Welcoming Fall

Saturday, October 29th was a busy day for us!  We went to the fall festival at The Greenway in Fort Mill.  It was fun!  We went through the walked around, went through the corn maze, went to the petting zoo, & let Nora play in the toddler's maze made out of bales of hay.  Nora loved the animals (of course!) anFd the maze ended up being quite bigger than we were expecting.  We kept talking about how we wished there was something like it when we were growing up in Fort Mill!  We're definitely going again next year!

In the corn maze

Found a 'chair' to take a break in the toddler's maze.

The toddler's maze

Crawling through the maze.

There were chickens.

 And a pony.

The pony was definitely her favorite.

Very interested in seeing the pony eat.

There was a llama!  There were also other animals we didn't take pictures of.

That evening we went to our Trunk or Treat at church.  Nora & I went as sushi.  Aaron begrudgingly agreed to be the soy sauce.  I made it them (yay for bettering my sewing skills!) except Aaron sewed his own lid hat.  I only cut the pieces out.  Impressive, huh?That was our 2nd halloween party this year.  I have to say I am surprised with the lack of creativity in people's costumes.  It's not difficult!  Even more I am annoyed with people's inability to use their imagination and thinking skills to figure out what someone's costume is.  Is it really that people are just that lazy that they don't want to 'try' to figure it out?  Or is it that no one wants to be wrong, so they don't even try to guess?  Either way it definitely was discouraging after all the hours I put into our costumes.  I mean Nora & I even had wasabi & ginger in our hair with the fake grass underneath them!  At one party people told me numerous times what a cute jack-o-lantern Nora was.  You can't tell from the pictures, but the orange on her outfit definitely is a headless fish...with a tail...if you take the time to look.  Oh well.

Happy Halloween from our family!

Jack & his 'frenemy' Nora
Frenemy=friend & enemy all at once...Jack's Dad coined it.  She loves Jack, but also loves to hit & push him. 

Sushi girls

Couldn't you just eat her??

This year was Nora's first year trick or treating.  She was a trooper and caught on quickly.  It was quite cold outside here.  Nora loved walking with the other kids in the neighborhood, but never got the 'trick or treat' part.

Off to trick or treat!

This crazy girl was so excited going up to people's houses that she tried to go inside on multiple occasions.  When they came to the door and opened it, she'd take off.  Forget candy, she wanted to see if there was anything better inside...like toys!  Don't worry, we always managed to get her before she got past the entry.  Nora made it down 2 streets (being carried most of the way) before she was over it.  Oh, and she definitely wanted the candy once we got home.

Waiting to get inside a neighbor's house.

Finally home to Grandma (LaLa) passing out candy!

Happy...To You!

Since Nora's 1st birthday she's loved this toy cake we got her.  It teaches you the birthday song and you practice blowing out the candles.  It's all in hopes that she'll learn to blow out her candles at her 2nd birthday...since she missed that memo before her 1st.

Here's proof:

All that learning finally paid off and se has a new favorite song!  Goodbye "Itsy Bitsy Spider", hello "Happy Birthday!"  The perfect day came for her to show it off...Daddy's birthday!  She did not disappoint.  She sang to him for days!

Here's a video of her singing "Happy Birthday" her way:

Aaron had a wonderful birthday week to celebrate his 28th birthday!

We started early by celebrating with his Dad & Dee Dee and his siblings on  Saturday since they were in town.  We also celebrated Halloween so he probably doesn't count it as a birthday celebration.  We met at a pumpkin patch and the kids picked out pumpkins.

Daddy & Nora picking a pumpkin

The girls: Nora, Ellie, & Hayley

She still LOVES 'chairs'!

Then, everyone came over to our house to cook, eat, and paint pumpkins.

It was CRAZY & left a HUGE mess!

After everyone finished painting we sang to Aaron & had Oreo ice cream cake and a cookies & cream cake. Nora was happy to sing to and sit with Daddy to help him eat!

Blowing out his candles!

She LOVES sitting with Daddy!

On Wednesday (Aaron's actual birthday) we met Aaron's Mom (She goes by grandma but the way the kids say it sounds more like gram.mah), Aaron's sisters (Christie & Rachael), and Rachael's kids (Hayley, Ellie, Tyler, & Aiden) at Cici's.  Aaron's typical birthday request is pizza.  Easy, huh?  I didn't take any pictures though.  We looked about the same as we did in last year's pictures. =)  During the day Nora & I decorated the front door for his birthday.  Of course, that means he went through the garage and missed it all.

Our front door.  The colors are paint samples with 28 things we love about Aaron on the back of each.

Our hidden cupcake.  Newest family tradition.  You get to find in on your birthday with some kind of  treat/surprise in it.  This had 28 more things we love about Aaron.

On Thursday, we celebrated with my Mom & Steve.  Steve picked the perfect place...Red Lobster.  Aaron has been oooh-ing and ahhh-ing over the endless shrimp commercials.  It was my first time there.  Yes, those biscuits were good.  My recommendation...don't get the steak.  Haha.  I'm not in love with shrimp.  Aaron loved every bite of it!  Nora's favorite part was probably the lobster tank.

Aaron & Nora at Red Lobster

On Friday we wrapped up the birthday week by going out with April & Travis.  They took us to a Mexican restaurant.  You can never go wrong with Mexican.  Lucky me, that followed up with a little quick shopping!

Aaron is one lucky guy!  He made out like a bandit on his birthday with new clothes and shoes.  (He definitely needed them if you've ever seen him at work with holes in his pants & shoes!)  He is the absolute best!  While I stay home and play (among lots of cleaning up messes) with Nora, he's out there working very hard for us!  Nora & I love him so much and are happy to celebrate his birthday for a whole week!  Heck, we'd celebrate it for 2 weeks if he wanted...he's that good to us!  We love you, Aaron!!