Delightfuly Frightful!

The kids don't have school on Friday so they both got to wear their costumes today. Abbi is a vampire and Hallie is Jasmine. I always have fun paiting faces the morning of dress up. Abbi's was really fun. It's like she transformed into a vampire the minute she put those teeth in. I think she looks pretty darn cute.
Hallie changed her mind several times this month on what she wanted to be this year. She finally decided on Jasmine from Aladdin. We found this costume half off at Children's Place last weekend in St. George. She loved that it had all her favorite colors and it was "bosquee!" (that's how she says sparkly!)

We put swirls on her face and sprayed her with glitter. She insisted on wearing a wig, so we found this one that she loves.

She also transformed into a true live princess once that hat went on. I love Halloween! Korver's costume is really cute too, but we'll wait until Halloween to post pictures of him since he won't have a need to get dressed in it until then. But seriously, it's so stinkin' cute. I can't wait to take them all out trick-or-treating.

What Comes Around Goes Around

So, while we were in St. George I found this AWESOME chicken costume at Target. I had to try it on. Kristen took a picture of me with her phone and took the liberty of sending it to Jeff (and a few others.) When I got home there was an email from Jeff saying: "I think this picture has a place on your blog!" So I thought it is only fair that I post it since I posted him in his nerd outfit earlier. Seriously, I wanted to buy this costume so bad, but it was $70. There was even a dance that I did that went along with it. We laughed so hard and even had a few other people laughing. In fact, on our way out, we saw a lady that said that she had to buy the costume after seeing me in it. She had also taken a picture of me wearing it and sent it to her sister who in return told her she had to buy it. I told my mom that if she bought it for me, I would bring treats to her work wearing it. She didn't buy it.... I wonder why.

Our "Thrilling" Trip To St. George

After being home from my trip with Jeff for one day, I headed down to St. George with the kids, my mom, and Kristen. My mom dances with the Golden Girls and they had a performance at Tuacahn. We had SO much fun. We did lots of shopping, swimming, and laughing. We left on my birthday after my mom got off work and drove down. I think we got to St. George at about midnight. Once we got there my mom and Kristen headed off to the grocery store for a midnight treat run (really to get stuff for breakfast.) They returned with candles and my mom brought down a pie from Marie Calandar's. They sang Happy Birthday to me and then we stayed up even longer talking. My kids were EXHAUSTED! The next morning we woke up and went shopping all day and then to yummy Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Kristen, Abbi, Hallie, and I went to the pool after we got back to the condo for a late night swim. My mom was tired, so she and Korver stayed back and went to sleep. The next morning, we got up and went swimming and after a run in with a mean old man that yelled as us for thinking we didn't shower before entering the pool (seriously, he was so mean and really stupid,) we went back to the condo and got ready to do more shopping. We came back and got my mom ready for her performance. They had to dress up like fat witches. Her costume was really cute. We then went to Tuacahn and watched my mom dance. After that we saw "Thriller." It was so much fun. My girls loved it and Korver sat with my mom the whole time and barely mad a peep.
Some of the Zombie looking performers wander through the audience before the play starts. They are totally in character and are SO creepy. This one in the picture above took a liking to Hallie. At first Hallie was kind of afraid, and then all of a sudden she let's out a "roar" trying to scare the Zombie girl. The whole crowd around us was laughing at her, it was so cute. Then the Zombie and Hallie started sticking their tongues out at each other. The Zombie girl couldn't even hold a straight face. She was so cute with Hallie and came and found her again at intermission. On the way out of the play, we stopped her so that we could get a picture with her. If you look close at the picture, you can see that Hallie is totally sticking her tongue out at her.

Korver liked hanging out with all of us girls.

Here is my mom right before we left. Doesn't she look cute? We stuffed her with pillows to make her look like a fat witch. They danced to a song called, Chunky. It was so cute. If anyone has ever seen them perform at Jazz games, you know how great they are. I love that my mom dances with them. I can't wait, only 18 more years and I can join! (You have to be at least 50.)

Kristen putting the finishing touches on mom before she had to go. It was such a fun trip. I love being with my mom and sister and of course, my kiddos. We laughed so hard at the dumbest things, but we had so much fun. I'm so thankful for them. Thanks girls for such a fun trip.

Happy Birthday Ya Old Goat!!!

My parents were tending my kids while we were in San Diego. We went to their house and picked them up and then headed home. When we pulled up there was a live goat on my lawn. I have NEVER laughed so hard in my life. For real, my gut hurt from laughing so hard. It was tied to my tree eating my grass. There was this sign hanging from my garage that said, "Happy Birthday You Old Goat, be careful what you wish for!) Now the story behind that is I have ALWAYS wanted a goat. I think they are so funny and tell Jeff all the time that one day, we will own a goat. I knew right away that it was my sister and brother-in-law, Kristen and Weston, that were behind all of this. Jeff grabbed the camera and started snapping pictures of me and my new goat. I started warming up to him and actually fell a little bit in love with the cute little thing. All of a sudden Kristen and Weston popped up from the back of our truck with their friend Skyler laughing hysterically.
Now comes the mean part, they let me fall in love with my goat and even told me it was really mine to keep. And then once my kids started getting all excited about it, they couldn't lie anymore and told me the goat was just on loan from a friend and that I really couldn't keep it. I was seriously so disappointed. I guess they had a real goat lined up for me, but then they started worrying that Jeff would be mad.

So, I had to say farewell to my goat friend and sent him on his way back to his home. The good news, they told me I could visit him whenever I wanted.

One day I will be blogging about my goat that I get to keep.

Our Trip To San Diego

Jeff had a class that he had to attend for work in San Diego and he invited me to tag along with him. We decided to make a road trip out of it. We left early Sunday morning and drove straight through and arrived in San Diego at about 4:00. When we got there we went out to Coronado Island that is just off the shore of San Diego. There is a bridge that you can drive across to it. If you are ever in the San Diego area, I highly suggest you go. It is a really cute place. Anyway, we went to this really yummy steak house called the Marina Steak House (I think.) The food was delicious.
Look at how huge my steak is. It was about 2 inches thick and seasoned perfectly. We were both in Heaven because we love steak.
Jeff didn't have to go to his class until Tuesday, so Monday we woke up and got ready for the day and headed to Old Town. Old Town is the first Spanish settlement in California and it's a really cute little place. Lots of Mexican restaurants to eat at. We hadn't had breakfast yet, so we found this cute place to eat at that served yummy breakfast food. We decided to eat outside even though it was a little on the chilly side. It was lots of fun. Jeff got an omelet and said it was really good. I chose a breakfast burrito and it was also very good.

After that, we drove around San Diego and saw the sites. Jeff decided that he wanted to go see a Monday night football game. So we went to the stadium where the San Diego Chargers play and tried to get tickets, but all they had left were single seats. So we went back to the hotel and found some tickets online. We were way excited and only had a few hours until the game started, so we decided to head to Pinkberry!!! My favorite treat EVER!!! Honestly, this stuff is to-die-for good. It's not like the frozen yogurt you get at other places. It has that really yummy yogurt flavor. I love the stuff.

After that we went back out to Coronado Island and went to the beach. We were walking along the beach and Jeff found this tooth. Not really sure what it was from, but we thought it was pretty cool.

This was probably one of the best beaches I've ever been to. It was gorgeous and the sand was so soft.

One of our favorite parts of that day was the little restaurant we found out on the pier. I love places like that where you can sit by the water and eat something yummy. We ordered a snack since we were full from Pinkberry.

So then it was time to go back to the hotel and get ready for the game. We were surprised at how great our seats were. You can see from the pictures that they were pretty darn good. The Chargers played the Denver Bronco's. It was SUCH a good game. Really close the whole time. It was fun to sit with a bunch of crazy Charger's fans. Seriously, I don't think I've heard the F bomb dropped more in my entire life than I did at that game. We even saw a couple fights between the Charger's and Bronco's fans. It was fun though and an experience I will never forget. The Bronco's won so we had to ride the train back to our car with a bunch of angry Charger's fans.

The next day Jeff was in his class all day, so we got up really early and had breakfast at a cafe' that was really close to our hotel and then I dropped him off at his class and went back to the hotel and got ready for some shopping. There was a mall about 2 blocks away from our hotel, so I drove there and shopped til I dropped. I loved this particular mall because it was outside. So fun! After that I went back to the hotel and sat at the pool and waited for Jeff to get done with his class. When I was in San Diego with my friends for our cruise, we ate at a yummy Mexican restaurant called Miguel's. I wanted to take Jeff, so we headed back over to Coronado to eat there. I didn't know this, but he told our waitress that it was my birthday and they came out with a huge piece of ice cream pie for us to share. They also sang to me. It was really fun.

We had such a good time and the trip came to an end way too soon. I wish we would have had longer to do some more fun stuff. I love vacations alone with Jeff.

Father Daughter Beach Party

About a month or so ago, Abbi and Jeff went to a dad and daughter beach party. They had lots of fun. I LOVE this picture of them together. Jeff is such a good dad and looks forward to going to these types of things with the kids.

Seriously! He's Going to Kill Me!!!

Okay, so Jeff is going to kill me for posting this picture, but I had to do it. One day when we were getting ready for church, Abbi had her friend Pieper over and she was going to come to church with us. Jeff started getting dressed and we thought it would be really funny if he dressed super nerdy and went out acting like he was all ready to go. I wish I wold have gotten a picture of their faces, because they were priceless. This is why I love this guy. We laugh together and have so much fun. He's always doing funny things like this. The best is when he puts on his pajama bottoms and pulls them clear up past his waist and tucks his shirt in. I'll have to take a picture of that one for you if he will let me. After this post, I don't know if he'll ever let me take another picture of him again.

Making Caramel Apples

This year we made our caramel apples again. Only, we decided to stick to making 9 instead of 65 like we did the last time we made them. I got everything ready to go earlier in the day so that everything went smoothly.
My mom gave Jeff the red apple dipping container you see in the background which worked great. It was the perfect size to roll your apple around in and make sure the caramel got over each bite. We had several toppings to chose from that the kids dipped the apples in including Reeces Pieces, crushed up Skor, crushed up graham crackers, crushed up Butterfinger, cinnamon and Nerds.

Hallie liked the Nerd's the best for her apple.

It was such a fun family activity and I'm sure glad we decided to do it again this year. We missed it last year, since we had a new baby in the house and things were a little crazy back then. This is the second time we have done this with the kids and I think it's one of their favorite things to do.

And The Boy Turns 1!

For Korver's first birthday, we had a BBQ at the park. We had lots of friends and family there to help us celebrate. It was such a great day and I think Korver enjoyed all the attention. I love the picture below. His face is priceless. Good thing he has 2 big sisters to help him blow out his candles.

I always make my kids their very own cake for their first birthday that they can dig into. It has to be chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. The messier the better. Korver didn't know how to go about eating it, so he decided to just dive head first!
I think he thought it was pretty great that he was allowed to get this messy. Chocolate cake might be his new favorite food!

This is his cute horse cake that I made for his guests to eat. I love making my kids birthday cakes. I think it turned out pretty cute. I had a little help from Jeff to get the proper placement of everything.