Halloween Fun

For work another gal & I arranged a fun Halloween competition. We sent an email out to everyone in a few departments saying to be thinking of a fun Halloween treat & donate a dollar to one of us & then the treats would be voted on & the winner would receive the cash that had been collected. I wasn't super creative, but made these cute candy corn cupcakes that I found on http://www.ourbestbites.com/ Cute - but not the coolest or scariest thing ever. I thought for sure I'd lose. But I won!!! My competition was a bag of Reeses....a dozen Albertson's glazed donuts....a pumpkin cream cheese cake from Kents....a bag of Almond Joys....coconut macaroons from Smiths....and pumpkin chocolate chips cookies from Smiths. I won a whopping 5 dollars. I'm like Angela from the office. The party planner who tries to make things super fun & then it bombs. Will I ever learn??

For the past 2 years we've met my Aunt Sandra & her daughter Amber at Gardner's village for some dinner & some shopping. It's always a good time. I fell in LOVE with a witch hat but couldn't allow myself to spend money on it. I said that if it was $20 or less I'd buy it, but it was $28. I bought a cute pillow pattern for a decorative Thanksgiving pillow (I hope I have some ambition to get it done before I'm 80) and a couple of cute Halloween decorations. Good food - good shopping - good times.

My new Halloween decoration!! (the witch hat)

It says "I'm melting"

The hat that I would not spend $28 dollars on.

Sandra was driving by Gardner's Village a couple of days ago & called to see if I wanted her to stop in & see if it was in my price range. It was marked down to $21 so she grabbed it for me. What a nice auntie!!
Amber - Angela - Sandra - Brittni

Angela - Brittni - Amber

Halloween was quite interesting. Angela called me at 9:00 AM because she HAD to have the hat she tried on at Gardner's village. I wasn't planning on dressing up - but since Sandra had already bought my hat for me (which I wasn't planning on getting until around Christmas time when I saw her again) I figured I'd better dress up. We drove to West Jordon & met Sandra & Rick & got my hat & Angela got hers & then we drove home. Blake had a joke book......it was a long 3 hours. What says quick quick? A duck with hiccups. We drove by a Kohl's & Blake piped up "We should stop at Nicole's. They have really great deals" Talk about random!

After we got all dress up we went to Angela's to get pictures & then out to Casey's parents house for some pizza & then to Casey's brothers house to visit. A lot of makeup for so few stops. Blake is on the downside of the Swine Flu & since I sat in a car with him my mom banned me from her house & my grandma's house. :( I was bummed. My grandpa is old & my dad has bronchitis, so she didn't want to take any chances.

Griffen (Master Chief) - Blake (Snake Eyes)

Caleb (A cute skeleton!)

What a scary family!

CUTE!!!

Eeeeee heee hee hee hee!

Like father like son.

Picking our Pumpkins!

On Wednesday, October 14th - one of my baby brothers left for the MTC. It's weird to think that he's that old! (let alone that I'm that old) He will be in the MTC for 2 months & then be shipped away to the Philippines. I hope that he has so many wonderful experiences that he can't even stand it! He will be missed so much!! We met at Jeremiah's in Ogden for breakfast before he went to the MTC. I love that place. It's worth the drive from Brigham...Berts sucks & is so expensive!

What a stud!

After breakfast, we drove home on Highway 89 to check out the pumpkin selection at the fruit stands. We found some GREAT ones!

I had Casey take Caleb to the far end of the pumpkin pile so I could get his picture with the pumpkins which he was NOT interested in. . . . .

...he couldn't run fast enough....

...to get the the wagons with the sweet wheels!!

I heart Halloween. . .

BUT - I'm not really big on the idea of LIVE FREAKING BLOOD SUCKING OUTDOOR DECOR!!!!!!!!

Casey happened to be home this morning when I saw this critter & I made him wake up & told him to go smack it with a shovel. He went out & asked if I wanted to watch it fly away...I was like WHAT?!?!? Kill it! He said that it didn't need to die. Mighty hunter my butt. So - he nudged it with a broom & it was already dead. Probably froze in the night. What is strange is that I felt bad that it had froze to death, but had no second thoughts about him smashing it to mush.

Sibling Night!

Before my brother left for the MTC we planned a sibling night. We went to Toads and had a lot of fun & then went to the Pie for delicious pizza!! Toads is EMPTY on a Thursday night. We pretty much had the place to ourselves. I even managed to knock off go-carts & batting cages from my 30 by 30 list!

The set up for this picture took forever!!

It's a good thing we had the miniature golf course to ourselves!

Camera timers are awesome!

Funny: We were all wandering around doing our own thing for a bit in the arcade area & Angela started this one game where you jump & it scores you somehow. She kept jumping....& jumping....& jumping....then Dylan came over to me cracking up and says "She's not even playing!!" She had been jumping for so long that she had to brace herself on the sides of the game to assist her with her jumping. We just let her keep on jumping (rude - but funny) When she finally realized she wasn't even playing - she said "I don't even think this is working!" Dylan, Ashley & I just cracked up after that.

Funny 2: We were eating our dinner at the pie & we were getting quite full & Jordon (who is a TOOTHPICK) said "Did you know that I can't even poke my stomach out?" I said "Did you know that I can't suck mine in?" Angela cracked up & started choking & managed to give herself a big smack on her chest & the piece she was choking on came out. I thought Dylan was going to lose it. It was a funny time.

Our pizza was HUGE!! Speaking of HUGE (one of Dylan's nicknames) he ate so much pizza!! And then he said "I could eat more. Ya know...I've never been hungry & I've never been full" How would it be!

I think we all had a blast & I'm excited for us to all get together again in October 2011!!

Where have I been??

In the kitchen!! I'm very lucky because my boss has quite a few peach trees & always hooks me up with a LOT of peaches. The pears are off of our trees in our back yard. Casey took some peaches that we didn't use & had started to get flies to the dump last night & took all of the pears too!! I was totally going to can them, but I was waiting for them to ripen a bit more. I can't complain though - he thought he was helping & really, less work for me. I am grateful that I have so much delicious food on my shelves! I'm excited to make more grape jelly this October. It's sooooo good!

28 Quarts of Peaches
I think fresh canned peaches are so pretty!

12 Pints of Jam

20 Pints of Regular Salsa

10 Pints of Peach Salsa

AND - my little sister is finally MARRIED!! Her dress was stinkin cute and it's always fun to look back & see how much STRESS went into the whole thing & now it's just . . .over! It was a nice time for them. May they live happily ever after!

I want to rock & roll all night...

I finally go to go to the concert that I won tickets for back in April!! Def Leppard came & went. I was really disappointed in them!! We missed Cheap Trick because the traffic was INSANE. I don't know what the deal was, but it took us an hour to go about 30 blocks. Poison was really, really good. I'm in love with that dirty boy Bret. Def Leppard should probably consider retirement. Or maybe it was the microphone - or the acoustics - or something. I feel like I need to make excuses for them because I don't want them to suck yet!!!

The following day my sister, Angela, was going with her friends to Nickelback. They were leaving at 3:00 & at 2:30 I got a phone call that one of their friends couldn't make it so I was invited...I had to go right? The concert the night before was pretty much a bust, so this was divine intervention trying to make up for it. I'm so glad that I went. It was much more fun than the night before. I now need to purchase Hinder's CD & Saving Abel. Papa Roach...not so much a fan. The lead singer for Nickelback is an alcoholic. He got more & more drunk as the night went on. Tis the life of a rock star. Lucky man.

Some ladies who I'm guessing shop at Hot Topic :)

Dog the bounty hunter trying to find his seat.

I love to people watch. It's a problem.

The lead singer for Hinder.

He was so close!!!

Angela, her friend Jeri , her daughters & I ended up going to a Denny's by the E-center after the concert. None of us had had any dinner & we were so hungry! We got there at 12:20....a bit before everyone else from the concert ended up there....and at 1:30 (AM mind you) we still didn't have our food!! Jeri went to ask about it & the gal said ours was next...well, 15 minutes later we still didn't have it! So we left and ended up at a Denny's in Centerville (I think) and ordered our food & had it in 10 minutes. Crazy!! We didn't get home until 3:30-ish (I think)...a very late night, but a very fun night too.