Halloween and Random Excitment

So I haven't written a blog in the last couple of weeks, so I guess I should update everyone.

Last weekend, we went to Phoenix to visit Brian's brother Mike and wife Misty. We had alot of fun. We didn't do anything particularly exciting, but it was just nice to get away, relax and visit! We ended up bringing my 18 year old niece, Kelsey (Misty's daughter) home with us. It has been so fun having her here! We all just love her!

We all dressed up for Halloween last night! Ady was Hanna Montana, Alysa was an "Aly" cat (she came up with that on her own!) Brylee was Snow White, Kelsey was Strawberry Shortcake, and Brian and I dressed up 50's - me with a poodle skirt, neck scarf and pony tail and Brian with a 50's bowling shirt. Of course, Brian and I forgot to take pictures of ourselves though.

We (or should I say, I?) carved pumpkins the night before. Brylee wanted a scary one, Ady came up with her own design that had a snake tongue, and Alysa wanted a cat - of course. The turned out really cute though! We noticed when we lit them last night, that Brylee's glowed in the back too, from all the extra cuts and stab marks she made. It was cute!

We took the kids to our ward trunk or treat. Actually - since there are not alot of kids in our ward they combined it with another ward. It was the perfect size - not to big, not to small. We had alot of fun! The missionaries even got special permission to stay out late and come. We took a bunch of pictures with them - the girls LOVED that! So somewhere out there, our family will be a part of a two missionary scrap books. :)
After the ward party, we took the kids to Taco Bell. I had a read a poster about a week before saying that they would be handing out candy and having fun games for kids. It was really cool! They had the whole store decorated and all the employee's were in costume. The girls played a fun game, and won a prize (a Halloween cup filled with candy). It was alot of fun!

After that, we came home and had a few friends over. We decided not to do a full on BBQ Halloween party since I have been sick the last few days and didn't really have the energy to get it all ready. So everyone just brought some kind of "finger food", and they adults sat outside and visited (it is still warm here in Vegas :) ) and we had dance revolution, games, and a scary movie set up in three different rooms for all the kids. It was really fun!

My only regret was that, my mother-in-law Josie (have I mentioned how much I love all my in-laws?) sent me the CUTEST Halloween cookbook in the mail, and I was really looking forward to making some of the cute desserts in it for our party. Unfortunately, I didn't. I didn't think all of our guest would enjoy the added ingredient of the cold virus. I am thinking I am going to make a bunch of them this week though, and let my kids celebrate the Mexican Day of the Dead this weekend. We could have the scary desserts, read about the Mexican traditions, maybe watch a not-to-scary scary movie. I thought it would be fun and a little different. Who knows, maybe it will end up being a new tradition!