October is a month of celebration!

Eve turned 1 on the 10th. Although she had no clue what was going on, I made it a point to have a small party with some of her baby playgroup friends. I made a French chocolate-almond cake with her name on it, and I later helped her blow out her candle. The day before, I had taken her to the store to pick out a couple of toys and she received a special package from Aunt Jess with new clothes and sippy cups.

Did I mention that she walks? It happened one week before her birthday and she's hard to keep up with ever since. It's fun to see her change into a little girl. I was just thinking how her life has changed and blessed ours forever. She makes us want to be better people and appreciate every moment we spend together as a family.

As you can see on the next picture, she enjoys hoovering with her Dad who is her official favorite playmate. She never tires of him spinning her around, throwing her up in the air, playing hide and seek. She is following in his footsteps and has a promising football career ahead of her! She can actually kick the ball around and do throw ins...

She responds to both English and French, but she blabbers in her own little language...She knows when she's getting into trouble and when I say "Non! Non!" to her, she walks away shaking her head as if saying: "they don't let me do anything around here!"

My birthday also falls in October and I kept it on the low key since I cared more about Eve's, but my sweet Levi pampered me all day (it fell on a Sunday) doing extra kitchen duty, serving me breakfast, and he even made me a carrot cake from scratch with cream cheese frosting--under my supervision. He then surprised me by inviting several of our friends to eat cake and visit...as simple as it may sound, it was one of my most memorable birthday celebrations.

As neither of us grew up celebrating Halloween, we didn't quite know how to go about it. I did make some wicked pumpkin pies and we dressed Eve up in a Tigger suit and let her have her first sucker ever; later on, our ward hosted a trunk-or-treat in the parking lot where people had their car trunk (or boot) decorated and handed out candy. Since I completely forgot to stock our own supply of treats, we locked ourselves in as soon as we came home, shutting the blinds and ignoring the door bell.