Halloween 2008!

Is there a limit on how many pictures you can put in one post?  I think I have exceeded the amount here.  But I don't think I'll have any regrets once I make my blog into a little book at the end of the year.  

We started our fun Halloween day at Cole's school parade which ran around the block.  The girls LOVED the parade!  And I LOVE my neighborhood this time of year!  The trees that overlap the streets and all the yellow leaves that surround you, I feel as if I'm in a movie!

Grandma stopped by to wish us all a Happy Halloween.

My Luke Skywalker and Cackling witch who was sweeping the sidewalk with her broom! 

And I couldn't decide which picture to use of my little Ladybug so I picked both.  
Love her to pieces!  And I can't get over her antenna!

It was the PERFECT Halloween!  The weather was BEAUTIFUL!  I sat on the porch with my little Ladybug as we passed out candy!

Not the best picture but I love it when my kids discover looking out the window.  And this was MaryJane's 1st discovery!  

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!

A Halloween Family Night!

On Monday, Stacey and Brent had the family over for a fun little Halloween pumpkin carving party! 

MaryJane didn't care much for grandpa's pirate costume.

Nana came as Fairy Godmother Princess Suzanna. The girls loved playing in character with her!

Stacey had fun games for the kids.  Mummy wrapping contest, eating donuts on a string, and a fun glow in the dark candy search!  

Followed by....

Pumpkin Carving!  Thanks guys for such a fun night!

Disneyland Halloween Time!

A BIG thank you to grandma Stormy for treating us all to a fun day at Disneyland!  Remember how I said that I might take my sewing machine on my trip?  Well I did.  And I made Sadie this skirt which will be apart of her witch costume on Halloween.  It worked out well to take it.  Having Sadie not feel well the first few days, I had something to work on while she rested.   

I loved all the cute Halloween touches they put throughout the park.

Back row: Me, Kevin, Sadie, Chantel, Mike, Stormy, Lucy, Tommy and Emily

Front row: MaryJane, Jet, Jaida, Cole, Beth and Scotty

Minnie Mouse

Ariel using the Pom Pom Pen! :)

And Cole with his Mickey Mouse Lightsaber just before the parade.  A night I'll never forget!

Cole's top 5 list:

1. Splash Mountain

2. Buzz Lightyear

3. His Giant Lollypop (which he has asked for one for a year now)

4. Meeting Darth Vador

5. Autotopia

6. Wild Toad  (he couldn't pick just 5)

Sadie's top 5 list:

1. Meeting the Princesses

2. Getting her face painted (which she didn't even get done, I talked her out of it to buy something tangible that would last longer than a day.  But hey, she thinks she got it done anyway!  It made the top 5! Money well spent! or Not spent!;))

3. Looking at all the things in the girly "workshop" with mommy.

4. The tea cups

5.  Riding the car with daddy in Autotopia

Cousin Time!

It was great to be together with cousins!  Tom and Emily came with their three kids(who live in Cincinnati) and Mike and Chantel(who live in California) came with their two kids.  Lance, Kevin's other brother also lives in Cali. came later on the weekend.     

Sadie, Beth, Lucy, Cole, Scotty

I did all of the girls hair into, what I call, Piggy Knots.  They looked so cute!  I love the Ballerina stance Jaida would do every time I look a picture of her.  Hilarious!

Uncle Mike introduced us to the Double Decker shoulder ride!  Only Kevin or one of his brothers could come up with something like this!  I even have a picture of Jaida doing her ballerina pose on her dad's shoulders.  

Scotty has a mean grip here on Kevin's head!  Loads of fun!!

Scotty wasn't too happy about falling down in the waves fully clothed.  The funnier thing, he had worn those vampire teeth for 18 plus hours and wouldn't take them out!

Sadie and Beth

Here are some more pictures from our walk on the pier!  This was our first full day there and the coldest one too.  But not all that bad.  Quite enjoyable!

We were able to catch a peek at a few dolphins swimming by.  Not to mention a GIANT pelican which flew low and slow above the kids heads.

And of all the fishermen on the pier, my favorite...

this little old lady.  Bless her heart.  Hopefully she didn't catch anything too big that day.  She would have been a goner.

The beach of Oceanside!

LOVED the beach this time of year!  We lucked out with such great weather!

Okay, so are you ready for a lot of catching up!  I'm just going to start posting pictures of our Week long trip to California!  We were gone for 8 days and it was so nice to spend that time with the family!  We drove and the kids did REALLY well!!  No complaints!  None.  Sadie even got the "throws ups" which hit her at our stop at Aunt Jeanine's house in St. George at 5 a.m.  Poor little thing!  We just stuck with our schedule and left at 8 a.m to miss the Vegas weekend traffic.  And for three hours in the car she threw up every 15 min.  (in a bowl. sorry, too much info?)  She was a trooper!  After which,  she slept for 3 hours in the car and woke up in California happy and full of life!  It was the weirdest bug though.  She would be fine during the day, eating and drinking without a problem but then at night, for three days, it would hit her again!  I felt soooo bad for her!  Luckily, it went away by the time we went to Disneyland!!

MaryJane's first experience with sand!  She loved to eat it!  Yuck!  It didn't take long for her to crawl all over the sand!  I think she liked how soft it was on her knees!  We have hard wood floors on our entire main floor!  So I'm sure the soft sand was a nice sensation.

  

She got the hang of the beach thing real quick!  Shovel and all!  This middle picture shows off one of her frequent sits.  With one knee up and the the other tucked under her.  Just like Cole did as a baby and just like my grandpa Chappell used to do!

Just Add Candy

Surprisingly I haven't had the sewing bug in awhile.  That is so sad to me because it is so fun!  Maybe it's because life has been just so busy!  And just like last time, I decided to do a project just before we leave town!  I can't help it! (last time we went to bear lake, I was sewing that blanket the night before we left when I should have been packing!) We are leaving for a week to California and I want to be at home sewing and being domestic in the spirit of Halloween.  But I am excited to see all the cousins and family and I know we will have a blast!  I'm very tempted to take my sewing machine!  Well see...  

Anyway, I had an idea to make my kids Trick or Treat bags and looked all over the Internet to find a pattern I liked.  I found this one at JC Handmade and modified it in the handles and embellishments.   The possibilities are endless on this bag!  I have so many ideas!

I really wanted to put pom pom fringe on Sadie's using a ribbon like Cole's on top of the pom pom fringe but I ran out of ribbon.  I think the ric rac is cute though.  She loves it!  She said "it's just like a purse!"

I made these handles 18 inches long because I wanted them to be able to put it over their shoulders.  But now that I see them carrying them I think I could have done shorter.  Especially on Cole's.  I also Covered Sadie's handles with fabric to try to make it a little more girly looking.  It would have been cute to embroider their names on the to.

So what do you think?  They are the perfect size.  I don't want them to have any more candy than these could hold.  They never even fill a plastic pumpkin.  You could adjust the measurements to make them bigger.  They were SO fun to make and REALLY easy!  The tutorial of the bag is a good one.  The step by step was so easy to follow.  If you can sew a straight line, you could make these.  So QUICK go get some fabric, head over to JC Handmade and make some for your kids this Halloween!  

A Spooktacular Solo!

Here is Cole singing his second song in the blog archives.  He came home from school today with this new Halloween song he learned.  What can I say?  My kids just love music!  And sorry for all the distracting background noise.  (girls)

It was so hard for me to keep my composure when I first heard him.  This was the first time I've heard him use both virbrato AND falsetto.  

(and the skeleton behind him comes with quite the story which I'll have to post about soon!)

Who can resist.....

Gardner Village this time of year!

We met up with some of my old Salon friends and Sadie just was instant friends with Emily's girls!!

I don't think MaryJane liked wearing a her jacket!  I was sooo cold though!!

They just could not wait to ride the ponies!!  Something they didn't forget we did last year!

And the funniest picture of all was when Cole was playing on a bar by the steps.  He would hang on them upside down and try all sorts of different ways to hold on without using his hands.  Then as Emily and I were talking, he said  "Look Mom!"

LOL!!!  He was soooo serious and patently held that pose as I grabbed my camera and took several shots!  I couldn't get over it!  Maybe it's not funny to you but I almost cry when I see the picture!!! (It must be late) Soooo funny!

All About Cole

Cole was spot lighted in Kindergarten last week and we put together this poster of all the things he likes to do!  It was so fun to go to his class and tell all about him!  He got real into it and just loved it!  We took a little snack to the class too.  Cole's favorite, CHOCOLATE!  HE takes after his mom and grandpa!  We gave his class chocolate overload!  Mini Chocolate doughnuts, mini Hershey chocolate bar and oh yes, chocolate milk.  So sorry to the parents for the overload.  I'm so mad!  Instead of doing all that wouldn't it have been cute to send home a little cellophane bag with Cole's favorite treats and have a tag saying:

C is for Cole

and

Cole loves Chocolate!

Too bad I don't think of these things BEFORE the event!!  I only had two weeks to prepare!!  Thankfully, my friend Amy lent me her Cricut machine!  I LOVED that thing!!  Have you ever tried one?  It was hard to give it back!!  I could find many uses for that thing.  Even though I don't scrapbook!

My Little Pumpkins...

were so cute at the

well, not a real pumpkin patch but a cute place to pick pumpkins.  Close enough.

This place was adorable with many cute places to take pictures!! (as you can see here and also on my header I went a little photog crazy, as always)

I can't over MaryJane's cute little face and neck here.

 This picture doesn't do this pirate ship justice! I couldn't figure out how to deal with the sun behind it!  It was so cute and smoke would come out of the ship as the kids played.  I couldn't get over how cute it was!

And can you believe, there was this Cinderella pumpkin coach!!  I just about died when I saw it!  And by the look of Sadie's face, you can only imagine what she thought of it!

This was just after I asked her if she was on her way to the ball to meet her prince!  Her face just lit up!!  Priceless!

 And in the meantime,  there was my little worker bee.  In his own world.  I loved this little place!  Can't wait til next year to do it again!

Cookie Bookie!

For Activity days this week, the girls (aged 8-11) hosted a Cookie Bookie for the kids aged 3-5 in our church.  Where the kids came and decorated a pumpkin sugar cookie and then sat and listened to fun Halloween stories while eating their yummy treat!  I was surprised how well the kids sat still!   A very cute idea!  Afterward, we all danced to the Monster Mash and fun Halloween tunes making us all in the mood for Halloween!

I thought this would be a fun tradition to start next year and have the kids invite a few friends over to our house for a little Cookie Bookie around Halloween!  Don't you think?  I can't wait, I think that next year(when they are a little older), I'll start the tradition of  a spooky dinner!  C-dogg style! ;)

No More Tears...

of joy will be shed during my workouts anymore!  When I went to get into my car to go to the gym this morning, I noticed that someone (I won't name names) left the van side door open last night.  And my ipod is missing in the little compartment I keep it in.  :(  or should I say WAAAAAAAAA!  It just deflated me!  My workout was long, hot, and sweaty without that thing!!  I've depended on it for so long!!  I keep hoping for it to turn up.  But now that the house is upside down, I'm most certain it was taken!  That thief!  It's kind of scary thinking that someone out there is just waiting for that little slip up to take advantage.  My neighborhood isn't that bad.  It feels like any sort of friendly neighborhood!  

Anyway,  I know that my header up there still says "September" but I'm still mourning and don't feel productive.  We are headed to the pumpkin patch today.  Hopefully that will boost my spirits and catch a cute pic there.