Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! The festivities are over but I haven't finished blogging about all of them yet. :) First of all can I just say that the weather has been awesome. It is usually so cold for Halloween and to have temperatures in the seventies has been lovely. I'll warn you. This post is REALLY long and has LOTS of pictures. I just wanted to get everything Halloween in. Who wants to blog about Halloween in November? :)
(No, the dogs aren't mine. They are Emily and Josh's but I just thought they looked so cute in their costumes.)



Carving Pumpkins
We went to the pumpkin patch and I let Aiden pick out his own pumpkin. He, of course, picked a really big one. We carved them the other night and they turned out pretty cute. Aiden started out wanting his to be this pirate pattern we had, but after we figured out that it was too difficult he changed his to be the beginnings of a pirate with some added art of a Sharpie.


He wanted to see if this pumpkin was bigger than he was.


Extra concentration requires the tongue. :)




Can you see the pirate?




Making Cookies
Recently I've really enjoyed decorating sugar cookies for each of the holidays. I'll be honest, in the past I've just bought the kit made by the bakery at our local grocery store. This year I couldn't find it, so I decided to make them myself. They turned out really good too. I don't even like icing and I couldn't get enough of it. Aiden was a big helper too. It was fun.







Halloween Party
I had a good time just hanging out with old friends. There were some great costumes too.


Aiden and Jo being pirates. (That's really what they were going for)


Scott and Erika, I love this shirt.


Ang, Jo and princess Ali


Hayley as a Super Big Gulp. Great costume.


When Aiden saw my costume he told me I looked like a scary clown.


Kellie's awesome Rainbow Brite.


Angela the witch with Ali the angry pumpkin. (Still cute even when she's mad :)


Cutest Indian Jones ever!




City Halloween Party
I took Aiden and his cousin Meg to our city's Halloween party. They had a great time playing all of the games and winning prizes. Aiden's favorite prize was the vampire teeth.



Trick-Or-Treating
While Grandma and Grandpa held down the fort, we took the kids out to trick-or-treat.


Aiden LOVES his cousins, so we went around in their neighborhood.(Plus their neighborhood hands out good stuff :)



Wow, I think that might be my longest post ever. Now I'm caught up with all things Halloween. I should have put something really important at the end to see if anyone actually made it to this point. :)

Lil' Pumpkins

Ang and I have been enjoying doing a lot of Fall photo shoots. I have had the pumpkin idea in my head since Aiden was a baby, but Aiden was WAY too big to do this with him in October the year he was born. They turned out so cute. Thanks Ang for being such a good photo buddy. (and for being a good normal buddy as well :)


He really just wanted to eat the pumpkin.


This is how Liam really felt about the pumpkin.


Aiden decided that he needed to get a picture with the pumpkins too.


My little pumpkin.


Two little pumpkin friends. :)


Hmmm...I think I may have overused the word pumpkin in this post. Let's just say it one more time to make sure. Pumpkin. :)

Haunted Gingerbread House

A few weeks ago Aiden and I made this Halloween themed gingerbread house. It was pretty fun to get to do that more than once a year. Aiden thought it was awesome and he especially like licking the icing off the knives. I think our end result is neat-o even though we did have some issues with the roof staying on. (Those dang gum balls were a bit heavy.)

Bubble Brain

A few weeks ago I played this game with some friends. You have to fill in the thought bubble and then everyone guesses who said what. Well here is my own version of "Bubble Brain." What's your best thought?

I should be sleeping.

So I got tagged. I thought it could be fun so I started filling it out. I decided about half way through that it was kind of hard but I made it through. :) Just keep in mind that sometimes I try to be funny and I'm not very good at it. :)

8 TV shows I enjoy watching when I have time and would like to chill:

1. The Office
2. The Soup
3. So you think you can dance
4. Chuck
5. Project Runway
6. American Idol
7. America's next top model (They have cool photo shoots)
8. Saturday Night Live

8 Things that happened yesterday:

1. Relieved some aggression with kick boxing to some remixed 80's music (although some of that aggression may have been caused by the remixed 80's music.)
2. Took a shower (yes this is an accomplishment with two small children)
3. Went to the ATM to get cash to buy pumpkins, realized I had left my card at home so I had to drive all the way back home to get the card and then all the way back to the bank again. I'm an airhead.
4. Took Aiden to pick out some pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. (Which was actually just a parking lot full of pumpkins but we got some BIG ones)
5. Did a Halloween pumpkin photo shoot with Liam and Ali.
6. Made a new croc-pot recipe for dinner that was really easy, healthy and pretty good. Yay!
7. Met my neighbor for the first time. (I know it's pretty pathetic that I haven't met any of my neighbors until now, they've lived there since June)
8. Played HULK SMASH with Aiden, he won.

8 Things I am looking forward to:

1. The Halloween party at the Rec Center
2. Taking Aiden trick-or-treating
3. Visiting with more of my old roomies on Monday.
4. Aerobics class tomorrow.
5. That time in your life when nothing goes wrong. I know it's coming right?
6. The birth of my new niece.
7. Going back to school.
8. My next photo shoot.

8 Things I love about Fall:

1. The colors
2. Sweaters
3. Fall family pictures!
4. My Birthday
5. Halloween
6. Carving Pumpkins
7. Aiden's excitement over all things Halloween
8. Haunted Houses

8 Things on my wish list:

1. A new car that gets better gas mileage and doesn't scream soccer mom. :)
2. A cinnamon bun.
3. A new smile, (I entered the smile makeover contest on Good Things Utah but I guess mine wasn't bad enough)
4. A husband.
5. Another bathroom
6. The new Canon 5D (It does video! What every single mom needs :)
7. A fence
8. To have more patience.

8 people I am tagging:
(But I really don't blame you if you don't do it :)

1. Anne
2. Bonnie
3. Angela
4. Leslie
5. Erika B
6. Ashley
7. Angela
8. Hayley

Weekend Getaways!

I've had the luxury of getting a break from reality for two weekends in a row! First I went with the Bone clan to Midway for a nice little break. We stayed in this really nice condo and just enjoyed hanging out. It was nice and when it snowed it felt just like Christmas.

Last weekend I went on a girls/kids trip with Leslie to sunny St. George. We packed our four kids in her minivan and headed down to visit our old roomies Annaca and Aubree. We stayed at Annaca's mom's house which is awesome, it felt like we were staying at a resort. We had a nice time just being mellow. I enjoyed just hanging out and catching up. It's strange how with some people you can just pick up where you left off. Poor Travis (Annaca's husband) was in hiding most of the weekend with all of the girl talk. What a good sport. Thanks Annaca for a relaxing trip, sorry if we kind of crashed your break. Here are a few highlights from our trip.

We went to a splash park that Aiden LOVED. It was pretty neat. I guess there are a few around town and they are free for you to just come and hang out.

Typical boy.


Ruffle bums. Sadie and Bizzy had the cutest little suits with these ruffle bums. I was following them around trying to get pictures of their bums and I think the girls thought it was a little strange. :)



Sadie is the sweetest little girl. As we were getting ready to leave (and taking a few pictures together) she started doing all of her poses. I thought this one was particularly cute.


We went swimming of course since it's St. George, but it was still October so we did it in the hot tub. :)


Here's an unusual shot of Leslie, Annaca and me. Too bad we didn't think of taking one when Aubs was there. We had to have Sadie take it so it's from a child's perspective. Don't even ask me what Les is doing in this picture.:)

Adventures in Family Portraits

In an effort to catch the beautiful fall colors, I hurried up the canyon on Thursday with Ross and Angela to do some family pictures. We figured we could kill two birds with one stone by doing both our family portraits on the same outing. Wow, it was quite the adventure since there were only three adults. (We really could have used another adult there.) Luckily we didn't lose Aiden and Liam only screamed when I set him in the stroller while I tried to get a few shots of the McAllisters. We survived and I think we got some cute pictures as well. Thanks Ross and Ang. (Oh and a special thanks to Ross for making sure my pants weren't falling off while I was getting my pictures taken.:)






You can see of few of Angela and Ross on my Photography Blog here.

Aiden

I'm always posting about Liam and I figured it was time for an update on my 50 pound baby. Aiden is 4 1/2 going on 12. He's desperate to be a big kid and constantly tells Liam that he wishes he was 10. Aiden loves Spongebob, Star Wars and all things Halloween. Some of his dislikes include soup, tomatoes and underwear. His favorite part of the day is going to "Kid Fit" at the Rec Center while I go to what he likes to call "Mom Fit" (the aerobics class). He's always introducing himself to other kids; he's everyone's best friend. He has a very strong personality and never admits to being wrong. (I wonder where he gets that from :)