Sophia turns 7!

Sophia turned 7, Monday the 18th, but Saturday she had a little birthday party.  Originally she wanted a cake with an edible Sofia the first on top.  After explaining to her I couldn't do that we settled on a paper cut out, on top of purple frosting roses, since purple is Princess Sofia's color.

Sophia was very excited to have a birthday party. She immediately knew she wanted to play- pin the crown on Princess Sofia, and hide the bunny (Princess Sofia can talk to animals and is friends with a bunny, I was informed).  We also hid boxes of candy for the guests to take home and had Princess Sofia coloring sheets. During the party either Randy or Max decided to help everyone make party hats.   L-R is Madisen, Sophia and Julia.  I was kind of surprised how much everyone loved the games, they were a big hit.

Here is almost everyone.  Aunt Kathy, Uncle Dale and some of our gang is missing.  L-R is Timmy, Max, John, Henry, Madisen, Sophia, Julia and Adrianna.

"Do a funny face!"

Glowing Sophia and glowing Sofia. 

Knowing Monday would be a very busy day (Max and Randy had the boat race for scouts), we let Sophia open her presents a day early, we didn't tell her until she was all ready for bed that night.  Randy had to work all day, but hurried home at 8 so Sophia could open her gifts at 8:30.  So she got an extra gift, staying up late!

With her brothers, except Luke who had to go to bed on time (he was too tired to stay up).

Sophia and Daddy

Sophia and Mom.

Halloween Week

 We picked pumpkins the Sunday before Halloween.  It was chilly and MUDDY.  Well the fields weren't so muddy but the road/driveway at the pumpkin patch was, I thought we were going to get the van stuck, but we didn't. (Yeay!)

Timmy was very happy to look for pumpkins.(He picked this one and then after he got in the van we noticed a really soft spot so we traded it out for a different pumpkin with green on it. I told Alex to keep it our secret and Timmy didn't know the difference.)

Randy helping Henry carry his pumpkin back to the van.

I was happy to see Alex wasn't too big for a pumpkin this year.  You'll see Sophia didn't pick a pumpkin. She stayed in the van with Luke, who was sleeping.  She had gotten a large pumpkin with her friend, who took her apple/pumpkin picking.  She and I also each got a small pumpkin during her field trip.  So one of the small ones, became Luke's.

The next day was Monday, and the cub scout Halloween party.  There is Sophia as Princess Sofia the 1st, Luke our lion, Max our skeleton, note the skeleton face he is making on purpose, "that's what skeletons look like".  Timmy our bear and Henry our Spider man.  Alex didn't dress up this year and had his own boyscout meeting to be at that night.

A boy scout troop (not Alex's) came and hosted a Halloween party for Max's cub scout troop.  There were 4 stations of games;  make a mummy (wrap each other up in toilet paper), lasso the jack-o-lantern, pumpkin golf, and another I can't remember.  There was also plenty of candy for prizes.  All the kids had a great time.

Halloween is typically grandparents/special person day at St. Rose, as well as a 1/2 day.  It has also become our traditional pumpkin carving day.  This year was no exception.  Kathy and Tim were Max's special person, and Henry, Luke and I were Sophia's.  It rained, hard, all day.  But the program inside (at the school) was nice.

Timmy was our bravest pumpkin-gut-grabber.

Here he is with his finished pumpkin.  He helped me design it ,by answering yes and no questions about how he would like it to look from across the room. (Round eyes Timmy?  "Yes")  He was much more interested in the slim inside.

Max went the no-mess route.  So he printed, colored and cut pictures for his pumpkin. He was very glad to have a no-gut-cleaning, Halloween pumpkin.

Henry took an even easy route.  Print a picture that requires no cutting or coloring.  (Poor Alex I never would have let him do a non- traditional jack-o-lantern.)

Lukey  didn't help with his little pumpkin, I didn't even think of letting him try to pull the guts out.  He probably would have loved it. But here he his getting a look at it, in his little Halloween spider shirt.

Sophia wanted a Sofia the first pumpkin. So we did our best to work together to make one. The large cut out arch his her hair, with a crown above that.  Her circle eyes and thin smile make her face on the orange area.  It's hard to explain and see but we tried to do an orange amulet and cut out shirt below the face.  Sophia was happy with it, so that's all that really mattered.

Timmy, Henry, Max holding Lukey and Sophia just before trick-or-treating.

Everyone with their lit pumpkins.  I feel bad I didn't get a picture of just Alex and his pumpkin. He didn't get out early from school that day, which means he got home at 4:30, by the time he was done carving, it was a bit chaotic getting ready to eat and trick- or- treat.  He has his hand on his pumpkin, a creeper face from Minecraft, the video game.  We trick-or-treated with our neighbor, Sophia's friend, Madisen and her mom and dad.  Alex helped Randy pass out treats.  While trick-or-treating we started out dry, then a few raindrops, then it was pouring.  But everyone had fun and no one , except Max was ready to be done when it was time. Then just like every year we were all happy to end Halloween at Aunt Kathy and Uncle Dale's.  They always have special treats for everyone and this year it worked out we watched The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown to end our Halloween together.