Halloween 2009

Halloween was very busy and fun this year. We started on Friday with a Halloween party at Karen's school that me and Michael were able to attend. After which we packed a lunch, grabbed the pumpkins and headed to Neils' work for some trick-or-treating and lunch with daddy. After that we tried to get the kids to nap before the ward Halloween party, emphasis on the word "tried". We had a fun filled day and we were all very exhausted at the end of it. Saturday was much more relaxed until the evening when the kids went trick-or-treating with daddy and I stayed home to hand out candy. When the kids pumpkins were filled, we headed over to my brother-in-law's house for some Ute football (which they won! yay Utes!). Gratefully, this holiday is over for another year and now I have to find a way to eat all the candy I can before the kids start to notice. j/k

Karen was my beautiful bride this year. I figured it was the only time I would have a say in what her bride dress would look like so I went all out and got a bit carried away making it. But it was fun and turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. She also loved the gold glitter spray we used in her hair and the make up we allowed just for halloween. I didn't get great pictures of just her so I hope this works for you to get a good idea of how beautiful she looked.


Michael was my scary ghost with white spray painted hair and painted face. I also made his costume this year which was a thousand times easier and quicker than Karen's, but just as fun. He loved looking scary and saying "BOO" to everyone.


Neils dressed up as a graduate and I went as the mad scientist. I forgot how horrible spray painted hair is. ICK!


These rows of pumpkins were at a house just up the street from us. I was so impressed that there were so many I had to get a picture. Karen said, "I wonder how they were able to carve so many so fast!" My thoughts exactly!


Hope everyone had a fun filled Halloween this year! Now on to Thanksgiving.

Severed Fingers

So I've had a few requests for the recipe for my cool looking severed fingers. Well here's it is. I used pretzels, sliced almonds, jam (raspberry or strawberry) and a peanut butter chews recipe. Here's the recipe:

• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup dry milk powder
• 1/4 cup honey or corn syrup
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar

Mix all ingredients together and knead thoroughly with hands.

Take a pretzel (I like to used the larger pretzels so they are more like bones) and mold some of the peanut butter mixture around the pretzel to form the finger. Leave a little bit of the pretzel showing at one end for the bone. Make lines around the knuckles, add a sliced almond to the end for a fingernail and jam around the pretzel end as the blood. Pretty simple and very effective. Have fun and Happy Halloween! :)

Pumpkin Painting

We have a cute pumpkin patch just down the road from us, so we decided to take the kids and let them pick their own pumpkins this year. It was quite fun and the kids loved looking at all the pumpkins and finding their favorites. Luckily they chose small ones so it didn't cost us an arm and a leg. We decided to let the kids paint their pumpkins instead of carving them. (Lots less messy and no chance of getting cut).

Karen wanted a scary face and this is how it turned out. I outlined the face and she painted it in. She did a really good job I think.

Michael had fun mixing all the paint together and didn't really do a face, but he had a blast anyway. I went back later and painted a face over what he had done. Neils says it looks like a hobo face, but Michael thinks it's silly which is just what he wanted.

We had a lot of fun. Now to finish their costumes and we'll be ready for Halloween! We also did a little Halloween treat, a practice for our ward Halloween party. They are called severed fingers, they look pretty good eh?


Since I haven't blogged for so long I did three just tonight. So keep going down to see them.

More Halloween Fun

Well, we made it! We made it through 5 different trick-or-treating events. 2 last weekend one at Karen's preschool, daddy's work and finally the big one around the neighborhood. It was fun and we have way too much candy now. The kids have been on a sugar rush for a week now, I'm tempted to make it all disappear. I guess it will be gone soon enough and kids should enjoy the spoils of Halloween. Karen wore 3 different costumes this year and Michael wore one. Here are a few pictures. Here's Karen's fairy costume at Preschool.

Here we are at Neils' work

Here the kids are ready to go trick-or-treating on Halloween night

And off they go. Isn't it cute that they are following Daddy so well.

There are no pictures of me because I didn't dress up this year. Oh well, maybe next year.

Halloweening

We've had a very fun Halloween filled weekend. Yesterday was our ward's trunk-or-treat Halloween party at our church house and then tonight was my sister-in-law's Halloween party at their church building. They had carnival type activities at both parties, dinner, cupcakes, cakes, plus trunk-or-treating at ours and trick-or-treating in the classrooms at our in-law's. Very busy, very fun and the kids loved it. They were bouncing off the walls by the time we got home with a candy buzz, but they loved it. I'm so done with Halloween and we still have another week until the actual holiday. Oh well.

Here are the kids all dressed up in their costumes at the party. Karen and Michael are "ruff"ing in the picture though it sounded more like a roar.These are their cousins

And this is a close up of the kids faces. Did I do good?

I was thinking that with all the candy they got at these two events that we don't need to take the kids out trick-or-treating on Halloween. I mentioned this to Neils and he said that he still wants to take the kids around the neighborhood. Must be his inner-child needing to get out and celebrate the holiday. Well, at least we'll have candy for the next three months or more.

Halloween is Coming

From the first day of October, Karen has been looking forward to Halloween and is really excited for it. She often tells me that she just can't wait for Halloween. She loves to dress up in her costumes and can't decide whether she wants to be a pink poodle or a black kitty cat. She looks darling in both. Then there is Michael who was kicking and screaming when I tried his doggy costume on him, but he's still excited about getting candy. They can't wait, so we got them dressed up one day and took some pictures of them in their costumes. The background is a display in front of the Wal-Mart near us. Isn't it so cute. We also began carving pumpkins, here are our 1st 2 attempts.