Maddie's 11th birthday

We set up her presents with Birthday Bear in our family room so that she would see them as soon as she woke up.

I also had her cake out on the table. This is how it turned out.. and the picture she gave me of what she wanted .

I let her pick all the meals for her day, so breakfast was cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa. 

After breakfast she and I got ready and went out on an adventure together. We picked her up some Pokemon cards. 

Then we went to Barnes and Noble where she picked out a new book and got a free birthday cupcake. 

On our way home we picked up Little Caesar's pizza and breadsticks for lunch. She changed into Christmas jammies when we got home. 

In the afternoon, Grandma and Grandpa stopped by and we opened presents and had cake.

the first gift she opened up (in the morning) was the gift from Abi.

She made her some little stuffed animals. 

Her gifts

For dinner she wanted McDonald's. She got the 'big' meal of two cheeseburgers and fries. She wasn't able to finish the whole thing.... but she felt pretty special. 

 

Random November

As soon as November hit, I took down all of the Halloween decor (leaving up the generic fall stuff) and put out our few Thanksgiving things. 

Another small storm let Maddie play in the snow again. 

On a sunnier day, she and I planted daffodil bulbs.

We voted. 

We enjoyed watching the Young Women face to face. 

We waited to put up our main tree until after Thanksgiving, but I did put up my library tree in our library/bedroom. 

Abi wrote a book.

 

November Poetry Teatime

Our last week of school before winter break we had a Cranberry Thanksgiving themed poetry teatime with the cranberry bread from the book. 

 

Halloween

I started out the day with Maddie, pumpkin shaped waffles, and hot cocoa. Doug and Abi slept in, so we just had this time together. 

Then she and I read through the picture books that we hadn't got to yet. 

In the afternoon we visited my parents. Doug needed to help my mom with some computer stuff, so we went there to trick or treat. These pictures uploaded a bit out of order....

I realized while we were there that I hadn't taken any pictures of their costumes yet, so we took them at their house. 

Abi had a hard time coming up with a costume and finally decided to be the Hope Kingdom castle with the character Towa hanging out in the front of it. 

Maddie is Akari from an anime called Aikatsu. Her bear 'Angely bear' is part of the costume. 

After we went home, I set up the games for us to play. Since we weren't going trick-or-treating (besides my parents) I decided to make a very fun evening of games and then a candy scavenger hunt. 

The prizes..

For dinner we had the normal chili, but instead of breadsticks I made mummy hot dogs per Maddie's request. We also had some apple cider. 

The scavenger hunt....

I think they liked this better than going out because they only got their favorite kinds of candy. 

It ended up being a really fun Halloween.