Happy Birthday Em!

Emily turned five almost two weeks ago, and I'm finally getting pictures up. Better late than never, right? She had a fun birthday, just a quiet family affair, which was plenty because she got lots of presents! She wanted a heart cake with red and purple flowers on it, and fortunately we are at Grandma's house where there is a red velvet cake mix and heart-shaped pans. Perfect!! She loved it, and so did I because it was fairly easy. Too easy, since I procrastinated and was still frosting the cake while everyone was eating dinner. But it worked out. She had all her birthday meals planned out from birthday breakfast (oatmeal) to every bit of birthday dinner: bbq pork, rice, peas and carrots. She wanted to help with the cake and had fun mixing the batter and frosting the cake.

After dinner, she said presents first! (go figure) so she tore into all her gifts and was thrilled with every one! Then we ate cake and I was glad that she loved the flowers, even though the roses were a bit... mushed. Here she is with her cake and her booty... Thank you to everyone for her gifts, she really did love them all. I had to take a picture of Em and Kimmie with the crown and jewelry that Kimmie "gave" her. Kimmie was so excited to get these and wrap them up for her, and Em was excited to get them!

I have to say a bit about my Emily for memory's sake. I can't believe it has been five years, and I am constantly amazed at the incredible girl she is. I'd like to take some credit for that, but I don't think I can. She is so loving and kind to her little siblings, she is obedient (most of the time), she is so thoughtful (she's been learning about service in primary and has loved surprising me with cleaning up the room and making her bed, which is delightful), and she's smart as a whip. I can't believe she's going to school next year but I know she's ready for it and will love it. Sometimes I wish these kids would just stay young, but it is a delight to watch her grow up. I got a kick out of her inspecting her presents, and putting them up to her ear and shaking them to figure out what they are. I remember doing the same thing as a kid, but I don't think anyone taught her to do that, she's just using her powers of observation. Emily is such a great helper to me, and is always teaching me how capable she is. She loves to help feed Calvin at lunch, and keeps tabs on him and his michevious ways by hollering his name as loud as she can when he's doing something he's not supposed to. She and Kimmie are best friends and play really well together every day. Kimmie will miss her so much when she goes off to school next year! Emily is a fabulous artist and I think very logical and mathmatical because she has an innate sense for patterns and symmetry in her artwork. She is also very detailed and meticulous and wants everything to be just right. She is very creative and can make a plaything out of anything--including her fingers at dinner which drives me crazy sometimes... but it is also incredibe to watch the things she comes up with to play.

I love you, Emily, and I am so blessed to have you as my daughter. Your dad and I love you so much and are so proud of you. We hope we can be the parents you deserve and that we will be able to cultivate your many talents and help you become the incredible person that I see inside you. I know from experience how hard it can be to be the oldest child and oldest daughter, but I know that you were born first for a very specific reason, and that you will be able to be the example and trailblazer that your siblings (and your parents) need. I thank God everyday for my little Emily Rose.

Calvin

He's a boy. He's definitely a boy. And he's definitely different than the girls. How much has to do with gender wiring and how much is personality, I don't really know. But he keeps me busy. Today he found the pepper shaker, again, so I was vacuuming the kitchen, again. He also has a major temper, and everyone knows it when he doesn't get what he wants, immediately. He climbs on everything and has figured out how to climb into his high chair (my girls never did that! They never climbed on top of the table, either!). A night or two ago he woke up in the middle of the night and wouldn't go back to sleep. I left him in there to see if he would fall asleep again, and all he did was work himself into a major fit. He bangs his head on things when he's mad, so when I finally gave up and got him up before he gave himself a concussion, he had scuff marks on his forehead, and now has a scab the shape of the mesh sides of his playpen because he whacked his head so hard. I can't really figure out why he does this. Any ideas? How do I stop him without giving in to what he wants? I'm toying with the idea of keeping a watergun handy...
On the other hand, he loves to snuggle and hold my hand, which I love. He's starting to say words like "hot" and other random things (though the primary mode of communication is still point and grunt). This morning he lugged this huge unopened bag of diapers (there are about 50 in it) over to me, put them in my lap and started grunting. I picked him up and got a whiff and realized he was telling me he wanted his diaper changed! He loves to look at books, he loves to play chase and peekaboo and hide and seek. He's my sweet boy, I just need to figure out this temper of his! To give him a little slack, I will say he is cutting two molars (still, it takes like three weeks for this kid to cut a tooth), so maybe that has something to do with it? I love my kids, somebody just tell me how to get them to do what I want them to!!

Other news

John has a job. He started this week at an engineering firm in Fort Collins. Right now it's part time as they figure out what they want him to do and while it's "probationary" until the first of the year. After that, he'll switch to a full-time salaried employee and life hopefully will fall into place. It's an energy efficiency firm that does energy audits and other things on other buildings to try and help them conserve energy and save money and such. If you want more details, you'll have to ask John, because that's about as far as I understand it. He's excited about it, it's in the industry he wants, and for a salary that's fairly comparable to what he had before. So, cool. I must admit, I'd be more excited if it were full time right away and we could get a house NOW, but it is a great blessing and a great relief to have a direction to go. I'm excited about Fort Collins, I have been told great things about it and we already have friends there from BYU who say they love it. We are feeling very blessed. Now if I can just stop frothing at the bit to get into my own home, and be patient!! And yet, after this, I'm going to start looking at MLS listings in Fort Collins. :) "I want an oompa-loompa now!!!"

Halloween

I think I'll do one post about Halloween and save the rest for another.
Here are the severely overdue pictures of the big night(s):

Pumpkin Carving

Kimmie chose a baby pumpkin this year. Needless to say, hers was done first.

Calvin, in true boy fashion, loved scooping out the pumpkin goop!

Emily did her pumpkin almost entirely by herself this year. With close supervision, of course. She was extremely proud of herself.

The gang having a great time. That's Grandpa Butler watching in the back.


The finished products! With Grandma and Uncle Gary

Trying on costumes... this year was significantly less stressful for me since I wasn't making any full skirted princess dresses. The girls were fairies, with dresses made from oversized t-shirts. MUCH easier. I found Calvin's dragon costume at a garage sale, and felt extremely proud of the great deal I got. Plus, he looked adorable.

Had to get a picture of Calvin with his tail, it was so cute how it would start swinging side to side as he toddled around! I will have to post a video of it later... it's on the camera phone which I don't have right now. He actually wore the costume pretty well, he just didn't wear the hood for too long at the ward party.

The Butler Boys manning one of the games at the ward Halloween party.

The girls doing the bean bag toss. I was actually kind of surprised at how much they participated, but I guess they are growing up. Too fast for me.

I tried to get a picture of all three of them at the party... it didn't work too well. Oh well, I got a pretty good one Halloween night.

Candy candy candy! Calvin digging into his stash in the trunk, at the trunk or treat. He got tired of walking around and just wanted to eat the stuff.

All the kids in the trunk... Enjoying their haul!

Halloween night, post-trick or treating, as you can tell from Kimmie's sucker. John's hiding in the back because Calvin wouldn't hold still!

The kiddles. Oh, fyi... Emily is a heart fairy, Kimmie is a diamond fairy, and Calvin is a dragon. Everyone thought they were butterflies, but oh well. We had fun decorating the wings and the shirts. The girls had wands too, but they got lost by the time Halloween night arrived. Go figure. I still don't know where Kimmie's went. Oh well, they had a great time anyway. They got lots of candy, which is the important thing, right? :) I didn't stress about pacing their candy intake and just let them eat it however fast they wanted to. Em's was gone the next day, and Kimmie ended up giving me half of hers because she didn't want to pick it up off the floor (I had threatened to take it if she didn't clean it up, and she said, "That's okay Mom, you can have it." Ohhh-kay!) I think partly because she got sick of it. I think I'll keep this strategy! I was sure the kids would be sick after eating so much junk, but apparently not. And now, since the candy's gone, I'm not pestered every five minutes about whether they can have a piece! This is great!Happy Halloween!