I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers

October! My favorite month of the year (plus December- it's a tie)! I love that Rory's birthday comes the very first week of the month because it feels like it sneaks up on us every year and I love the excitement. We kicked off the festivities this year by letting her open one of her presents two days early. She got a new Rapunzel dress and crown which she proudly wore to Rebecca's princess birthday party. Ada tagged along but she was much less enthusiastic about her Tinkerbell costume. Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty came to the party and the girls were in heaven. I loved watching Rory clamor to tell them all the things she knows about them. She was so excited to be matching with Rapunzel and she excitedly interrupted their story time to tell them about the big princess book that she has that has TWO pages of Sleeping Beauty but only one page of Rapunzel (poor Rapunzel). The princesses read the girls a story, painted their faces and hands, gave them all make overs, and then had a princess dance party. The only thing better than a princess party is a princess party you didn't have to pay for! 

 A little last minute I was asked to make a cake for Rebecca's birthday party and it turned out so cute. I did a pink velvet cake with strawberry buttercream and it would be hard to say who was more excited about all the edible glitter I used on it, the little girls at the party or me. 

Right after the princess party we headed home to clean up, pack up, and head out for Grandma and Pop Pop's house! We woke up in the morning to watch General Conference (or as Stephen likes to call it, "golf") and finish up some last minute birthday party prep. After the afternoon session the boys returned from golf and were immediately set to work picking up sodas and pizzas and setting up the pinata. The Nielsens were in Rockville with some friends from California and they took a break to come and celebrate with us. John and Ashleigh drove up from Las Vegas for the weekend too, and lucky Nate and Linne get to be in St George all the time. Once all the cousins had made it to the house we sent the kids to the pool, where they all played in the hot tub because the pool wasn't heated and we have a big bunch of desert babies in this crew. 

Scarlet gave Ada lots of love and attention, which was wonderful because the only thing that girl wanted to do was play in the hot tub! The pizza and soda arrived and everyone had their fill and then some. After the kids swam a little longer we broke out the pinata. Out of all the designs (unicorn, lama, donut, mermaid, etc...) Rory chose the treasure chest which was just kind of awesome to me. All the kids were able to take a swing at the pinata and I think it was Rhode who finally broke it open. The kids ran for the candy while Rory spent her time gathering as many Doc McStuffins tattoos as she could. I had filled the pinata with 75 tattoos and none of the other kids were interested in them so as many as she could gather ended up being a lot. Ada happily sat in the pile and helped hand out the floor goodies to anyone who would look at her. 

After opening WAY too many presents (note to self- we do not have enough room in our house to ever throw her another birthday party again) it was time to tuck in to her cake! I had been planning this cake in my mind just for the entire year and I was so happy with how it turned out! I agonized over whether to try to assemble the cake at the Marshes house or make it at my house and try to transport it safely. In the end I decided to risk the transportation because I can turn in to kind of beast when I'm in the thick of making a cake and I didn't want my in laws to see me like that! Thankfully we had no issues transporting the cake and it looked even more beautiful in their kitchen than it did in mine! The cake was a butter cake with raspberry lime curd and an orange and strawberry buttercream and the theme was unicorn Doc McStuffins. 

We had to sleep off all the sugar and birthday excitement, but thankfully Conference Sunday is the best day to do that. She was able to open her presents from us, a Doc McStuffins doctor kit, Elsa nightlight, dance leotards, and a Fancy Nancy unicorn book. She was a little disappointed that she didn't look any different when she woke up on her birthday. She kept saying, "I don't even look like a four year old!" but then she also kept saying, "It's my birthday so I get to do whatever I want, right?" I felt so happy watching her celebrate and seeing her capacity to be gracious and patient even with all of the attention and excitement. 

We stayed to play on Monday and we were able to check out Nate and Linne's new house. It is gorgeous and stocked to the brim with super cool house features, so we can't wait to spend more time there. On Tuesday Stephen went golfing and I left the kids with Lucina while I took off hunting for an outfit for myself for our upcoming family pictures. It was a bit of an ordeal, but in the end I finally found something. We stopped for drinks, got the birthday girl her own (which we learned was a mistake about the third time we stopped for the bathroom) and headed back to regular life with our newly minted four year old.

 

Because I'm a little bit of psycho I set up a little birthday play date with Rory's friends so she could celebrate with them too. I let the girls decorate cupcakes with the leftover frosting from Rory's cake and then we did a treasure hunt around the house to find the little birthday goodie bags I put together. We watched a Barbie movie and painted nails and ate a special birthday lunch of chicken nuggets and french fries. 

We finally had some family pictures done on our own (that we paid for like real adults!) and they turned out so great. I was a little nervous, but now I'm so happy we did them. We ended the night with Handel's and McDonald's (in that order) because after all the stress of getting outfits ready for pictures I just couldn't even deal. 

Rory started a Parks and Rec Gymnastics class and she is so excited to finally be a "trimastics girl" as she calls it. After her first class we went home, put Ada down for a nap, and took off for Vertucchio farms for our annual play date with the Bartons. It was hot, once again, but I was the most prepared I have ever been. We still ran out of water and the day ended up feeling too long, but the kids loved the barrel ride and I channeled my inner David Earl and got us a watermelon lemonade even though it was too expensive and it did make us all happier. It's crazy to see how much these girls grow each year!

FINALLY it was time to celebrate our favorite guy! For the first time ever Stephen let me make a big deal of his birthday and I was in heaven! He took the afternoon/ evening off from work and we took the girls to Uptown Jungle. Ada loved it as much as we thought she would and Rory quickly conquered her sudden fear of the big slides with the help of her dad. 

We stopped by Chick fil A on the way home and quickly scarfed it down while Stephen opened up his presents because I had to take off for mutual. We got him some new headphones (because I manage to ruin every pair he has ever owned), blue sunglasses (chosen by Rory), a book that Rory made for him and a picture for our bathroom that is my new favorite decoration in the house. It features pictures of Rory's bare bum in all our favorite places so it may not be appropriate to share online haha. I left them to eat the cake while I rushed off to the church, but Stephen texted me to say that it was the best banana cream pie cake he had ever had. 

I phoned it in for Halloween this year because, frankly, I am tired and family pictures took all my caring about clothing energy. Rory decided to be a unicorn which was fantastic since she had a gorgeous unicorn costume from Grammy. I took the girls to do Halloween pictures with Jax and Rory was the best behaved I ever seen her in front of a camera. I can't stop looking at these pictures, I love them too too much!

Ada on the other hand was apparently ticked that I made her dress up in Rory's hand me downs and had no desire to be Marie. She cried and screamed so hard it was embarrassing. We left in defeat and I cried a little when we got home because I felt so frustrated by the situation. But then we got the pictures and I laughed SO HARD. 

Sometimes the best memories are the worst ones? I don't know, but I know that I am going to be laughing at these pictures for many Halloween's to come. 

For Halloween we threw our own fall festival at the Avery's house. It was a lot of work and pretty exhausting but the kids loved it. We paused before cleanup to take the girls trick or treating to a few houses and it was impressive to see what people came up with in this Covid era of holidays. Now if you will excuse, I need to go nap for a year. 

Septiembre

In September I finally did something I have been wanting to do for a while- I started my own dance class! I teach on Wednesdays just in the main room of our house and I surprised myself with how excited I was about it. I got a group of Rory's friends to be my first to try it out, and it went better than I could have imagined. This month we did a Princess themed ballet class and each week we have a different prop and theme: flowers, fairies, princesses, and mermaids. 

The first weekend of September we headed to Las Vegas for an overdue visit with John and Ashleigh. We drove down late on a Thursday night. While the men worked on Friday, Ashleigh and I took the kids to Shark Reef, which I hadn't been to before. Siena did insist on wearing her little mermaid costume and we got a lot of compliments for it. That night we tried to watch the new Mulan movie, but the internet at their house was struggling so instead of enjoying it on their newly mounted TV (done expertly by Stephen) we ended up just going to bed. 

Saturday we got Pinkbox donuts (drooling just thinking about it) and stayed home and let the kids run wild. Later in the afternoon we went out to a little creek in the middle of nowhere and collected rocks and caught crawdads and frogs. We had our work cut out for us trying to keep Ada from eating rocks and leaves and trying to keep Lincoln from throwing rocks at anybody. Rory and Siena adventured on their own in their own little universe. We picked up Costco pizza on the way home and it was the best little adventure. 

The weather is starting to cool down in Arizona, but it's still pretty warm here. We've tried a couple of walks and park days, and they usually end with very red-faced babies. We finally checked out a new splash pad, it's a little far from our house so we hadn't been before, and it turned out to be amazing. The girls loved it so much we went twice in a week. Ada loves the water and I love watching her bear crawl around. Rory spends all her time sliding down the pirate ship slide. Ada pulled herself up on this fence to get a better look at the ducks, and then got distracted chewing on the fence. How this baby has not gotten Covid yet is beyond me. 

One Sunday I was able to take a luxurious nap while Stephen took the girls. Rory took my phone on a little picture taking adventure, and I love the results so so much that I need to encapsulate them forever in this book. Here is the installation I entitled "Lazy Sunday" by Florence Marsh. 
 

Fruit she picked off the tree prematurely and then hid in her little hideout. 

She pulled off her bandaid to take a picture of her owie. 

Ada in the dirt. 

Then she added dirt to her head because of course she did. 

An action shot of her kicking Ada. You can feel the love they have for each other. 

Surprisingly good picture of our clementine tree, and this is probably the one she picked to hide in her clubhouse. 

Rocks piled on the swing. I thought it was an artistic choice but she later informed me that those were her babies and she was pushing them on the swing. 

A good one of Ada finally! Proof she loves her some of the time. 

An array of our back porch treasures and some cute little photographer toes. 

The bracelet she recently got back from Naomi after leaving it at her house for months and months. 

And last but not least, her favorite subject of all, Dad. Coming in clutch with the silly faces. 

Dance class has been a huge hit and I love seeing how excited Rory gets about helping me with it. She was definitely feeling herself on mermaid week. One night she got in trouble because she kept coming out of her bed and one of the times I tried to send her back she said, "But this is very important! Maybe at dance class we can pretend to be Cinderella and have our dress changing and we can twirl! Sound good?" 

Marisa asked me to make a cake for Graham's birthday party at the end of this month and I was so excited to try it out. I made a peanut butter graham cracker cake and decorated it to go with his race car themed party. It definitely took a while, but I was so happy with how it turned out and it tasted amazing. Stephen is always a huge help with my design ideas and he totally came up with the grass drip and the checkered flag collar at the bottom. It was fun to be at the party and here people oohing and aahing over the cake before they knew that I was the one who made it! 

On the last Wednesday of the month we had a little show for our moms to show off the princess dance they learned. I taught them a ballet combination to "I See the Light" and it turned out adorable. I am excited to see what this next month of dance has in store for us!