Sarah's birthday, Part I

Sarah's sixth birthday was 10 days ago, but we finally got around to the day we had planned to have some of her classmates and friends over to our house for a birthday party! Here's mommy and Sarah with the "cupcake cake" mommy ordered from Target.


Daddy and Sarah.










One of the first guests to show up was Sammi, who went to two years of preschool with Sarah in Maple Grove. They hadn't seen each other in about 10 months!








The gang's all here! We ended up having six of Sarah's guests arrive, and we also invited Hailey, the two-year-old sister of Sienna, to stay and have fun with us. We had pizza, Hawaiian Punch and cupcakes!


Alyssa and Erin had some fun making faces.

Sarah's birthday party, Part II

Here's Sarah teaching little Hailey, age 2, how to make a funny face. Hailey got to ride on the shoulders of Sarah's dad, too!




Here's our group of princesses. We had a Barbie party, and everyone received a pink boa and a jeweled crown to take home, along with some candy and party items.


We did a pinata, of course, and it took quite a while for the girls to break it open. After everyone had had about three turns with the stick, Erin finally ripped it open and the girls rushed in to grab the treats.


Sarah's cake!










Sarah successfully blew out her candle without lighting her hair on fire. Always a plus!

No training wheels!

Dad took the training wheels off of Sarah's bicycle last week and worked with her on riding around the cul-de-sac. Didn't take long before she had the hang of it and was riding around without daddy running beside her! She's fallen a few times, and even bruised her tailbone once, but she always hops right back on.

Sarah lost her first tooth!

Sarah lost her first baby tooth on Friday night! She had a wiggly bottom front tooth, then went to bite into one of Daddy's Valentine's Day chocolates and it got REALLY loose. So Sarah let mommy twist it the rest of the way out.


The tooth.










The Tooth Fairy visited Sarah last night and brought her a gold dollar coin.










Extreme close-up!














Moby is mad because he slept too hard and missed seeing the Tooth Fairy.

We're still alive

Christmas 2011 (part 1)

Christmas 2011 (part 2)

Christmas 2011 (part 3)

Trick or Treat!

It's Halloween night! Here are some of the seven pumpkins we carved!






Sarah went trick-or-treating with mommy and her neighborhood friend, Lissie.






Lucas was the only one of the boys to go out trick-or-treating. Noah and Caleb decided they would rather hang out with their girlfriends. ;-)

Pumpkin carving; School dance

The boys, their friend Tristin and Sarah got busy with the pumpkin carving.






"Ewwww, GROSS! Pumpkin guts!" Sarah couldn't get enough, and had to carve two pumpkins.






Sarah got to meet Captain Jack Sparrow at her first-ever school dance last week! She was shy, and daddy had to do just a little convincing to get her to take a photo with the pirate.


Is Grandpa helping Sarah eat her pizza, or is he showing her his new manicure?




Sarah and a few of her kindergarten classmates sure enjoyed their first school dance.

Gearing up for Halloween

We went to pick out pumpkins at Dehn's Pumpkin Patch in Dayton last week, and Sarah got to meet the perfect Halloween kitten! Luckily, we didn't have to bring him home with us!


"Cheeeeese!" It was quite the effort to get Sarah to hold still for this photo ... she really wanted to get out into the field and pick out pumpkins!


The Princess and the Pumpkin ... Patch.












"Pull faster, dad!"










Sarah's dance class even got into the Halloween spirit with a costume night last week. And candy, of course!