Birthday

I had a birthday! Gavin surprised me with breakfast in bed which consisted of chocolate chip pancakes and eggs. He also learned a new song on the guitar for me, but I'm not going to tell you which song it is because it's a teenage girl song and I should be embarrassed that I like it. :) It wasn't his top choice of songs to learn but he did it because he knew I liked it. It was really sweet. Emery celebrated by devouring a cupcake:

Yep. She was all over that.

We got new couches for my birthday and I am so excited to have a nice place for people to sit when they come and visit! It felt like we looked at every furniture store within 50 miles and finally found the ones we wanted. So, EVERYBODY, y'all are officially invited over to the Giraud's house, to sit on our couches and...lay on our couches...and that's pretty much it because we don't have much else. Maybe if you're lucky Emery will share a treat with you while you're here, but you might have to fight her for it. Look at that face. She ain't messin' around. 

Primary fun

I got this sweet card from a little girl in Primary last week. It totally made my day!

Giraud is a hard last name and I love that you can tell she was trying her hardest to sound it out. Droid and Durad! So cute.

Another funny primary story: The music leader before me taught the children the song, "Nephi's Courage" by making up a lot of hand signs to help them remember the words. It worked well and the kids knew the whole song when I got in. As the program approached I didn't want to use all the actions as I thought it might be distracting, but the kids loved them so much so I kept a few for the chorus, which are as follows:

Nephi was courageous (PUT HANDS ON HIPS, LOOK COURAGEOUS) this was his reply,
I will GO I will DO (ON GO AND DO SWING ARMS IN FRONT OF YOU IN DETERMINED FASHION like a mini fist pump in front of your body)
The things the Lord commands...

It was cute and they did a great job looking righteous and determined. I didn't think too much about what they kids thought the actions meant, but realized my mistake later when Gavin related a conversation he had with one of the men in our ward who has a few kids in primary. One of his kids is a very energetic 5 year old boy, we'll call him Jason. Jason's dad told Gavin the following (paraphrased):

"Your wife does a great job in Primary, she taught the kids all these actions for the song and they know it really well (*sidenote, I didn't teach them...but apparently I'm taking the credit*). Jason thinks it means they are punching people in the face so he has an angry look on his face." I laughed so hard when Gavin told me that because Jason always is VERY enthusiastic about the actions, and he typically doesn't sing at all. But he puts his heart and soul...and his fists...into the chorus every time. Whatever it takes to get them excited I guess.

Little purple dress

Emery had on a very pretty dress today for church and Tiffany had me take some pictures of her in our front yard when we got home.  She is growing up so fast but Sundays are really good for me, I can spend the whole day with her.  I love it.

Craft night

We recently had our Relief Society craft night and I'm so excited that I actually finished a craft I started. Before you get too excited for me, know that I DIDN'T finish it that night, which would have really been impressive and deserving of applause, but I did finish within a week after craft night. I'm almost done with the wooden Christmas tree I signed up for too, just needs some hot glue here and there and I'll be done with it. 

I'm getting excited for Christmas. I usually try to keep the excitement reigned in until after Thanksgiving, but I've had to take a lot of trips to Hobby Lobby in the past few weeks and all that exposure to Christmas decorations has made it impossible to keep focused! Who can resist all the pretty, sparkly, reds and greens, and the intricate nativities? Not me!

Idaho girl

You can take the girl out of Idaho, but you can't take Idaho out of the girl.

Emery sucking on a raw potato.

No mom, it isn't weird to eat raw potatoes.

Pumpkin patch 2

I forgot to post these pictures when I posted about our pumpkin patch visit. For someone who doesn't like grass, Emery sure loved playing in the hay.

Halloween miracles

This year was the most fun I've had on Halloween in probably 10 years. The main reason was because I witnessed a miracle: Gavin dressed up for Halloween. Can you believe it?!?! Ever since we've been married he's always talking about how he doesn't like Halloween and he would balk at even the mention of costumes. I give the credit to Emery, that little girl can make anyone do anything. Here is a picture of us at our church's Trunk-or-Treat

The mad scientist, her adorable hunchbacked assistant Igor, and Frankenstein. What a good sport Gavin is! Doesn't he look AWESOME?! And Emery is making a good Igor face, caught her in a blink I think but it fits perfectly. You can't see her hunch very well in this picture, but it was there. 

Little Igor

Emery makes the cutest pouty faces these days. And yes, I do point and laugh every time she does them. 

Halloween was also amazing this year because I got to hand out candy from my own front door. I was so excited but failed to realize that we are the last street in our neighborhood and there is quite a bit of construction going on around us so we don't look very promising candy-wise. But we did have about 15 or so groups come around so I was happy. And we have left over Dubble-bubble so Gavin is also very happy (can you believe someone actually LIKES that nasty stuff?!). Here is a picture of us on Halloween night. Emery looks even cuter in this costume.