Happy Birthday, Dad! We Love You!!!

To celebrate John's 41st birthday, we started out the morning at the bakery.

The kids wanted to take Daddy bowling, so we headed over to White Bear Bowl to check out the lanes. Thanks to Minnesota's indoor smoking ban, it was a great place to celebrate.

Ethan enthusiastically bowled 2 games with us and loved every minute of bowling action. Mary Kate held out for about 9 frames before deciding she'd rather sit at the race car driving game.

Then we headed back home for naps, followed by cake and presents. The kids gave Dad a new aluminum level to replace his plastic one that got broken.

Yep, it works.

On a more sentimental note, we'd like to take a moment to say Happy Birthday to the kindest, gentlest, funniest and best Dad in the world. We love you!!

Halloween - robots, puppies, polar bears and chickens, oh my!

In mid-October, we made our annual trip to Pine Tree Apple Orchard for apples and pumpkins.

The kids each selected their own pumpkin and carried them (MK made it to the wagon...it was a long walk).

Ethan sat on the Kubota. MK wasn't interested in the "big lawn mower" as she called it.

The following week, we got our costumes together. MK chose an Elmo costume at Target. Ethan wanted to be Wall-E, so we made his costume with the help of a cardboard box, spray paint, craft foam, and lots of Dad's old useless computer parts.

We hosted our annual kids' costume party, complete with a pumpkin pinata we made. Here are the kids filling the completed pinata with candy. Ethan drew and cut out the face from construction paper and we glued it on. My favorite part is how he made the mouth, teeth and toungue.

The pinata turned out to be tougher than we thought, sustaining numerous whacks from the St. Paul Saints mini-bat, and allowing everyone to get a turn at bat before it broke open. Here's a shot of some of the kids gathering candy post-pinata-explosion...

We had a costume parade around the cul-de-sac and ended up at our neighbor Kathy's, where the kids trick or treated and each got their own special treat bag. from Kathy. Here's a shot of our costumed friends pre-parade. MK would not wear her Elmo costume over her sweatshirt.

Dad was on his own this year with pumpkin carving while Mom was at work. He was pretty busy with scooping, carving and cleaning up, so there aren't a lot of action shots. Here are the completed jack o lantern. Despite their rather indifferent expressions in this photo, E and MK had tons of fun carving.

Halloween day/night finally came and our friends, Michele, Laura and Nate joined us for pizza and trick or treating. MK decided to be a puppy, from Ethan's costume collection. The Elmo costume stayed home. Our neighbor handed out our candy and all the adults went trick or treating with the kids. We had a great time and enjoyed watching the kids say "Happy Halloweeen....Trick or Treat!" at every house.

Ethan's costume was a huge hit with all the neighborhood kids every time older kids saw his costume and commented on how "Cool" it was, he just beamed. He got lots of high fives from older neighborhood boys who told him his costume was "Awesome!"

The trick or treating trio...puppy (MK), polar bear (Laura) and Wall-E (Ethan).

Between houses, MK kept very close tabs on "Baby Nate" aka the chicken and spent most of the night holding either the snack tray of his stroller or Michele's hand when she was carrying Nate.