Eloise wanted a train for her birthday cake, and she wanted it blue. She helped mix the cake batter, and supervised the cake assembly by sampling everything. We layed out kitkat bars for the track, and then assembled the train on top. Besides eating cake scrapes and frosting, at one point I heard "mmmm, good train track." While I was assembling the engine, she helped herself to the tracks for the coal car.

We made a few cupcakes with the extra cake batter. Eloise enjoyed sampling all the different colors of frosting on her cupcake. She did eat all the cupcake eventually.

Somewhere along the way in the last year Eloise has learned all about what to do with birthday candles. She was very excited to blow them out

Eloise received a big-kid puzzle this year. She is very intent and serious while she works on it. After a day of putting it together with Daddy's help and then "crashing" it, she is already getting the idea of how it works, and can regogzie a few pices that go together.

Eloise and Mommy enjoyed painting the unicorn. Eloise especially liked painting right around the horn. I had a good pile of paint there to move down to other areas

While we were out painting the unicorn, Claire, our friend from next door heard the excitement and came to investigate. We got out some finger paints for the girls while I finished plain boring white on the unicorn. Eloise loved getting her fingers gooey, and loved dipping little sponge shapes into the paints. She got some great color-mix effects.

Eloise loved the spools of tulle I had for making the unicorn tail. While I was cutting and tying she made off with the spool of blue. I decided one spool all over the living room floor wouldn't kill me and moved the pink and purple to higher ground. She found them too, and had a great time. It took 40 minutes to rewind it all.

She fell asleep like this on her own, really. Daddy was singing songs and she curled up to listen and was out like a light. Lately she prefers to have Daddy sing her bedtime songs. Mommy was getting lazy and playing on the computer while she sang. Daddy gets a pillow and lays on the floor by her bed.

The unicorn is all done and Eloise took it for a spin. The first time we tried it on her, she wasn't impressed. Mommy wore it Saturday afternoon, galloping around the living room. Eloise was ready to try it Sunday afternoon.

another view showing of the "my little pony" style poofy multi-color pastel tail. Eloise loves the tail.

Here is Eloise gathering candy at our ward Halloween party. She wore her costume for a little while, but then she got tires of the hat, so she was running around with her fluffy tail, and I was carrying a severed unicorn head around

Eloise also enjoyed choosing candy this year, she was delighted when people would let her look into the candy bowl, and I caught her once or twice helping herself at unattended bowls. We have to work on the asking and thanking portions of trick or treat