Daniel is one decade old!

Daniel had his birthday last week and turned 10!  We started off the weekend with one final visit to the oral surgeon for a checkup.  After Daniel's initial tooth trauma last month, he had to have three more teeth pulled, all on the top row.  Two were baby teeth that were pushing his remaining front tooth across his midline and preventing a permanent tooth from coming down.  One was an "extra tooth" that was mostly just a root, but it was also causing some problems.  So, he got them all out!  We've spent a lot of time at the oral surgeon's office lately.  Let me just say, if anyone needs a good oral surgeon around here, I've got a recommendation for you.

So, after the oral surgeon made sure that Daniel's remaining teeth looked fine (and they do, but he will be getting braces in a couple of months), I took Daniel to Deseret Book to let him pick out a birthday book.  He chose National Geographic Kids: Ultimate Weird But True.  After dinner, Daniel opened his other presents.  He was most excited about getting a Perplexus.  It reminds me of the old wooden labyrinth game we used to play at my grandma's house when I was a kid.

On Saturday, Daniel and Benjamin both performed for the judges at the duet piano festival.  We wanted to take Daniel out to eat somewhere special that night, and Daniel chose Taco Time.  Definitely not my first choice, but hey, he was the birthday boy.  I just hope Wayne chooses someplace else when it's his birthday in a few weeks. 

Daniel shares a birthday with two of his uncles, and we celebrated with one of them on Sunday.  Wayne's parents had us all over for ice cream cake.  Daniel got one of his favorite birthday wishes--he got to see his adorable baby cousin Ainsley again!

Here are the birthday boys!

Halloween

We always enjoy Halloween!  Here are some of the things we did:

We went to Rowley's Red Barn to get pumpkins.  We had never been there before, but we had heard it was fun. We went on a hayride out to the pumpkin patch to choose our pumpkins.  They also had an apple bin maze for the kids.  Just a warning: if you go after dark, take a flashlight.  We assumed there would be some sort of lighting at the pumpkin patch, but there isn't.  So, Benjamin was wandering around in this huge pumpkin patch and would exclaim every few minutes, "Hey, I found a pumpkin over here!"  He sounded like he was looking for Easter eggs.  Luckily, lots of other people there had flashlights, and we borrowed one so that we could choose some decent-looking pumpkins.

We carved the pumpkins a few days before Halloween.

And here we are on Halloween, all dressed up for trick or treating.  Last year, we probably only got about 60 trick or treaters because the weather was stormy. We had over 200 trick or treaters this year, and we nearly ran out of candy! 

Benjamin was a ninja.

Daniel refused to be anything "cute, gross, scary, or a profession."  So, we made him into I-15.

Wayne wasn't as excited about dressing up this year, so he pulled out his Perry the platypus shirt.

On the other hand, I like dressing up in elaborate costumes.  And all of the little girls oohing and ahhing over my costume when they came trick or treating made me happy.