2016 Ward Trunk or Treat

After taking our family photos that morning, we came home and got down to the business of carving the pumpkins. Pumpkin carving is in David's wheelhouse. 

I bought a pumpkin decorating kit from Target and made a mummy pumpkin. And unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the finished pumpkin (Zara wanted it to have heart eyes and she calls it Lovey) but I'll try to get one tomorrow night.

After pumpkin carving, we got dressed in our costumes--Firefly. I love doing family themed costumes and I know I only have a few more years left that the kids will let me dress them up as whatever I want. The kids were so excited to be their characters even though they've never seen Firefly and have no idea who these people are.

We had a lot of fun piecing together our costumes. David found that absolutely perfect brown coat at the thrift store last year when we were shopping for our Star Wars costumes and it inspired us to try for a Firefly theme. He bought the shirt at the thrift store as well and bought a holster, gun, and suspenders online. He already had the pants and boots. 

Benjamin of course had to be Wash. We found the Hawaiian shirt at the thrift store as well and I thought the dinosaur shirt underneath was a nice touch. We also brought a few dinosaurs with us as well.

For Adelaide, we layered a few of her existing dresses and added a petticoat to make her dresses more poofy. (That white pinafore is part of a dress that my mom made for me when I was a kid and which Adelaide likes to wear still.) Her purse has a pair of white gloves but of course we had to add a toolbelt as well to denote her mechanical prowess. 

For Zara, we found the pink dress at the thrift store as well and I think it's a close approximation. We had the sweater and boots already and picked up a sword at the dollar store. For my Inara costume, I found a gold dress at the thrift store and used some beautiful purple fabric I already had as a shawl. I also bought a black wig on Amazon which was a little itchy. I also don't think I look great with black hair but I had to do it.

Zara took this photo of us. I think she managed to do a pretty good job. Most of her photos are blurry.

David even decorated our trunk to look like Inara's shuttle complete with the symbol on Serenity. It's easy to do when we've got so much Asian stuff laying around.

But all-in-all, I thought our costumes turned out pretty great. Not many people recognized who we were, but that's okay. It's good to know who the true browncoats are. If only we could have managed a Jayne and a Zoe too. I have a few ideas of what we can do next year but I don't know if it'll top this year.

Fall Festival 2016

 Zara's school held their annual Fall Festival this Saturday and the whole family attended. We broke out some old costumes because we're saving our family costumes for next weekend. (It's going to be epic.) Zara wore her Princess Leia costume from last year, Benjamin wore Zara's old giraffe costume, and Adelaide went as a butterfly fairy.

This photograph cracks me up because it so perfectly encapsulates these kids. Zara is trying to coral her younger siblings, Benjamin is smiling, and Adelaide is pouting. 

Isn't he such a cute giraffe? 

I put on my old zookeeper outfit because, well, these kids are a zoo. 

Benjamin fell asleep at the festival. It was right during his naptime. 

I volunteered at the pumpkin ring toss for a little bit and then we went around to a few of the booths. Zara also participated in the costume contest, but did not win. They also got a cookie to decorate and here's Adelaide trying to get the sprinkles off her mouth. Such a silly girl.

I love Halloween. I didn't use to love it quite so much but it's one of David's favorite holidays and we've been having fun dressing up in family themed costumes and decorating our house and getting into the spirit of the holiday. I'm looking forward to our ward's trunk or treat next Saturday when we'll all get into our real costumes for the year. Stay tuned.

Halloween 2015

This year for Halloween we decided to do a family theme. And since we're a bunch of nerds who are getting increasingly excited for the next Star Wars movie, we had to do a Star Wars theme. We recently introduced the girls to Star Wars and they are big fans. David and I are Anakin and Padme, Zara is Leia, Adelaide is an Ewok, and Benjamin is Yoda.

We started our preparations early. (That almost never happens.) We went to the thrift store where I found my white shirt and pants. We also purchased a set of microfiber curtains which became David and Benjamin's Jedi robes. 

And as luck would have it, we also found this Yoda doll at the thrift store for $2. I immediately snatched it up, thinking that it just might be big enough to fit on Benjamin if I pulled it apart. And that is exactly what I did. 

I cut off Yoda's head and feet and then sewed on elastic to keep them in place. 

Even luckier, someone at church brought in a ton of fabric to give away and I scored tons of this white fabric which I knew would be perfect for Leia's dress. It was the perfect size and there was just enough to make her dress, belt, and hood. 

For Adelaide, I actually made a cute R2D2 costume out of posterboard but she absolutely refused to wear it so we had to go to plan B, which was this quick and easy Ewok costume. 

Except she kept calling herself a Wookiee. 

Here's all the cousins (on David's side) together for Halloween Trick or Treating and those of us who dressed as Star Wars characters, which was a lot of us.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!! We've had a fun weekend of Halloween-related events. On Thursday, we attended the MBA's Halloween Party. There was dinner, games, and candy to be had. Zara went as a giraffe....


....and David and I went as zoo-keepers. (Or safari sight-seers, as most people guessed. Either one works.) I figure it's a good costume and can be worn year after year. Every time we add a child, we can just dress them up as another animal. It's perfect!

On Saturday, we finally got around to carving the pumpkin we bought at the pumpkin patch. It's been years since I carved a pumpkin and I think ours turned out pretty great.

It's a vamp-kin. Though to be fair, David did most of the carving. I just cleaned out the pumpkin guts. Saturday night we also went to our ward's Trunk or Treat where Zara scored a bunch of candy, some of which she managed to eat, wrappers notwithstanding, and some of which we ate. It's totally cool to steal your child's Halloween candy, right? That's good parenting, wouldn't you say? We're just trying to help her not eat a lot of sugar.

We're looking forward to taking Zara Trick or Treating for her very first time tonight. She's grown quite attached to her plastic pumpkin and really enjoys playing with (and occasionally eating) her candy. She's such a cute giraffe. I might just have to put her in her costume a few more times, even after Halloween. It's way too cute.

I wonder how many trick or treaters will see at our house tonight too. I hope there's not more than 45.....wait, 42 trick or treaters because that's all the candy I bought. Though, let's be honest, it'll probably be more like 39 pieces of candy by the time the trick or treaters actually arrive. That's the problem when you buy your favorite candy for the trick or trickers.....you eat it all.

Jaker's Pumpkin Patch

David has the week off from school. There are several business conferences this time of year so rather than have students miss a bunch of school, they just started giving them the time off instead. David decided not to attend any this week (he's going to one in November) so we've just been hanging out at home, enjoying the time off. On Monday, we decided to visit Jaker's Pumpkin Patch out in Springville (a little south of Provo).

I'd never been to a pumpkin patch before so it wasn't quite what I expected but it was still a lot of fun for the family, especially because it was free (except for the super awesome pumpkin we bought which we still need to carve). The pumpkin patch had a small petting zoo area, several mazes, a corn crib, and a hayride.

We started out at the petting area. Zara did inherit one thing from me and that is her love of animals. She freaks out when she sees a non-human creature (in a totally excited, my head might explode from sheer joy kinda freak-out) and she was totally fascinated by the strange assortment of animals present at the petting zoo.

I'm totally freaking out here, Mom! Sheep! Goats! Llamas! Donkeys! Pigs! A Kangaroo!?!?!?!

For reasons I have yet to decipher, they had a young kangaroo there. So random. Zara didn't know what to make of it. They are rather strange creatures up close.

Zara was very excited to feed the sheep though. She kept grabbing hay and trying to shove it near them.

But as soon as they'd get close, she'd get scared or nervous and would drop the hay so David had to help her out a bit.

The most random attraction was the corn crib....like a sandbox but filled with corn. I know we grow a lot of corn in America, but that just seems a bit excessive.

Still, all the kids seemed to really love playing around in there. Zara was no exception.

David even buried her in the corn.

But she didn't really seem to mind.

After a good long romp in the corn, we picked out a beauty of a pumpkin and took it home with us. Hopefully we'll get around to carving it soon. It's been a long time since I carved a pumpkin so I hope it won't look too tragic. I've never had much luck.

We had a great time at the pumpkin patch. Free entertainment is often like that. Plus, we ran into several people from the MBA program (also interested in the free entertainment since we're all poor) including a member of David's group. It was delightful way to spend a fall day. I'm looking forward to Halloween and I'm super excited for our costumes this year.

Halloween Nerds

Last night was our ward's Halloween party so we needed some costumes. Two years ago, David and I went as Lily and James Potter so we figured we could re-use the robes we had made.

Plus now we had one more accessory.....


Harry [Harriet] Potter!

And being the major nerds that we are, David and I debated about whether or not we should draw the ligtning bolt scar on Zara's forehead since that would mean that we'd be dead. But I thought people would understand our costumes better if we just went ahead and drew on the scar. Of course, Zara didn't really want to hold still so her scar got a bit smeared. Still, I thought people got a kick out of it. I know I did.

Welcome to the Dead Man's Party

David's birthday is only two days before mine (separated by two years) so this year I suggested that instead of buying each other individual gifts, we pool our resources and buy ourselves one big gift to be shared between the two of us. I decided that we buy a new digital camera since David didn't own one and I've had mine for over 4 years and it's rather pathetic in its picture-taking abilities. So, during the month leading up to our birthdays (which is in February, by the way) David and I visited many different stores, checking out camera after camera until we finally decided on one. It was a Fuji film camera and it looked pretty awesome. But we didn't buy it. We oscillated. And thought maybe we should wait a few months until we got married since we wouldn't be together anyway to share joint custody of the camera. When we finally decided to just go and get the camera, it was no longer available. Long story short, we never bought a new camera until last week, a mere 8 months after our birthdays. We bought a Sony Cybershot DCS-W150 because it was on clearance at the NEX for $50 cheaper than I'd seen it anywhere else and it was the camera I wanted but David would never consent to buy. A sale is always a good motivator to buy something. Especially something you've been wanting to buy for eight months.

I tested out our camera this weekend at the Dead Man's Party we attended on Halloween and I'm very pleased with the results. But any camera that can actually take a picture in anything less than perfect light is a considerable upgrade from my old camera.

In order to attend the Dead Man's Party, you had to be dead, so David and I decided to go as James and Lily Potter.

David made our robes. He made the pattern, pieced them together and sewed them up. I did my hem but still, all credit goes to David for the actual execution. I did, however, paint our wands. Just so you know I'm not useless.

The Dead Man's Party was a lot of fun. There was a pirate pineapple-o-lantern and cookies. I love cookies. I made the homemade sugar cookies on the left.

See how I contribute? And since we live in Hawaii and since the hosts couldn't find a decent pumpkin, they did the next best thing and carved a pineapple.

I couldn't get a good shot, but how awesome is this?

We bobbed for apples on a string. Which is a great deal more difficult to do than it looks like.

I was never able to get a bite out of my apple. I could have used magic, but that just didn't seem fair.

There was some dancing as David demonstrates with Caspar the Friendly Ghost. And there was some friendly banter among friends.

Watch where you're pointing that gun, Billy the Kid. That's my husband. Good thing he's got his wand out.

There was a witch hunt. And wouldn't you know, my David won?

And this silly headband was his prize. Sadly, this picture is typical David.

Can you believe I married him?

Sometimes I can't.

But I wouldn't take it back either....

Most of the time.

There was a costume contest. And this guy totally won. It wasn't even a contest.

He's the dragon Smaug from The Hobbit and he made the costume himself. Kinda makes our little black robes pathetic in comparison. We did it in two days! And neither of us has sewn in approximately 10 years.

We also played charades (which I've found is actually quite fun) and had an all-around rocking time. It's been so long since I've dressed up for Halloween and I've got to say, I can't wait to do it again. Dressing up is a ton of fun.

Especially now that I've got one awesome camera to capture all the special moments.

Even when my husband is being a nerd.

Which is all the time.

I still love him though.