I had a great birthday. Our battery was completely dead on our car so I was stranded at home and I had a classes from 5 pm until 9:30 pm including a mid-term, but that couldn’t keep me down. I forgot to turn my phone back on from class the night before so all my well wishes were met with my voice mail. Our Realtor invited me out to lunch but I didn’t get the message until AFTER lunch time. I traded off care for Eden with Chad and headed to class. When I went to turn off my phone I noticed all the missed calls and was able to listen to everyone’s well wishes. I loved it! I felt so great. I did well on my final, and came home to a fantastic surprise from Chad. I do not know how we started our little tradition of puzzles and scavenger hunts but I hope it never ends! I know how we started doing puzzle hunts–it’s because we never know what gifts to give each other. So in the absence of good presents, we have to invent good distractions. 🙂 I’ll take the distractions any day! Chad must have spent forever on his brain teasers this year. We’ll post the originals so you can try and decipher the clues! Thanks to my mom I got sung to on Monday and Tuesday, she was a little early this year. John said his gift to me was to not sing on his message but then he called back and sang a solo anyway. I am not sure what to think of that. Daniel called just as I was getting into class. My great friends sent me notes. Grandmas sent cards. Turning 27 is pretty great when you have so many people to help make it that way.

News flash! We just found out from a Facebook post that the Elton John & Billy Joel concert tomorrow is postponed. It won’t happen until February. We were so excited for it! Stupid Facebook!

Eden sometimes gets frustrated when we don’t understand her, I think. One day she was sitting in her booster seat and she wanted to leave the table. She started screeching and flapping her hands. (When she tries to do the baby sign for “I’m done,” it looks like she is trying to take flight). So I told her to wait, and “exercise your patience muscles.” Then I flexed for her and said, “Ugggh!” But she imitated me right back. (She doesn’t imitate us very often yet). Ever since then, she has had the idea that it’s socially acceptable to say “Ugggh!” and clench her fists to show that she doesn’t want to be patient. 🙂 It looks like she’s throwing a tantrum to end all tantrums, but really she’s just trying to do what I accidentally taught her.

We had dinner with our friends JB and Hillary tonight. Eden wandered around their house and played with their kids. She is so easy to take care of. At church we don’t have to worry about her much because of all the families around us that take her in. She just walks right up to people, and sometimes they start playing with her, and then we don’t see her for half an hour. Wouldn’t it be great if all our kids were that easy?

Halloween was spooktacular this year! (Let’s see how many cheesy references we can make). We drove up to Booise to celebrate with Jeff, Sarah, Sophia and Jane. Sarah fed us very well and Eden had SO much fun playing with her cousins.

We started Saturday off with an impromptu trip to get the H1N1 vaccine. I felt like such a hypocrite, since I have been joking about all the people who are going all overboard with freakiness about it. I thought it was funny that our little family outing was to go get shot up with small doses of Swine Flu.

Jeff and Sarah have a sweet neighborhood for trick-or-treating. It was very family-friendly and was so much fun to go out with the cousins. Eden and Jane liked seeing the neighborhood dogs (he means werewolves) more than the candy. We were all bugs. Chad was a plump bumblebee who was on his deathbed (no stinger left). I was a moth, (I just decided that). And Eden borrowed a grrreat ladybug costume from the girls. Jane was a flower and Sophia was a bootiful peacock. We had a fabulous time together.