Halloween 2013

Halloween this year consisted of two parts for us: One part without children, and the other part without Kevin...

Our first Halloween celebrations took place on the 25th at my sister Becca's house. Every year she throws an EPIC Halloween costume party, and this year we were invited!

I worked super hard turning Kevin's bicycle helmet into a velociraptor head for my costume in hopes of winning one of the 4 coveted prizes for best costume!

It turned out to be a bust (we came in 5th...perhaps because everyone thought we were the Crocodile Hunter and his crocodile...) but that's OK. I still had a blast playing around with Kevin, who came as Muldoon! We played lots of Minute-to-Win-it games, ate lots of great food, and had a wonderful evening without the kids under foot.

The second part of Halloween for us was on the actual day of Halloween. Kevin got called out to work in Alaska last minute, so he wasn't able to enjoy the festivities with us, but we made do.

Anyway, when I wasn't working on my velociraptor costume during the month, I was working on Lily's Cheshire Cat costume. She was so happy to put all her kitty skills to good use, especially since she got candy for it!

Brooklyn got lucky and was given  this fantastic dress from someone in our ward. It was perfect for her Queen of Hearts costume.

The first festivity of the day was a costume parade at Brooklyn's school. She was the first one out and led the whole school up and down the halls for parents to see.

And as you can see, she really enjoyed playing the part of the queen :)

After school, we drove over to the Booth's house for food, fun, and trick-or-treating. Unfortunately, it was raining really hard all day long, so we didn't make it very far.

Brooklyn and her prince charming got pretty quick maneuvering between houses.

Even Lily started picking up the pace when she realized her fur was melting off!

But alas, when we finished, she looked like a drown cat rather than the Cheshire cat!

Brooklyn, on the other hand, wised up and used her powers as the queen to command the aid of someone else's daddy to walk her through the rain without too much drippage on her person.

Even though we really missed Kevin on Halloween, we had a great time with our friends and were very glad to have so many great people in our lives to share the experience with!

October in Pictures...

Aside from our adventures with luaus and Halloween, October held a lot of other fun surprises and adventures for us this year:

We got to watch our neighbor (who Brooklyn may or may not have a crush on) play football at his Senior year Homecoming game! And his team WON!

We spent some time Geo-caching in nearby parks.

Kevin finally finished the trebuchet that he started building with the young men in our ward last October.

Brooklyn and Lily practiced their biking, scooter, and pump giving skills.

Kevin practiced being creepy.

We had a blast playing in the parks with all the wonderful weather we were having.

We got to hike through Waterfall Glenn again...

which was helpful in getting all 3 of my kids wiggles out :)

We babysat and played with baby Mason (Brooklyn's biggest obsession in life.)

I sewed lots of crafts for the Helping Hallie Bazaar and 5K that our ward helped to throw. (P.S. Kevin won the 5K by a landslide!

We celebrated Kevin's birthday...which we somehow forgot to take ANY pictures of except this one of our friend Robert building an iPhone microscope for Kevin as a present. (Kevin also received a pretty dope bike to help with his commute to work, and an awesome Bishopric survival kit from my sister and her family!)

And Kevin spent a week in Alaska hiking, running, eating, and of course, working!

More to come about our Halloween...Next!

Shriner's Luau and Brooklyn's 1st Show!

On October 19th, Brooklyn got to join Kevin and I in her very first luau as an entertainer for the halau I dance for! It was amazing for me to finally have one of my children sharing in something that I love so much, especially because it was her choice to do so!

Brooklyn was adorable in her costumes and spent weeks practicing hard for the big show (that took place in an airport hangar...much to Kevin's delight!)

I took Brooklyn around before the show and explained to her how all the stage entrances would work, and where she would stand. She really just soaked it all in.

In the meantime, Lily was being a fantastic support in her little mu'u mu'u. She sat quietly where we had asked her to stay and cheered loudly after each performance. People seemed to be just as impressed with her after the show as they were with Brooklyn :)

Brooklyn had one little friend who danced with her, which was good because she still needed to peek over her shoulder quite a bit to remember her moves!

She did great on all her dances and was a major star during her Tahitian performance and her solo during the poi ball number with Kevin and I.

 I was so proud of her when we finished, I felt like my face would burst from smiling so big! Unfortunately, I can not get the video to post to YouTube for your viewing pleasure, so this picture of her in her Maori costume before we left for the show will have to do :(

We had a blast dancing for the Shriners and were so glad to share such a neat experience with our kiddos. Can't wait for next season and many more shows with my sweet little family!

Perfect Timing!

On September 17th, my beautiful mother flew out to Chicago to pay me and my sister Becca a visit! She started out the first week staying at Becca's house, although I was able to go up for a girls night out one night and my whole family drove out to Geneva to spend the first Sunday she was here together.

The 24th marked the day that my mom would travel down to Westmont to spend a week with my little family! Unfortunately, on the 23rd, our sewers backed up! This is the most mild of the pictures (to spare you the gore). Short story is this: The landlord wouldn't answer the phone messages, texts, or emails that we sent him, so we called a plumber, who wouldn't fix it without permission from the landlord! We ho-hummed around a little until finally I told him that my mom would be arriving the next day to spend a week SLEEPING in the very basement that was covered in POO! The plumber took mercy on me at that point and rotor rooted our drains (for $500!) unscrewed our toilet and dumped it out on the floor, and splashed poo slime all over my basement! I spent the next 10 hours squeegeeing floors, wiping down walls, and bleaching every surface under the sun! And I finished, 30 minutes before my mom arrived! Just in the nick of time :)

While grandma was here, we tried to take advantage of every second we got to be together. We spent lots of time snuggling...

and having great adventures...

walking on beautiful paths through incredible parks...

playing in some pretty fun parks and zoos...

taking leaps of faith...

hanging out with cousins...

and enjoying every moment we could bask in Grandma's wonderful presence!

During her visit, Brooklyn even got to sleep over in Geneva with grandma so she could see her cousins perform in their ward primary program. She felt very special having grandma semi "to herself"

But the highlight of the trip for my girls was when grandma Uda taught them how to make her famous peanut butter fudge, and she even let them lick the pot! Just like old times :)