Sienna's 3rd Birthday

We took Sienna to see Toy Story in 3D for her birthday. I was surprised when she sat through the entire movie. Dylan would not sit through the movie though. During intermission, we decided we couldn't stay for the second feature, Toy Story 2, but we can't wait for next summer when Toy Story 3 comes out!Abby came, too! Sienna received a BYU cheerleader outfit from her Aunt Jamie and she refuses to take it off!Since we moved out of San Francisco right before Sienna's birthday, we decided to come back to have a party in the city with her friends. We had it at the boat playground, a few blocks from our old apartment. It was a beautiful day and so fun to watch Sienna enjoy being with her friends. Here is my attempt to make a princess cottage:Blowing out the candles
Several of the girls helping Sienna open presentsA cute picture of Dylan and Rebecca. Rebecca made yummy vanilla cupcakes for the party.Friends and family spoiled this birthday girl
What a fun birthday!

Happy Halloween from my Little Butterfly and Sweet Lamb!

Who says 5:30 is too early to start trick or treating! We walked around our neighborhood for awhile waiting for it to get dark; it was a good way to meet our new neighbors. This girl was on a mission: to get candy. After each house, she wanted to stop and have a "picnic" so she could eat the candy.
Later, we met up with some friends and went trick or treating in a more "established" neighborhood.
Dylan, as usual, was just along for the ride and let us drag him around for a few hours.
Fortunately, Sienna's new friend enjoys holding hands as much as Sienna does. Too cute!

New Fireplace and Mantle

Jeff and his dad finished the fireplace over the weekend. They did the tile and built the mantle. Beautiful!

We moved...

...to the East Bay. I thought, just maybe, we would be one of those families who could make it in the City, but suburbia seems to be a better fit for us. With the housing market as it is, we started looking to buy a home, outside San Francisco. I really dragged my feet leaving the City; it has been our home for the past 8 years and we have so many wonderful friends there, many conveniences, our jobs, etc. After looking in several towns/cities, we found this townhouse in Danville. When we first looked at it, my initial reaction was, "not for us; too much work to do." But, my husband, a visionary man, saw it differently and convinced me otherwise. Fortunately, his dad is very handy and has done some amazing work on it already! After we closed, we had about 2 1/2 weeks before we moved in, so Jeff and his dad (and anyone else we could recruit) went to work. Here are some before photos:
Here are several after-a-lot-of-work photos:
They tore out all the tile and carpet downstairs and put in hardwood flooring, removed the fireplace and are in the process of building a new mantle, removed the popcorn ceiling from the entire place and textured and painted it, painted all the walls. Bill also removed the huge and heavy hutch in the living room for an office nook. They have done so much work and it looks great! We still have a lot to do, but it's a work in progress. The location is awesome! We can walk to the library and to downtown. The Iron Horse Trail is right next to our complex. Our back patio opens to a common grassy area, which the kids love. Everyone we have met is so friendly and welcoming. We are really happy to be here!

Chris Trueman Art

Jeff's brother, Chris, had an art show in Oakland over Labor Day weekend. Since the Bay Bridge was closed the entire weekend, we decided to take a "journey" to opening night of the show. Sienna was so excited to take BART and talked about it for several days beforehand.It was Friday night and she was in the dancing mood! Next door to Chris' show was another show with live music. We could not keep her away from here:Some of the Truemen:It seemed like a successful show as Chris was talking with people all night--we barely spent a minute with him! We are happy that so many people turned out to support Chris and his art!

Soccer

Jeff and I have been playing in a co-ed soccer league and having a blast! We consider soccer night our date night. Once this season is over, I get to choose date night :) We have yet to make it to the play-offs in the three seasons we have played, but we have fun playing together. We were short a few players one night, so my brother and sister came to play with us. It was a fun game!

Birthday

I had a wonderful birthday with family and friends! Heddy offered her swim club for the venue and we barbecued, went swimming, and ate ice cream cake. Yum!My mom and dad came to visit for my birthday and we did some shopping and then dinner at The Cheesecake Factory!Thanks, everyone, for making my birthday so special and making it last a week!