The rest of October...

We took the family to see Mady in Thriller! Mady couldn't wear her costume outside so she just came out to say hi to everyone before she got ready. It was a great show and so fun to watch her in it! She did a fabulous job!


Out of everyone, Jeannene (Dusty's mom) was the most afraid of the zombies. She even hid behind her own grandkids!


I went to our neighborhood annual witch party. It's always a good time. This year I made a fun 'witches brew' cheese dip. It was yummy and looks SO cute!


We went to my parents annual Halloween dinner. This year the kids were greeted at the door by the grim reaper. They weren't quite sure if they wanted to walk past him to get into the house. Some of the younger cousins refused to even look at Grandpa if he was in his costume!


My mom is always creative with the food. We had green slugs (cheese tortellini) with an orange sauce, green garlic bread with black butter, and an orange drink with hand shaped ice cubes, and eyeballs on a fork. It was yummy but as you can see from Breckyn's expression, the presentation kind of grossed her out.

The kids (and grandpa) in their costumes. Mady was Yoshi and Ash was Princess Peach from Super Mario Brothers (Mady took her costume off, I never got a picture of her in it!) Breckyn was a pumpkin and Kaden was Jango Fett.

We all made a cute craft. You mod podge tissue paper onto a glass jar and then you glue a face on. My brother has some kind of fancy cutter that you put the image on a computer and then the cutter cuts it out. The kids could even draw their own picture and then have it cut out. Kaden and Hunter love Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon so they drew him to put on their jar.


Then they all got some new jammies. They loved it! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for a really fun night!

Carving pumpkins is always a circus at our house because my kids can't stand the goop inside of the pumpkin. Ash had to wear gloves, Kaden had to leave the room because he kept dry heaving and Breckyn actually threw up! I had to run to the store and when I walked back into the house I hear Breckyn yell from the bathroom, "Dad, I threw up!" and she's crying and freaking out and instead of being a good, comforting mom, I ran and grabbed my camera and took a picture. It was just too funny.





So after Breckyn's 'incident' Mady decided to make a pumpkin in her honor...

The last day of school before Halloween I went to the school to see the kids in the parade and throw Breckyn's class party and help in Kaden's. I was so busy running around during Breckyn's party that I didn't take one picture! But a got a few of Kaden during his party. Here he is with his good friend TJ.

We went to the ward Halloween party that night and instead of doing a trunk or treat this year they had a carnival type set up with food and games and a spook alley. It was so much fun! I liked it sooo much better than a trunk or treat. The kids had a great time. The funniest game was eating a donut on a string. We all had to try it and I'm pretty sure that I won on my turn...




These girls are such goof balls.

I have no pictures of Saturday night when the kids went trick or treating. Lame! But it was a fun night, Mady and Ash were part of a group of about 20 kids that went trick or treating. That's a lot of kids showing up at your door all at once! Kaden, Breckyn and Graci went together of course and I got to stay home and hand out the treats. It was a slow year though, sometimes I wouldn't get a knock at my door for about 20 minutes. I got laundry done, my fridge cleaned out, I was very productive!
Since Halloween was on Sunday this year everyone did their trick or treating on Saturday, but we still wanted to do something fun on the actual Halloween night so we threw a big family party. We invited both sides of our families and our good friends the Lewis' to come over for dinner and games. It was so much fun! We instructed everyone to bring a Halloween themed dish to share and they were just so creative! We had a dessert that was almost too scary to eat because it looked just like kitty litter, bone shaped breadsticks, a candy corn themed veggie tray, and jello worms to name a few. We ate out in the garage that had been blacked out and decorated with things that would glow really well in the black light. I tried to make a glow in the dark punch...it didn't work so well. It only glowed if you held it right up to the black light. Oh well. Here's what the garage looked like...

After everyone had had their fill, we went inside and the kids played some carnival type games. When they were done, we sent them downstairs to dance to Halloween music in the dark. They had glow in the dark bracelets and necklaces and a strobe light and they loved it! I think the little girls would have danced all night if we let them. After that we had some Halloween cartoons for them to watch while the adults and bigger kids played games upstairs. We played BINGO and it's surprising what people will do to win a candy bar. We caught Skyler trying to throw beans down my mom's shirt...not really. Well, he really did throw a bean down her shirt but it was an accident. The hit of the night was playing "The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow". You get a bunch of loud, obnoxious people trying to decide who the werewolves are that are killing the villagers and everybody is trying to convince everyone else that they are NOT a werewolf... well, it got pretty funny. The game worked a lot better once the kids stopped peeking though!


Happy Halloween!

Another busy week...

Seriously! I think my October is as busy as my December! There are just too many fun things to do at Halloween! We took Mady and Ash to their FIRST EVER Haunted House. We went to Nightmare on 13th and made a new friend...

Here the kids are before we went in. They were pretty excited but getting a little nervous.

Then Ash started to see some of the characters out in line and she completely freaked out. This is pretty much how she was the entire time. Latched on to whatever adult was closest to her with her head buried in their chest. She didn't see much but she sure screamed a lot!

Whew, we made it out of their all in one piece.

On a less scary note, Jenn, Alisa, Brittany and I took our kids to Little Haunts up at This Is The Place National Park. They got to go trick or treating, make a craft, go to the petting zoo, ride a pony and a train. The little kids had a great time, I think the older ones were a little bored. Sorry girls.


In true Kaden form, instead of petting the sheep he is mauling it. Or maybe that's a goat? I don't know.

Yeehaw! The boys loved this. Breckyn and Graci on the other hand have been taking horseback riding lessons so a pony tied to a pole that just went in circles was "lame".

Before we went home we rode the train. We had to wait in line forever, didn't make it onto the first train because there wasn't any room and then almost didn't make it onto the next train because right as it pulled up all these people came out of nowhere and rudely scrambled in front of us to get on. Britt is still mad about it as you can see... Grrr.

Every year, Dusty's parents like to take a trip to the pumpkin patch with the family and buy all the grandkids a pumpkin. The kids love to search through the field for the perfect pumpkin.

Hmmm. How many kids can we fit into a wheelbarrow?



After a great deal of searching, everyone has found their favorite pumpkin.

Thanks Grandma!

And last but certainly not least, we had our annual candy poker night with some friends. We went out to dinner and then back to our house to play some games.

Well the Nehrings found out that first timers luck really only holds out during your first time. They were our big winners last year but this year they just couldn't cut a break. Debi even lost to the dummy hand when we were all sure she was going to win! Don was making some great decisions on his cards... really Don, I hope you guys come every year. We love taking your candy! :) Brittany was the big winner this year and she says, "It's about time!" (Really we just let her win so she'll still play with us. She was starting to become a sore loser...) Just kiddin Britt, you know I luv ya!

We're baaack!

Okay, I have been a HUGE blogging slacker and have fallen way behind! We had a crazy busy summer that I will catch up on at some point but as for right now I just had to make some time to post about our weekend. We had a very special day yesterday because our sweet little Breckyn was baptized. I can't believe she is already 8! Time goes by way too fast. She was so excited for this day, she has been counting it down for the past two weeks.

Breckyn had a lot of support from her friends and family. We had a very nice program with her grandmas talking about what it means to be baptized and receiving the Holy Ghost, her grandpas said the prayers, her sisters played the piano and led the music and all her siblings and cousins sang "I am a Child of God". Kaden of course was a little character and pulled a fabulous 'Ta-da' pose at the end of the musical number. Very cute, gave us all a little chuckle. Here's Breckyn with her Best Friend Forever Graci. In just a couple of months it will be her turn.

Ashlyn has started playing lacrosse and later Saturday afternoon we went and watched her game. She got a chance to play D-wing... I really don't know what that means except that she ran up and down the field a lot. Here she is taking a shot at the goal. Look at that form.

Breckyn and Graci were cheering the team on from the sidelines. My favorite cheer they say is "Totally, fer sure, I just got a manicure. The sun, up there, is shining on my gorgeous hair. My make-up is smear'in I think I lost an earr'in. 19 - 24, I don't know the stupid score. Go, Go, Fight, Fight, Gee I hope I look alright! Gooo Team! Hoo-ray!" You really don't get the full effect unless you see it with the actions. It's hilarious.

Mady was also very busy this weekend. She is dancing in Odyssey Dance Theater's performance "Thiller". She is in the Chucky number and she had 3 performances this weekend in Park City. She will have 2 more at Kingsbury Hall later this month. She is having so much fun, she loves it! Here she is getting ready...

And here is the final product. She and her friend Madison were having too much fun playing photo shoot in their costumes.



This is a picture of all the girls in her cast.

Saturday night I went with some friends in the neighborhood to the Salt Lake City "Ghost Tours". One of our friends is a storyteller this year for the tour and we went to support her. Here she is telling us a spooky story.

Ahhh! We are so scared! Britt and I were a little nervous for the tour, we don't really like scary stories.

Some of the ladies walking through one of the parks downtown that is said to be haunted. I hid in the bushes and scared a couple of them as they walked past. :)

Boo! Here we are being spooky ghosts in the graveyard. I know, we look pretty scary.

We had a great time and learned some really interesting stuff even though it was a little creepy.