Emma's 11th Birth-o-ween!

As many of you probably already know, Emma is our very prompt child, who arrived right on her due date eleven years ago.  Her due date being Halloween. 

At first, we had mixed feelings about her sharing her birth date with a busy, sugar-filled holiday, but when her baby hair came in bright red, we knew that she was the perfect one to be our pumpkin baby! 

Since those red-headed toddler days,  her hair has muted to a beautiful shade of light-brownish-red, and our sweet and thoughtful "tweenager"  is outgrowing her clothes and shoes faster than we can blink. 

When she was young, we'd go to friends' Halloween parties where, out of kindness, they would sing her the "Happy Birthday!" song and she'd be totally convinced that the whole party was for her.  It was a pretty sweet deal for us.  Then she got older and it got harder and harder to make it a special day for her.  We tried all kind of tricks...opening presents at breakfast time, since the evenings were always so crazy.  We'd make a cake for the weekend before her birthday, since eating cake before trick-or-treating always seemed a little like sugar death. 

This year, though, we got lucky.  She had her birthday planned out for months in advance.   Most parents might cringe at this kind of agenda, but me, not being a big party planner, LOVED IT! 

First, we had the family traditions...

Crepes for breakfast  (this time it was lunch), with eggs/bacon and Nutella/whipped cream,  cooked by Daddy....

Picking her favorite dinner.   She picked Navajo Tacos. 

Taking cupcakes to school, to share with her classmates...

After the family traditions were all done, it was time to put Emma's Birthday Plan into place....

Which included, inviting over just a couple of friends, to come in their costumes.

Making this cute patchwork pumpkin craft...

hitting a pinata (mommy's stipulation was that there not be anything edible in the pinata)...

eating an orange dinner + some mummy dogs....

A delicious jack-o-lantern cheesecake... (Her only request for her cake is that it be something pumpkiny and this one fit the bill doubly with the fact it was made with pumpkin and looked like a pumpkin.  She loved it! ) 

Next, we all went trick-or-treating...

Around the block and 2 cul-de-sacs was all we did...

but they made out like bandits...

It was a great day for her and I, personally, love the whole kid-planned party thing! 

Happy birthday to our Halloween sweetie!

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