Dressing up is fun to do

This was D's dress rehearsal beginning of the month. Our church carnival was the first Tuesday in October so we had to come up with costumes right away. D has been thoroughly obsessed with Larryboy (superhero from VeggieTales), and pretends to be him all the time. So that was the obvious choice for his Halloween attire. I just wasn't sure how I was going to pull off the plunger ears until I came upon these canning funnels. He LOVED it! As soon as he saw himself in the mirror he had to test out his super-suction action. I had to use good old paper and tape for the eyes, etc., since I bought the hat and funnels the morning of the carnival and ended up only having about 10 minutes to throw it all together. Later I sewed on felt eyes/nose.

And here he is Hallow's eve minus the nose. . . I couldn't get the hat off long enough to attach it until AP and AJ had already left with their friends to get candy.

AP wanted to be a vampire banana. He went around telling everyone, "I want to drink your fruit juice." I don't know where he comes up with this stuff.
AJ wore one of my old ballet costumes and was a snow princess. We did have snow a couple of days before Halloween, but only rain while they were trick or treating.

This picture of them all together was taken the night of the carnival.

And D never actually made it out trick-or-treating. He had a great time helping J and I hand out candy. Especially when Mario and Luigi came to the door. It was cute to hear him telling all of the trick-or-treaters things like, "Oh, wow," "Dat's a cool cosume," "Happy Halloween," "here's you candy," and "Have fun guys!"
and really, who needs candy when you have such a nice cat?
AP snapped this shot of us at the end of the night. Pretty funny for the kid who is always complaining about our demonstrations of affection.Hope everyone had a fun Halloween!

Football!

J took the two older kids to the BYU game on Saturday. They had a good time, but at some point during the game AP said he needed to use the bathroom and disappeared. After he had been gone a while, J decided to go check on him. He saw his shoes under a stall and asked,
"Hey bud, are you ok in there"
"Yah."
"You've been in there kind of a long time."
"I know. I just like it in here."
In his defense, AP told me the game was really loud and the guy right behind him kept yelling in his ear, "you shall not pass" whenever the opposing team got close to the goal line. On the other hand the bathroom was very quiet. . .

UEA weekend

The kids and I spent UEA weekend with my parents in Park City. We had a great time! We played in the pool, went hiking, and enjoyed some TV/downtime. Grandma had lots of food fun planned for us too!




AP went ahead of us and left this sign for us to follow. Can you make it out? He said he was putting his scouting skills to use.


We made halloween faces with our taco salad and cupcake skulls. We love our creative grandma!
Enjoying our down time. . .

Birthday Time!

AJ wanted a doll slumber party this year (despite the fact that after last year she said no more slumber parties until she was 12. . .). I decided that a slumber party wouldn't be so bad if we went to a hotel.

For the invitations, I thought it would be cute to do sleeping bags. I was going to get some little American Girl stickers to put on the sleeping bag to represent their dolls, and then slip the invitation inside the bag, but decided it would be a lot more fun for the girls if their doll was the size of the sleeping bag so they could play with it. So I went to the American girl website and printed dolls in their PJs to go in the sleeping bags (AJ cut them out for me), and the invitation opened up for the party details. The girls LOVED them. Kate said her girls played with theirs the whole way home, and Em's girls called the night they got theirs to tell me how much they loved them. Elizabeth said, "When I opened mine I screamed this is the cutest thing ever! I can tell you and AJ worked really hard on the invitations and I'm going to keep mine forever." How sweet is that?
Here are the girls soon after we arrived at the hotel. We dropped off their stuff and then quickly changed into swimsuits to head down to the pool.

After swimming everyone got cleaned up and we made pizzas for dinner (I got a room with a kitchenette). They had so much fun decorating their pizzas and it was fun watching them get so into it! They made a bigger one for themselves and a smaller one for their doll.
I made the cupcakes and Emily decorated them for me. You can't really see it, but she did tie-dye frosting. They turned out SO darling!Speaking of my sweet Em, the party would not have been as successful without all of her help. She took charge of the pedicures and got all of the stuff to do glitter toes. The girls loved it!
We decided it would work best if Emily worked on the girls' toes individually while I had the rest of them doing crafts. They made necklaces, bracelets, and hair clips. Those who finished early also made some for their dolls.

And then of course presents! We did heavy hangover. I wish I would have written down the things AJ wished for each of her friends; it was really cute. And they were all so thoughtful in their gifts. I'm glad she has such good friends.

At the end of the night we put on the movie, "Kit Kittredge: An American girl," to help them settle down. It is such a cute show! After it was over they were really good about brushing their teeth and it didn't take too long to get them settled down. In fact, everyone was asleep by 11. Well, I guess not everyone; Emily and I stayed up until after 1 talking. . . AJ said it was the best birthday ever, and I would have to agree. It's nice that they are at an age where they can do more on their own. Everyone was so good, NO ONE got upset and no one got their feelings hurt. It all ran so smoothly, and I got to enjoy a night out with my friend in addition to putting on my daughter's birthday party!

Ta-da!

For those who have asked, I'm finally getting around to posting pictures of my home decor! I still consider it a work in progress (still looking for the perfect accent pillows to brighten the couches a little, a different wreath for the shutters, and some other little things like that), but since we've almost been here a year (and that is when I said I would have some pictures to show) here it is!


I saw this lamp at Quilted Bear in the Spring and LOVED it, but it cost WAY more than I wanted to pay. So I was thrilled when I went back a couple of weeks ago and found it on clearance!
Excuse the crooked picture (guess I hadn't had my V-8 yet), but this is one of my favorite little spots. I found the vases at Tai Pan for a little bit of nothing and the picture of Christ is one of my favorites.
Two more of my favorite finds. J and I were on a date and stepped into Rossto look for a pair of slacks. This chair was right up front and we fell in love with it! Not only does it look good, it is SO comfy. I found the pillow at Walmart (of all places) and it really has become one of my favorite things!
Here is the Family Room. I had slipcovers made for the couches, and am quite happy with the way they turned out. I still want to paint the coffee table, but haven't decided whether to go with distressed white like the desk and kitchen furniture or black to match the side table and other accents. . .

Playing like the pigs

J participated in a 10k mud run on Saturday with some friends from work. It was quite the course! It was rolling hills the entire way with obstacles to climb over and through including a water slide, bog, and mud swim at the end. As you can see there was no clean way through it! J did a great job and was pretty had by the end. Afterward, we let the kids slog in the mud which they thought was great until it was time to get cleaned up. By then the sun was going down and the water they had to rinse off with was ice cold. In fact, AP said it felt like having liquid snow poured over you while nude. I'm just glad I decided to stay out of it. . .

A & A could only stay out of it for so long. They kept tossing in bits of dirt and scooting closer and closer to the edge the whole time we were waiting for J to finish. After J came through, they couldn't resist any longer. So to keep them from getting in the way of other racers we took them back to the beginning of the course to muck around.