Halloween...Sugar Fest 2009

We had our Trunk-or-treat on Wednesday night. Our branch isn't quite big enough to pull off that kind of activity, so one of the other wards in our stake invited us to join in with theirs. They did a great job, and we had lots of fun.

Elizabeth was a pirate...although some people thought she was a gypsy...ok, so I can totally see that. Karlee was Hannah Montana, and Jordan was Batman. He took that role very seriously!

They did a costume judging contest at the trunk or treat, and Jordan won, which is funny since there was another kid there with the EXACT same costume.

Not exactly sure what she is doing here, but I thought it was cute.

Karlee was a runner up and when she didn't win, she was super sad, but then we went out to get candy and she got over it.

Now for Halloween:
We started the day with yummy Pumpkin Chocolate chip Pancakes. Yes, I know I'm so cool!
(sorry they are blurry, not sure what happened)

Then for lunch, they got Halloween shaped Macaroni and Cheese...extra cheesy! Yes, I know I'm awesome!
Then, I spent the day making goodies for the party that night. Yes, I know, I rock!

My Witch Hats

My Ghostly Graveyard

My Spiderweb Cheesecake


A Spider Cupcake

Other kinds of Spider Cupcakes

The Spread



I had a lot of fun experimenting. The only thing I didn't get to do was the Mummified Hot Dogs. It's all good though, there was TONS of food, so I didn't need to go overboard like I did. BTW, The mini cupcakes were a big hit, and not the spider ones, just the sprinkle ones. I guess simple is sometimes better!


I finished with about an hour to get everyone ready, myself included. This was the first year I have ever painted my face, and I think it will be the last. We went to the party and after getting some food to eat, we headed out Trick-or-Treating.
However, we were in our friends neighborhood, and we weren't very familiar with the area, and we didn't make it out until 7pm, so it didn't go so well. It's all good though, that just less candy that the kids will be begging to eat everyday! (And less temptation for me!)

The kids did have fun in the leaves though!
See my Batman climb!

After we bombed at Trick-or-treating, we headed back to our friends party, and had lots of fun. We had fun talking, eating, dancing, eating and, oh did I mention eating! My camera battery died while we were out so I didn't get any pics from the party or of me dressed up. But I did make Erin take some pictures, so as soon as I get them I will show you my one and only time that I will paint my face for a Halloween costume.

So until then, I hope you had a
Happy Halloween!

Carving Pumpkins

Hey Everyone!

Tonight we carved pumpkins for our FHE activity. I tried something new this year and bought a pumpkin for each child and let them do it all...minus the big-knife-cutting-the-top-off part.

They did awesome.

Seriously, Jordan did 95% of his all by himself. I just made sure that the saw made it through all the cut parts so he could pop them out. Elizabeth even made her own pattern.
After carving the pumpkins, things got a little crazy when Karlee and Jordan tried on their Halloween costumes. I had an old wig from Halloweens past that Karlee put on.
Pretty SCARY!
Meet Hannah "crazy hair" Montana
I finally got them to settle down long enough to get pictures of their finished products:
You can't see it, but on the back of Elizabeth's pumpkin are ghosts, so that when the pumpkin is lit up, the shadows of the ghosts will be seen from behind. She made up the "boo" on the front, but we got the ghost idea from one of our pattern books.

Great job kids, you did awesome!
Now that they can do it themselves (seriously, so much less stress than last year!!!), this will definitely become a tradition!

Mmmmm...caramel!

Have I mentioned I love caramel?
No?
Well, I do!
Just ask Tina, her holiday caramel stash in her freezer was gone a lot faster when I was around! hehehehe

So when Elizabeth was super excited to have her first caramel apple at the festival, I thought, "It's time to introduce my kids to a REAL caramel apple, and not just cut-up apples with some caramel sauce on the side!"

So I did!

I had so much caramel left over that I drizzled it over the tops of the apples, so they had even more caramel on them. If I had been a little more ambitious, I would have dipped them in chocolate after the caramel, and then rolled them in Oreo crumbs!

Oh baby!

An evening of fun...finally!

I think one of the reasons why I have been having a hard time making the transition to our new place was because I've been so busy dealing with the fleas (vacuuming every night etc.), we haven't had any fun yet.

Well last night we went to the school's Fall Festival where the kids had cotton candy for the first time, and we were able to escape and have fun for the first time since moving here 2 weeks ago.

Here are the kids enjoying their cotton candy(it was a BIG hit), and snow cones:

We also had a new friend along with us, who was staying the night. Meet Judd, Jordan's new partner in crime:

They went "fishing":

Judd got a box of candy, Lizzy and Jordan got the coveted few bags of candy and Karlee got a toy:

They got their faces painted:


Finally, they had a caramel apple:

After a few other things, that I didn't get pictures of, we called it a night.
So here's some more good news.
Judd slept overnight and this morning I asked him if he had any itchy bites, and he said "NO"! Hooray!

The kids are happy to be playing...once again!