Halloween! Yeee-haw!!

Elizabeth was a cowgirl for Halloween; Mom made her costume and it was adorable.  She learned the appropriate "yeehaw" so she was able to show off her costume.  We were out of town (at Vampire Weekend) for our trunk-or-treat but Mom took her to theirs and she had a good time.  We then filled our week with fun Halloween stuff. 

 

 

 Monday night, we went to a Halloween Party at the YMCA.  It was crazy, there were a ton of people there, but it was so fun to see all the costumes and play the games.  There was a room of carnival games that the kids got to play, the gym had bouncy castles (a big one and a small one for the  younger kids-yay) and there was a glow-in-the-dark room with more carnival games, a dance party and a string obstacle course.  There were other activities but by the end we were all tired out. 

 

Friday (Halloween) morning we went to a Halloween Party at the Library.  I thought it started at 10:30, so we rushed over there after going to the gym, but it didn't start until 11:30 (ugg).  I was going to leave but Elizabeth got distracted by a train set and puzzles, so we ended up staying and waiting.  There were a lot of people at this also (80 kids) and we sang songs/danced, read scary books, did a craft and went trick or treating through the library.  It was fun and I think it got Elizabeth excited for trick or treating. 

 

That afternoon we went and got Ben from work and we all went to Pearl Street in Boulder.  Pearl Street has a special trick-or-treating event, where all the stores give out candy.  It was WAY busier that we expected but it was so much fun.  Elizabeth really got into the trick-or-treating, although it always just came out as "Treat!," and was funny because she would stand and inspect (I think in aww) all the candy before she put it in her pumpkin. Sometimes she would get to pick the candy out of the bowl herself and she would contemplate and then, almost always, pick the kind of candy that she couldn't eat (jolly ranchers/ Gobstopers); by next year, I will have to train her to get the chocolate!

 

Pearl Street took a lot longer than we had anticipated, so we were not able to go trick-or-treating with friends, so we stopped in Boulder to get food.  Where sounded good? IHOP.  We find that we crave IHOP on occasion and during/after always wonder why.  Here Elizabeth sat on the table and covered her skirt in ketchup (I was thankfully able to wash it out in the sink). We then headed home, with one stop at a member's house in our ward that make scones in their garage.  By this time it was 7 and Elizabeth was beat but I wanted to trick or treat a little bit of our neighborhood so I drug her (actually it ended up me carrying her) to some houses in our neighborhood.  We live in a neighborhood with a lot of older people and there are not a lot of kids (aka trick-or-treaters); so many of the houses were dark/not passing out candy and the other ones were giving away handfuls to get rid of all the extra candy they bought.  At the end, I begged Ben to let us go to one more house and it was an older gentleman.  He said it was late and he was going to bed (it was about 7:30 by this time) and so he had to give away his candy.  He gave Elizabeth a piece of candy and then gave us 5 full sized hersey's bars! I was so excited, it was a good way to end the night! 

 

We went home, quickly got Elizabeth bathed and ready for bed, changed into our costumes and headed out the door to go to some friends Halloween Party.  It was a long drive but it was fun to see our friends, the Andersons (who we had not seen in a long time), and we got to play/learn some fun new games. 

 It was a fun Halloween and we have decided that all Holidays are made more fun with Elizabeth!!

Vampire Weekend

For the past 5 years we have had a big Halloween weekend with our friends, we call it "Vampire Weekend".  We rent a cabin somewhere in the mountains and we all stay there for a weekend of fun.  This year (October 24-26) we were in charge of it, and I love planning parties; we got a cabin in Nederland (just about 30 minutes west of Boulder) and had 6 couples staying up there. We had friends coming in from out of town and we had decided to make it a 'no kids' weekend, so we were excited. (I had a hard time dropping Elizabeth at my parents house, just because I had not spent a night away from her, but I did surprisingly well all weekend and she had so much fun with Nana and Grandpa.) 

 Friday night, we had a big Halloween costume party and because it was so close to Boulder we were able to invite people up for the party.  I was in charge of decorations and food (I might have gone a little overboard), we had a dance party and hilarious games and about 20 people there.  It was a blast! Ben and I dressed up as the Goonies Couple, Brand and Andi, and we tied for best costume.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday was low key, we relaxed and went into Nederland, where we rode an old carousel (I haven't ridden one of those in years, maybe even decades). We then went on a hike, which we were not prepared for at all, and ended up not going all the way, but it was beautiful and nice to be outside.  We played games that night and had so much fun.  The next morning we had to pack up and go home but we still enjoyed the relaxing, kid-less, aspect of it and the delicious food (food always tastes better when it is made by someone else). 

 

 

 

 It was a fun to be away from the world and have a relaxing, and sometimes crazy, time with good friends.  The view was beautiful, the food was delicious, the party was awesome and the weekend was pefect!

Halloween Crafts and Pumpkin Carving

I LOVE the fall- I love the food, the smells, the colors, the crisp air and the CRAFTS.  I don't know why but painting pumpkins and leaves is SO much more fun than painting spring/summer flowers.

This October I had Elizabeth do a lot of Halloween Crafts (just wait for the November Crafts- they are going to be good). She really liked it and we had them throughout the house, which she also liked seeing. 

10/5- We found pretty leaves and made a leaf picture (thank you Daniel Tiger).

 

 10/15- We did some painting (trying to make spider webs but it didn't really work) and made MONSTERS!! She loved putting on the pom poms and was so excited to paint.

 

 

10/16- We even had a craft play group with some of our friends; it was so much fun! We painted pumpkins and made a hand print witch and spider.

10/29- Before carving our pumpkins we had them sitting on the porch with some fake faces on; you will notice that it has multiple eyes, ears and noses because Elizabeth just couldn't decide.

 We carved pumpkins as a family. Elizabeth did not really like the pumpkin innards but she loved coloring on the pumpkin (drawing her face) and cutting it out (Ben is so loving and patient and he trusted her with a knife... with help).  I saw on pinterest that you can make easy shapes with cookie cutters in a pumpkin but, like many pinterest ideas, it didn't really work. Well it did work and it looked super cute but it was just a LOT more work than we thought and we ended up just getting the shapes and carving them out.  Ben and I made a scary pumpkin; I drew, he carved. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think they turned out pretty good!! Elizabeth liked them so much that whenever we went outside she would sit next to them and examine them- it was cute.