Happy Halloween October 31st

Our Halloween dinner: mummy hot dogs, monster carrot eyeballs, and tomato soup with pumpkin cheese cutouts.
Bryanna is Hermoine from Harry Potter, Gracie and Abby are witches (obviously)
As we were walking to meet our friends 2 of our neighbors yelled out for us to come to their house. That was different, but as we started out into the neighborhood there weren't a lot of people handing out candy this year so those first 2 houses were the best of the night!
The full moon following us as we trick or treated. This picture is kind of Twilight-ish!!
Our girls with 2 of their friends, Superman and Tinkerbell. We enjoyed our night but were disappointed at the lack of celebration our neighborhood showed on Halloween. We only had 3 trick or treaters come to our house. After a short trick or treating, we came back to our house with our friends the Christensens and had homemade apple cider, pumpkin muffins and banana bread.
Next year we will go to a different neck of the woods.
Day 3 of major sugar consumption.
Now it's up to me to limit the candy intake for the rest of the year. I can see a big bag going to work with daddy tomorrow!

Trunk-or-Treat

Our ward had their annual trunk or treat on Friday. We had soup salad and bread, played bingo and then the kids headed out to trunk-or-treat. It was nice weather and the girls had fun with their friends. Day 2 of major sugar consumption!

Halloween parties at School part 2

Bryanna's party was in the afternoon. Again there were lots of goodies and fun games. Her class included Abby and Gracie too. I came to just stay a minute but stayed until school got out. I like to be able to help the teachers out and since the girls were behaving so well it worked out ok.

Halloween Parties at School part 1

On Thursday I was pretty much at school all day helping with parties. Gracie had her party in the morning. Her teacher had some fun activities and there were lots of yummy goodies. Gracie was a bride this day. Abby fit right in with all the other kindergartners in Gracie's class. Day one of major sugar consumption!

Carving Pumpkins

The traditional carving of the pumpkins took place on Tuesday, the day Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin was on TV.....a new tradition has begun!! The girls are too funny when we do this, they love drawing the faces to cut out but when it comes to getting the "goo" out they have to have plastic gloves on. Bryanna: (in a practically crying voice) "I don't want to touch this stuff, it stinks", Mom: "Some things stink a lot worse, just put your hands in there", Bryanna: "yeah like FARTS!" Yes I have sweet girls who refuse to touch pumpkin guts but have no problem talking about farts and poopy!! So I gave them all plastic gloves and off they went. We even baked our pumpkin seeds which was something my mom always did. I want to try cinnamon pumpkin seeds next year.

Halloween Bags

I just finished Halloween bags for the girls to use for trick-or-treating this year. I had purchased the fabric last year on clearance after Halloween and knew I wanted to make bags someday. I actually got to someday this week, woo hoo!!
I used this tutorial http://lacehearts.blogspot.com/2008/07/easy-tote-bag-tutorial-from-beginner.html
It was pretty simple and they turned out exactly how I wanted them. I may still tie some ribbon on the handles to give them an extra "wow"!

Apple Hill/Pumpkin Patch

We have lived here in Carson for 2 years now and since 2007 people have told me about Apple Hill in California. It's this fun place with tons of apple orchards and pumpkin patches. When I hear things like this I want to go and experience it for myself. I think I was more excited than the kids to go! We enjoyed an afternoon as a family visiting a few different orchards listening to music, eating lunch, picking pumpkins and buying fresh organic apples,riding a mini train around the pond, not to mention eating the most delicious caramel apples. I have to say my peanut butter fudge covered apple with chocolate swirls was the BEST ever! The girls really had fun and Derek and I decided it was great making memories but we don't necessarily need to go back anytime soon!! Here are a few pictures from our day. It was beautiful weather!