It's official, Joey is now 9 years old! 

We started his birthday celebration with a slumber party with a few of his closest friends. They came over right after school on Friday and played all afternoon. Joey wanted to show them Huckleberry, the video game Andy is making. It's not done yet, but Andy has gotten it to the point where you can play it, and Joey loves showing it to all of his friends that come over. The kids always LOVE playing it.

Here's the boys from left to right: Josh, Joey, Thomas, Adler, Colton 

I have to say that I am always impressed with the friends Joey picks. They are all so sweet, polite and well-behaved. It's always enjoyable having them all over.

After the boys played video games and told jokes inside, they played football and Three Flies Up.

They even had an audience/cheerleaders. As soon as Andy got home (with the pizza!) we did a pinata  really fast before it got dark, and then came in to eat.

We realized that orange soda + pinata candy + ice cream cake = kids who need to run around, so after we ate we sent them back outside to play Ghost in the Graveyard in the dark for about an hour. That was a big hit!

Joey opened presents.

Then they all snuggled in to watch Space Jam.

Saturday night my parents came over for Joey's birthday dinner (Joey requested Cream Cheese Potato Soup and grilled cheese sandwiches) for dinner and to give him their present.

They got him a Jurassic World Lego set. Can you tell he's excited?

And another slice of ice cream cake! Poor Octavian didn't get any.

Tuesday was his real birthday, and look what he got...a fever! He was a little bummed to miss school on his birthday, but then he realized it meant he could stay home, play video games, and watch TV all day, and he became very upbeat about the whole thing. It helped that his fever was really short-lived and he felt fine for most of the day. 

That night for dinner, we headed to In-N-Out for dinner.

Trying each other's milkshakes.

For his birthday, we went on our annual trip to Target so Joey could pick out a present. Except this year, he decided to combine it with some of his own money. He got some birthday money from several people, and combined it with his allowance and other money he'd earned to have one big birthday bonanza. So this is the stack he ended up with, and he couldn't have been more thrilled.

All that to say, Joey had a wonderful birthday!

We didn't go to Bates Nut Farm last year when Hannah was in half-day kindergarten because it's too far to drive to have to be back by noon, so I wanted to make sure we went this year. We went with our neighbor friend, Kaya (2 1/2) and her mom.

The girls loved collecting the corn scattered on the ground and feeding it to the sheep.

Is your Mama a Llama?

We let the girls pick one ride to go on and they chose the ponies.

We also gave them a free wheelbarrow ride!

Then we went to check out the pumpkins.

Oh, the many poses of Ellie!

She's officially a ham!

Jazz hands!

Don't they look like little pumpkin thieves?

I always love looking back at our old visits to Bates Nut Farm: 2013, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008

This is going to be a longer camera dump than usual...

My mom comes and watches Ellie for me every Friday so I get to help in the kids' classrooms. Joey's teacher has these pictures of the kids up in her classroom.

Hannah sometimes gets to come over and read to me when I'm in her classroom helping. By the way, the outfit she's wearing? It's one of her favorites right now!

Thursday mornings, three other moms and I have a little playgroup. We take turns dropping off our girls at each other's houses. So, three Thursdays a month I have a morning to myself, and once a month I host five little girls.

Ellie really loves playing with them, especially the oldest girl. They are buds.

They are honestly the sweetest group of girls!

After we went to the Wild Animal Park by ourselves, a week later we met up with some friends from church. I just love her and her sons, and we had such a great time together. I'm so glad we both have passes!

Hannah and Ellie love to "style" Andy's hair.

Then apparently Ellie likes to pose with him. Can you tell which girl has a flair for drama and which one is a little more shy (aka not pictured)?

The kids had been looking forward to "Picture Day" since the beginning of school. Actually, as soon as Joey got his ring bearer outfit this summer he decided to wear it for picture day. Hannah said, "Picture Day is the best day of the year because everyone gets dressed up all fancy!"

I had to take this picture of Hannah's soccer team all lined up because she's a head taller than everyone else on her team. It cracks me up!

Speaking of soccer, Ellie and I have spent a lot of time under our new "Sport-Brella" as it's been another roasting hot soccer season. This umbrella has been a lifesaver. Why did it take me so long to buy it?!

Recently, I randomly learned how to french braid hair. I've been having fun trying out different styles on the girls' hair. Hannah is very picky about her appearance so she doesn't love everything I've tried, but overall she's THRILLED that I can actually braid her hair in fancy ways.

We had our first rainy day so Joey came down looking like this. I think the high for the day was still in the 70's so his "rain gear" made me laugh."

Saturday morning cartoons with Octavian. He's fitting in very well with our family!

This girl is NOT a cuddler, so Andy was soaking up the rare snuggles!

Then things got goofy!

Awww, two Daddy's girls.

They are both pretty silly!

We went back to the zoo a couple of weeks ago, this time we went back to Legoland!

Our passes expired about a year ago, but for some reason Legoland sent us two free guest passes that they normally only send to members.

We went with my friend Cori. Her youngest and Ellie are friends so it worked out well.

 The girls loved the new "Lego Friends" carousel!

 The new Lego Friend area was really fun to see. They had a stable area with lots of Legos out to build.

Ellie got to sit with the Lego Friends,

 but then she got to meet the REAL girls!

We saw a short 4D Lego movie. She seemed to love it, but later she said it was too scary.

Here's Ellie on the same pumpkin a year ago! (Scroll to the very end of the post.)

This was the first time Ellie could ride on the horse ride. She was a fan.

She also loved her old favorites, like this swing (although she barely fit in it),

the boat ride,

the cars,

and the helicopter ride.

Her two favorite rides by far were the airplanes...

and the "Beetle Bounce."

When we got back to the car Ellie said, "Wow! I had a busy day!" Sure enough she fell asleep on the way home and stayed sleeping in the garage for about half an hour.