlotte. He did not, however, choose to join us for the haunted house. I screamed like a baby.

Meanwhile, Ellie and her girls were stalking the neighborhood for every piece of candy available. She came home with a whopping 8 pounds.

It was probably our latest Halloween yet, since I usually like to be in bed by ten and we didn't even get home until well after it. The kids all had sleepovers so we missed sorting candy and watching a movie together. It was fun, but definitely a new type of Halloween for us.