We Are The Champions!

One of Steve's co-workers throws an all-out Halloween party every year. This year they wanted everyone to dress up in costumes, so they said they'd have a contest with trophies and everything. Normally, I'm unmotivated by things like this, but since I knew that I already had fairly cool costumes for Steve and myself, we decided to go for it.

(Quick background on our costumes. . . I made and painted my Sally dress, wig and extras, for a ward Halloween party back in 2001. I put most of Steve's costume together then as well, only updating a few things this year.)

After showing up at the party, we were quickly told by most of people there that our costumes were the best, and that we had better win. When the judging rolled around, John, the party's host, had people vote for each category by clapping for their favorite, except when it came to "Best Costume" and "Most Creative Costume". He just had us come up, and then placed the trophies in our hands. :)



As for the rest of the night, we had lots of fun! They had a bounce house, face painter, and a clown magician for the kids. Steve and I even danced around a bit.







There's nothing like good friends, and good fun!

Hallelujah!!

Remember that little Christmas present I wanted last year? Well, Santa must have finally found my letter to him because I've just now received it. :)

Noah, is (FINALLY!!!) potty-trained!

He's had no accidents for almost 2 days, and has woke up dry the last 5 mornings, plus most of the mornings the week before that.

I think the biggest change is that he's actually trying this time. I don't know why he didn't want to before now, and I'm not even sure what motivated him this time, besides all the things I promised to buy him once he got it all figured out. :) But no matter what it was, it worked.

Hallelujah!


(Here's the big boy with his "Sky Captain" shark plane (not really, but it's close enough :), and his pirate gun.)

Punkin' . . . carving??

We decided to do something a little different for the kids' pumpkins this year. Instead of carving, which was basically me doing it anyway, we bought these plastic face pieces that the kids could just poke into the pumpkins, thereby making them into different animals. Well, for FHE this evening, that's what they did.






Since we had 3 pumpkins and 4 sets of animal faces, we put 2 faces on our biggest pumpkin.



This was definitely the cleanest, easiest punkin' carving we've ever done. And the best part is, they can do it again next year!

Biola's Raisin Day Parade and Carnival

Today was Biola's annual Raisin Day parade. We were told the wrong starting time, so all we saw was the tail end of it, and that was because the end groups were waiting for their turns right in front of our house. Included there was the Biola-Pershing Cheerleaders, which our neighbor Jocelyn is a part of. Here they all are before starting.


And he we are with Jocelyn's family, waiting for the girls to pass by.


And you can't have a parade without cool cars!


And here are the girls!


I snapped this cute picture of Noah, just as the parade finished.


After the parade was over, we headed over to the carnival rides. Brooklyn and Steve chose to ride on the Ferris Wheel.


As we were waiting for them, Noah sampled some of the candy that had been thrown.


And then he went on the motorbikes.


Just as he finished, it started to rain. Good timing!

Gramma Sylvia's visit

Steve's mom has come to visit us twice a year since we moved to CA. She does this because she drives through here on her way to and from her winter home in Palm Springs, and it works out as a perfect stopping place during the long drive from Tacoma. We're glad to be so strategically located, and we're excited to see her every time!

The one thing we do during her stop-over is go out to dinner. She planned to be here on a Friday this time so that Steve could join us. We had been wanting to try out a new restaurant that Steve had heard about, so we headed there.


The Yosemite Falls Cafe has this ginormous burger called The El Capitan Burger. Steve was pretty hungry that night so he decided to try that and see if he could eat it all. (I think you even get to sign a book if you do eat it all, but we forgot to have him sign it.) Here he is, doing what he does best!




I can tell from when I took the pictures that he ate that whole thing in 22 minutes. Dang! :)

Here's Brooklyn, Gramma Sylvia, and Noah looking as cute as always!



And here they are in front of the Yosemite Falls replica. And of course, Brooklyn and Noah just had to throw some coins into the pool. :)

Visiting the Harvest Acres Pumpkin Patch

We finally made it to our local pumpkin patch today. It was technically Brooklyn's Activity Day outing, but since Noah and I usually attend with her anyway, we decided to make this our official visit. This particular pumpkin patch is actually run by the neighbor of my good friend Lora Nehring, who just happens to be our Activity Day leader, so it was especially fun to see all the work they put into it.

The first thing the girls did was check out the animals.


Then we got a group picture before starting the tour.


After hearing a bit about pumpkins, we all boarded the wagon to take a little drive around the pumpkin patch.




Next we headed to the Straw Bale Maze.




And then to the Corn Maze.



Finally, we got to go pick out our pumpkins! Here's Noah with his.


Just kidding! :)



We hope you all have a Great Pumpkin Day!

My Little Helpers, and A Family of Jack Skellingtons

I love that Brooklyn and Noah are always so eager to help me when I'm making yummy stuff in the kitchen. As soon as they see me pull out my Kitchen Aid, or even mention cookies or cake, there they are, asking me if they can help. The first thing Brooklyn always does is grab my smaller apron to put on. And then Noah says to me, "I need a towel on!", which he now says every time since the one time a clipped a hand towel to his waist to be his apron.

Well, today was no different. I wanted to make some chocolate chip cookies for our Family Home Evening treat, and so just as I started pulling out ingredients, here came my little helpers.






Of course they had to take turns adding the ingredients, but once we got everything mixed together, they couldn't wait to get their spoons in to grab a little sample. :)



While we were waiting for the cookies to bake, we started messing around with our Halloween costumes. Here's Noah in our really small elephant costume that I had out to sell. He ended up wearing it most of the evening. :)


And here we all are as Jack Skellington, from our favorite movie, "The Nightmare Before Christmas".





Later in the evening, Brooklyn showed us this fun craft, which she had learned to do during a school outing.




We finished off our FHE with Brooklyn practicing the song she was asked to sing in our Primary Sacrament program, which is scheduled for next Sunday. She was really excited to be asked and so wanted to make sure she sang it just right.


She did an great job, of course! :)