A Jolly Halloween

Happy Halloween! I hope you all had a fun one. Mine was kind of stressful with quarter end at work. To try and forget about the work stress and think about something happy and because I am a proud Aunt that likes to show off her adorable nieces and nephews, I will keep my tradition going of posting what my nieces and nephews were for Halloween. Oh how I love to see them all dressed up in costume. They are all so cute I can hardly stand it. Love them all to pieces.

First we have Kristy's kids. Theme: Dragon & Princesses. Grant made a VERY cute dragon and the girls are beautiful princesses. Reanne is the Princess from Tangled and Sierra is the princess from Princess and the Frog. I would like to note that Kristy made both Princess costumes. Are they not amazing?!

Next we have Lori's cute family. I love that Lori and Billy dress up with their kids and do themed costumes. This year they dressed up as characters from Pinocchio! Is that not the cutest thing ever? Lori was the Blue Fairy. Billy was Geppetto. William was Pinocchio & Zach was Jiminy Cricket! Love it! I would also like to note that Lori put together these costumes with trips to DI and some sewing. Turned out awesome.

Last we have little Gwen as Alice in Wonderland (from the Tim Burton film). Is she not a doll? This dress is amazing too and of course... Jamie sewed it... without a pattern. That is how she rolls. She is the most talented in our family when it comes to sewing. Asher was Captain Jack Sparrow. Jamie also made his wig. He looks so great.

I love my nieces and nephews. They are the cutest and I just have to show them off. :)

Now to my costume...

A couple of weeks ago I didn't know what I was going to be. My friend Wes and I were talking and he told me he wanted to be Bert from Mary Poppins. So he told me I would make a great Mary Poppins and asked if I would dress up with him. I have never been Mary Poppins before, so I thought that would be fun, so I agreed.

Here are some friends at the party we went to tonight for the Stake. It was a lot of fun.

My friends Chris & Brad cracked me up with their costumes. I HAD to get a picture with them. They are too funny.

We were a little disappointed though, we thought we were being somewhat original with our costume idea, but turns out a couple from our ward had the same idea. I also saw one other Mary Poppins. Sadness. However, we still had lots of people wanting to take our picture and everyone telling us how cute we were and how much they loved our costumes.

This is how our costumes turned out. Not bad for putting it together in the last couple of days. All it took was a trip to WalMart, DI & our closets. Wes found his shirt, shoes, jacket & chimney sweeper at DI. The hat he is wearing is actually mine. I found my hat at WalMart (actually covered a skull with flowers). I bought some red material and my mom made the bow tie and sash. I bought the skirt at DI and I had the tights, shoes. blouse, gloves and purse.  Not too bad huh? I loved it. We love to sing together so we sang a little Jolly Holiday on the way into the party. I had never done a couple costume before (probably because I have only been in a relationship during Halloween once and we didn't match because we didn't plan) so it was really fun to do it. Some people asked me if we were dating, which I figured people would. We had a blast walking around together showing off our costumes and speaking in a British accent. It was a jolly holiday indeed.

Halloween Dinner for the Kids

A couple of years ago my sister, Kristy, started this really cute tradition for her kids. She makes a Halloween meal for her kids. They love it and it is so cute, she does a different menu every year. The first year I was invited to attend. This year not only did I get to attend... I also got to help contribute. It was at my parents house this time and so my parents helped too. My dad even got really into it. Here is what my dad made... dancing ghosts. Cute huh?

Here is what I contributed. Tombstone cupcakes. Cute right? I got the idea from my roommate Rachel who is a cupcake pro.

I also suggested a few ideas like the pumpkin throwing up guacamole. I carved the Pumpkin.

I also suggested the deviled egg creepy crawlers since my dad makes deviled eggs every week anyway.

Other than that, Kristy thought up the rest of the menu which included gobblin toes (sausage & crescent rolls), mummy pizza's, witches brew (dry ice included), Potato creatures, bug infested salad and Frankenstein jello cups. It was so great.

The kids had a hard time having to wait for this meal. While Sierra waited, she read Ghost jokes. (I totally remember loving those joke books as a kid)

The girls also dressed up as witches.

Then they were able to eat the awesome meal!

We also had fun decorating... mostly because they knew I would want to. I really love how it turned out. My sister is so creative and talented and does such fun awesome things for her kids. I am just so glad that I get to be a part of it.

In My World of Halloween

This month totally flew by... and I didn't do as much when it comes to festive activities as I did last year... although I still did a lot. I still wanted to share some Halloweenish things that happened this month that were not big parties or anything... but still worth sharing.

First of all... towards the beginning of the month, I came home from work one day to find my house all decorated and cute for Halloween. Rachel is amazing. I love her style so I know whatever she is going to do is going to be awesome and I will love it. So nice to have a roommate who is an interior designer. :)

I don't normally like Krispy Kream that much... but a little birdie told me that they had these delicious pumpkin spice donuts... so I had to give them a try. All I can say is... YUM!!! I told my boss the next day about it and he went and got them for us at work. ha ha.

I have the most thoughtful family. My oldest sister Kristy made some Carmel chocolate popcorn to give away as Halloween treats. She was sweet enough to think of me. She not only gave me some but she dropped it off for me at work. It is always a fun surprise at work to get a phone call from the girl at the front desk saying I have a package. It is exciting for me to go down to the front desk to see what it is and who it is from. Although the only people who have done that for me are my mom and Kristy, so I had a pretty good guess it was from Kristy. I asked the girl at the front desk if it was from my sister once I got down there and she said yes. And I love that she knows who my sister is. ha ha. It was so thoughtful of Kristy to do that and it totally made my day. I read her cute note as I went back to my office and all of my co-workers were so jealous that I got a package of treats. They said nobody had ever left them a package before. Thank you Kristy for thinking of me and being such an awesome sister.

Last but not least, last night I went to a party in Lindon with my friends Vicki & Mindi. I was for sure the odd ball out because I didn't have a matching costume, but we still had fun. The dance was hoppin and it was fun to see how creative people got with their costumes. For the most part... I was way over dressed because Halloween is an excuse to dress up like a skank. Oh well. We had fun dancing regardless. After the dance we went to eat at Denny's and our friend Matt (from Lake Powell) and his roommate came and met us there. After Denny's Vicki and I went to their place and watched a movie on their projector. Another Halloween movie to add to my list this year. We watched "Young Frankenstein". Oh good times. I am so sad that there are only a couple of days left of October and Halloween activities.

Flashback Friday 36

Another Halloween flashback. This time we go back to 2005. I moved to the Devonshire with some of my best friends Brad, Nate & Steve. We did EVERYTHING together... seriously. Everything. They were my home away from home. Typically Brad and Nate didn't dress up for Halloween, so this particular year when they expressed a desire to dress up, I was all about helping them out. Little did I know how involved I would get in helping all of them with their costumes. They all decided what they wanted to be and I helped make it happen in any way that I could.

First that involved working on wigs. That was a challenge with just the long straight wigs from WalMart... but we did the best we could with what we had.

Here is how the costumes turned out. Nate was the Phantom. Steve was William Wallace (from Braveheart) and Brad was The Goblin King from The Labyrinth. (I helped the most with this one)

With Nate's costume I had the least amount of work. We just got him a cape and he spray painted his hair and eyebrows black. It made him look very different. We also took a mask and I cut it to look like the phantom mask and I am pretty sure I used eyelash glue to glue the mask to his face. ha ha. I don't know if that was the best idea or not. For Steve's costume, I cut and braided his wig. I helped him with the burlap he wore and I let him borrow my skirt for a quilt and my ugg boots. ha ha. Yes, I was totally okay with him wearing my clothes. Now... with Brad's costume, we first shopped for boots and pants (I told him they shouldn't be too tight) We then found a black jacket... it was a pirate jacket... but I thought we could fix that. We found a women's white shirt with a V-Neck and then bought some material and my roommate sewed ruffles around the collar and sleeves. The Wig was difficult... it required a lot of cutting and putting pieces that I have cut off and adding it to the top... I tried to imitate the 80's rock mullet... but it was pretty hard with what I had to work with... but I think it turned out okay. For the jacket, we first had to spray paint over the skull and cross bones. Then I hot glued lots of gems on the back and on the shoulders. and we cut all over to give that rock star effect. Last but not least... I did Brad's make up... to try and look like the Goblin King and we gave him a little ball to hold. Being all home made... I thought it was awesome.

The best part was... we went to the Halloween parties and everyone knew who they were. I was like a proud mother with her kids costumes. ha ha.

Then there was my costume. I kind of matched my friend Sydney. I am not really sure what it was... a Forrest fairy? I don't know... but I thought it was cool. Anytime I can do cool make up on my face... I am happy. My roommate also sewed my costume together. Tessa was awesome. What a great friend. It was good times.

Confessions of a Brunette on the Internet 89

What a week. It kind of flew by. I always keep myself busy enough that I always feel like that. Then again, when I am in the middle of the week I am always wishing it was the weekend.

I pretty much blogged about everything exciting that happened over the weekend. We did have Stake Conference though and it was super great. No surprise there though. Anything that comes from our stake is pretty fantastic. In fact, I really wanted to let every member of the stake presidency know how much I appreciate them so I wrote them each a note and gave it to them tonight (Wes helped me drop them off) and  I baked them each a loaf of banana bread... cause I tend to do that for people I like. ha ha. I also did that for my favorite Institute teach, David. This has been my favorite Stake presidency... EVER. They are super awesome. I'm lucky to be in such an awesome stake.

Sunday night I was invited on a motorcycle ride around P-Town with this guy in the ward. It was nice because I'm not going to be able to do that much longer, so I am enjoying being outside as much as possible. I also love motorcycle rides... but yeah, I really enjoyed my night motorcycle ride.

Being at Stake Conference and listening to these great men speak... it just makes me wonder if there are anymore out there for me. All the guys I deal with are for the most part jerks and end up on my friend Ashley's "junk punch" list. I just don't understand what about me makes me un-datable. Why do guys want to hang out with me, and call me to talk and kiss & snuggle with me, but then are asking the girls that they are really interested in out on the weekends and not me? You would think that because they want to spend their time with me that they were interested in me... but apparently not. It is really frustrating.

Monday's are usually hard for me. I'm never excited to start a new work week. I have to say though that Pilate's was super fun. I mean.. it was stunk because it was so hard and painful, but it was fun because she was blasting fun music that you could not help but smile and keep you going. She has so much energy too and she struggles right along with us. I think my favorite part of class was when we were on our hands and knees, one leg up with a weight behind our knee and we were doing leg lifts to the beat of the beach boys "Surfin USA". When the song got faster... so did our lifts. It was hard, but fun. I am getting pretty strong these days. My Pilate's has improved since I have been doing it twice a week now for a while. Too bad I have nothing to show for it because I need to lose weight. Ugh. I wish I was naturally skinny.

After work I went to FHE and then to Hairspray practice. We are doing some couples dancing in "Nicest kids in town". It was pretty fun... but we are doing this flip over the back move at the end of the song. My partner and I were both learning how to do it. I was barefoot and he tossed me over his back and I landed super hard on my heels. They were bruised the next day. Ha ha... hopefully it is all worth it and the dance looks really awesome in the end. I think it will. I am going to try and have it video taped so that I can post it when it is all over. I need to shop for costumes.

After that I watched "The Nightmare Before Christmas" with my roommates. I seriously love that movie. I can't help sing along with the whole thing. It is a must for me every year at Halloween to watch that movie.

So my singing BFF (Wes) and I want to make a CD together. As some of you know, we have sung in church together and we sang "The Boxer" at the talent show which I posted on my blog. We are struggling a little though of what we want to sing on the CD. I think we agreed to be open to musicals, folk music and ballads. We are going to do "The Boxer" again and I am pretty sure Wes wants to sing "16 going on 17".  Anyone have any suggestions for us? We are both pretty well rounded when it comes to music, so throw some ideas at me. I could use it. We want to do this by the end of the year... which means we need to get cracking.

I should not be allowed to hang out with my friend James anymore. The kid doesn't sleep. He wants to hang out and I end up only getting a few hours of sleep which messes me up for the rest of the week. Tuesday night he wanted me to go with him to WalMart to do a homework assignment that he forgot about.... at midnight. Ugh. I need to become better at saying no and make a new goal of being in bed by midnight. I set that goal all of the time, but for some reason... it is really hard for me to actually do it.

On Tuesday for work we went out to lunch to PF Changs. It was SOOO good. We all shared a few different meals. One of the things we got was shrimp that was served with melon and caramelized pecans. I did not think it was going to be as good as it was. Next time I eat there (whenever that is going to be) I am totally ordering that again. Anyway... after we left PF Changs we were getting back in the car and we saw this lady across the parking lot that was wearing boots that went half way up her thighs and had at least 4 inch heels. Seriously she could barely walk in them. I like boots... don't get me wrong, they just seemed really silly on her. Anyway... this got us all talking about boots and my boss started talking about his wife's boots. He said "She had the boots with the fur" and that was all he needed to say and me, Lauren & Paula all started giggling. I then asked him if she also had Apple Bottom Jeans to go along with that. We all started laughing more. He was clueless. Obviously he had never heard the song. We tried to explain it to him... but he just remained clueless. If you don't know what song I am talking about... you can listen to it here. It reminded me of this flow chart that a friend of mine either posted on facebook or Pintrest, don't remember which one, but I thought it was so funny and made me laugh. If you don't know the song... I would probably listen to it once or else the flow chart is not going to be funny. Just sayin.

Photo of the Week 87

Another fall picture, because it's almost over and I am not ready for it to be. Not at all.

Witch Party

My awesome friend Rachel is at it again. She threw another sweet party. What party was it this time? A Witches Party. So fun right? I feel so lucky to be invited to these parties. I love them. Let me show you what she planned for this fun party.

First of all, the party was held at her parents house, which is all not only decorated for Halloween, but it is witched themed. Perfect for the party.

Second, Rachel put together an awesome table display. All the food was very delicious too.

We then watched Hocus Pocus while we ate our snacks.

Then came my favorite part... We decorated Witch hats! Is that not the cutest idea ever? We had a ton of ribbon and material and different things (even some spiders) to choose from to decorate with. Mine is the Purple and zebra print one (go figure). Rachel's is the ruffly blue one, the ruffly green one is Rachel's mom's (Laura) and the one where the ribbon twists around the hat? That one is Rachel's sister (Bre). They all turned out super cute. We made the hats while listening to Halloween music on Pandora and we played a game where we would see who would guess the song as soon as it would come on. Good times.

Oh, lets not forget that we dressed up like witches too. Rachel's parent's basement is filled with fun costumes. In fact, I borrowed two costumes from them last year for Halloween.

They are such a fun family. It's so fun hanging out with them. Thanks so much for always inviting me in on the fun. 

Sweeney Todd Party

I love Tim Burton films. When Sweeney Todd came out, I went and saw it and I loved it. Some people think I am weird because I love it because it is pretty morbid. I admit, I can't watch the slitting of throats. I turn my head. However, I love the rest of the movie. It's beautifully done. The coloring, the artistic camera shots.... I love the beautiful music. It is just well done and I love it. Don't judge me. ha ha.

As you may have seen, this year I carved Sweeney Todd into my pumpkin. While I was doing that... I got an idea. Why not watch the movie and make a little party out of it? So I pitched the idea to my good friend ( and roommate) Rachel. Being the champ that she is, she went along with the idea and helped me pull off this little party in a couple of days. I thought it was awesome. So much more fun to have a little party with themed snacks rather than just watch a movie. Here is how it turned out.

I first made cupcakes. Rachel was awesome and taught me how to use fondant... so I made little knives to put on each of the cupcakes. I was pleased with how they turned out. They tasted good too. I brought the left overs to work the next day and I think my co-workers thought I was a little strange.. especially since they had never seen (and most of them had never heard of) Sweeney Todd.

Here is the table. Kind of erie.... like the movie. I did a couple of shots with different lighting so you could really see it. We had a great time.