Ever's Frozen Birthday Party!

I knew the day was coming when Ev would want to start picking her own Halloween costumes and birthday party themes. I was hoping I'd have one more year of getting to chose but alas, girlfriend knows what she wants. And what she wants right now is Frozen EVERYTHING. So when she informed us she wanted to dress up in a Frozen costume for Halloween and wanted a Frozen birthday party a week later, we rolled with it. Instead of trying to talk her out of a character party I made it my mission to give her the Frozen party of her dreams while somehow making it not ugly and/or cheesy. Luckily for me there exists Pinterest. And Etsy and Cheryl and Abby who made it all happen.

I've wanted to try out a hot chocolate bar for so long and this Frozen party was the perfect excuse! This recipe killed.

  I got the cutest little snowman building kits here for party favors!

And the best part was we arranged for a surprise visit from Elsa who came and sang and danced and played games with the girls. Their little faces when she knocked on the door made all the effort worthwhile. I mean, look at Eden's smile here!!! Gah!

 Ev was in shock, haha

Thanks to Cheryl for the perfectly simple Frozen cake and cupcakes she executed superbly and to Abby for the adorable snowflake cut out cookies she nailed. And to everyone who helped me cut out 376374657 paper snowflakes to string around the house and tape in every window. (My house is the first on the street to look ready for Christmas ;) But most of all thanks to all our family and friends who came to celebrate our sweet girl on her birthday and who love her so well every other day of the year.

Some Photos from this Fall

Fall came late this year to Ohio. Most of October was hot -- too hot to feel like fall. We went apple picking and lamented the sunscreen we forgot at home as we sweltered under the sun. So we delayed pumpkin picking until the weekend before Halloween. This, as it turned out, was the weekend mother nature decided to skip fall altogether and go straight to winter. You just can't win with Ohio weather. Below are some photos of our freezing trip to the pumpkin patch and the corn maze. All I can say is I hope for better luck in the weather department next year. This wasn't our finest hour ;)

 

It was so cold out that we had the pumpkin patch to ourselves and pumpkins were half off! (aka they were so picked over they felt bad charging us full price). And no one even bothered to man the corn maze entrance so we got to go through that for free. Perks of going way to late in the season, I guess?

 Josh decided about half way through the maze to let Ever direct us the rest of the way. Honestly, she did just as good a job guessing as any of us. We made it out!

Wes's little friend Micah joined us for pumpkin carving this year. Oren abstained as usual. He can't handle the pumpkin guts so he just directed the rest of us on how he would like his pumpkins to be carved.

 these cuties.

We had another successful trick or treat and we had so much fun really dressing the house up this year. The pressure is real on Highland Ave to have the house looking Halloween ready. It's my favorite day of the year for our neighborhood who goes ALL OUT on the Halloween décor. This year we added lights, a fog machine and sound effects.

 2017 costumes: a ninja, Star Lord and Anna (of course) - perfect choices for each of them.

 

Next up turkey, trees and allllll the Christmas music. I can't wait!

 

Ever's Three Year Photos

 

Three.

 

 

 

photos by Katie Ardner