Good times

Phoebe celebrated her sixth birthday in style: she invited her Primary teachers to come over for a bingo night. They have an awesome bingo game that they shared with us.

Phoebe requested the ginger chocolate cake again. I realized I was out of yellow cake mix a bit too late so used chocolate instead. It was a hit: double chocolate plus ginger is amazing.

Phoebe got a mailbox for her birthday. She was eyeing one at the Postal Museum this summer. Now we write letters to each other. 

We had a more kid-crazy birthday party a week later. We had a ninja turtle party with an obstacle course, a pizza toss game, a pin-the-mask-on-the-turtle game, and a piñata of course. Phoebe threw a toddler-sized tantrum when she wasn't the first one in line to hit the piñata (we lined up shortest to tallest), so she still has some growing up to do. Turns out it didn't matter who went first. We went through the line twice and the piñata was still intact, so we let the adults have at it...

Phoebe's kindergarten teacher stopped by the party and was the hero that busted the piñata open.

In other developments, Bruce is learning to play the trumpet at school. Unfortunately it also requires practice at home. The kids love it. Me, not so much.

We celebrated Halloween for about two weeks. There was a party at church with trunk-or-treating and a chili cook off. I signed up to bring chili because I was worried there wouldn't be enough food (everyone was signing up to bring desserts!). I don't often make chili so I searched online for a recipe that morning, made it up and substituted some ingredients that I didn't have. At the end, I tasted it and almost couldn't swallow it because it was so spicy. I threw in a bunch of corn and beans and hoped for the best. Somehow I won the cook off, which was seriously shocking. I won a pair of golden salad tongs that look like bird feet. Awesome.

For trick-or-treating, Bruce was a "Jedi ambassador." He had a cape and a light saber, but most importantly he had a candy bag. He didn't really care about what he was for Halloween; he just wanted candy. Phoebe wanted to be an Incredible, so she wore Bruce's costume from a few years ago. Oliver was also indifferent to the costuming part of things, so he wore scrubs trick-or-treating. He loved it and learned to shout "TRICK OR TREAT!"

We also trick-or-treated at the fire station, so Oliver dressed as a firefighter for the occasion. Phoebe wouldn't be persuaded to dress as a firefighter; she said she was already an Incredible. Indeed.

Oliver loved getting the candy and having his own candy bag, but he actually doesn't care about eating the candy that much. He just likes having it. He has dumped out his candy and counted it, sorted it, and redistributed it many times.