This is Halloween!

For my fellow horror movie fanatics you will know the reference to the title of this blog :)

Halloween is upon us again! One of my favorite holiday's. I love it. It is so fun to dress up and see the creativity from everyone. This year the kids, well Adam, had a hard time deciding. He wanted to be a Ninja, Army Guy and a Turtle. He finally decided on a Ninja outfit, complete with really cool swords. Hallie had decided over the summer she wanted to be Venelope. (One of the main characters in Wreck in Ralph).

At Hallie's school they had a Harvest Festival. We had a great time doing crafts, trick or treating, and games. Hallie has a new best friend at school, Andrew, and we got to meet him and his family. She was so excited to see him, and he to see her. They are so cute at this age, it is so fun to see everything through their eyes.

Friday night we had our neighbors over and along with Savanna we made Halloween cookies, and watched some kid friendly Halloween movies. The cookies were great, and everyone had fun decorating them.

Over the weekend a few of our friends came to our house, and we walked up to town where they have a trick or treat street for the kids, food, and fun. We had a great time, and the kids had a blast. After we walked home, we had a pizza party to end the night.
Happy Halloween!

Fun with Paint

I found a ton of glass jars, bottles, vases and bowls at a garage sale for $.10 each. I bought $3.00 worth. The kids had a blast painting on the glass, and we have a lot of new artwork around the house. I love finding fun deals at garage sales!

Going to the Chapel

We are getting married!! I know, I know, everyone says "it's about time", but yes, we are really doing it! We are so excited, and planning a winter wedding. I am so lucky to have the man of my dreams, who will soon be my husband! He bought me the most gorgeous beautiful ring I have ever seen. I stare at it all day and day dream.
Adam and Hallie will be the flower girl and ring bearer, along with my niece Savanna.
The kids are so excited, and I am so very lucky to be a part of this amazing family. :)

Back to School!

Well, it's back to school time again. It's hard to believe that summer is already over. It went by so fast! The kids are excited for school and are ready to start. Back to school shopping is done, and their backpacks are full of new supplies. Adam is in first grade this year, "a big kid now, not a kindergartner", and excited to be back to school and to see his best buddy. Hallie will be going to preschool for the first time, to the same school Adam went to, and is beyond excited. It's a great little school, we are so lucky to get the same teachers Adam has had.
We are excited to see what this year has in store for us! Here's to another great year!

My New Bling

Adam made me a new necklace, ring and bracelet. He asked me to wear them all day, so I did. Itchy pokey pipe cleaners and all :) The red part are "diamonds" and there are 3 of them.
Love my new jewelry!

Rocket Man

Cue Elton John! Now you all have that song stuck in your head. :)
Adam is our little engineer. He is always building and inventing things to build. Lately it has been rockets. I save anything I can for him that will be useful "tools" for his masterpieces. He was hard at work one day, and built this rocket. It is complete with a launch pad, boosters, parachute and more. He was so proud of his invention, and we are so proud and amazed at his imagination and how his little mind works. Can't wait to see what he builds next!

4th of July

We had another fun filled 4th of July this year. Lots of family in town, and old friends we haven't seen in a while. We started with our annual trip to Water World, and had a blast! We have been going there for 30 years, and we love it every time. A late afternoon shower cut our day short, but we did get rain tickets and were able to go back again so it worked out well!
On the 3rd we went to our friends annual party, we had a great time visiting with everyone, and eating yummy food!
My parents had their annual 4th of July BBQ and there was a ton of people this year! We had great food, great company and the kids had fun with all their friends at the park and playing games.
Later that night a big group of us got together and watched the fireworks. It was nice to see them again as in the past couple of years it had been too dry and no one was allowed to do fireworks in any capacity.
We took our out of town friends and family all over Colorado to show them the sights. No matter how many times we have been to a tourist attraction here, they never get old. There is always something new to see.


Below is a book, and then a slideshow of some of our 4th of July week.

Click here to see the book!

Canvas and Cocktails

My friends and I decided that we shouldn't let our artistic talents be wasted in private, so we decided to participate in a Canvas and Cocktail event. We had a yummy dinner at the Cherry Cricket, and headed over to the Canvas and Cocktails store (store? event?). Luckily we got there really early, and were able to score a table to ourselves in the back. Otherwise you have to sit in a row of people and it seemed a bit claustrophobic. I can't be that close to people and expect no injuries.
The directions clearly stated that we need a couple of drops of each paint color, though the teacher was not aware of my ability to spill paint, so I decided 5-10 drops would be more sufficient.
Case in point, my brand new sketchers are now my old paint filled crappy shoes.
ANYWAY....
We had cocktails. We had spilled paint. We had FUN :) It is a great event, and I highly recommend it. You don't need to be great at painting, the teacher is really good at helping you learn, and you can tweak your painting to your own preference.
My masterpiece is currently hanging in the basement with pride. The unfinished part of the basement we never go into. :)

Kindergarten Graduation

Adam had Kindergarten Continuation last week. I can't believe he will be a 1st grader next year. He has grown so much this year. He lost his first tooth, rode a bike with out training wheels, learned how to write full sentences along with learning how to read, spell, solve math problems, and so much more. I am often surprised at how grown up he seems, with his thoughts, and actions. He is such an amazing kid, smart and so thoughtful. He is also very talented at art. I am amazed at how well he can draw, and when we do crafts, or build something, he puts so much thought and detail into it. We are so proud of you buddy and know you will love 1st grade just as much as you did Kindergarten!

Here is a little digital scrapbook I put together of Adam's year at school. If a pop up shows up, x out of it. It takes a second for the scrapbook to load, be patient. You can click on each picture to make it bigger.



And more pictures from graduation

Hallie Turns 4!

Hard to believe she is already 4. I have no idea where the time went, because I feel like we were just getting ready for her 2nd birthday. We had a fun day planned with our friends and their kids, and planned a Circus Theme Birthday, with a hot dog cart, balloon animal guy, and fun games!
Thanks to our awesome friend Christine for making the cute cake and cupcakes! We managed to avoid the rain, and everyone had a great time.
Thank you all for coming, and making it a special day for Hallie!




Here are more pictures of the big day!

Roses are Red

How can you resist a man who brings you home beautiful flowers when you have had a bad day, not only flowers, but a gift card too! I am spoiled and I love it, and him. :)

Jo Koy

Jo Koy is probably one of the funniest comedian's I have ever seen. He is on Chelsea Handler often, and has a huge following. If you haven't seen him live, try to do so, you won't regret it. Unless you have zero sense of humor, then save your money. Seriously, we were all laughing so hard we were crying, most of the show.
We went to dinner at the restaurant at the top of the comedy club, which was great, because then you get to sit closer to the stage, and we had excellent seats. 5th row, right in the middle.
We got to meet Jo Koy after the show, and he autographed t-shirts, and we got a picture with him.

Thirty-Six.

Well, finally, Matt is the same age as me again. He does like to point out whenever I get carded, that I am older than him. But now he caught up with me and has to wait 6 more months to point that out again. :)
We went to Benihana for his birthday, as it is one of our and the kids favorite places to eat. Benihana tip: If you sign up for the Chefs Table (free) you get a $30.00 gift card to use the month of your birthday. And kids 12 and under who sign up, get a really cool Benihana mug on their birthday. and they are all different designs and the kids love them. Adam has a plan to collect all of them.

And then there is the cake. Ohhhhh the cake. My parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and our friends came over Saturday night for dinner for Matty's birthday, so I ordered a cake. Not just any cake. a BATMAN cake. Why Batman? Because they were out of golf. So, logically, Batman is the next choice. And it was a cool cake. So I order the cake and agree to come pick it up Saturday morning. Saturday morning arrives and I go to pick up the cake. I walk into the grocery store and I notice that there is plastic covering everything. I walked back to the bakery and told them my name, and they said... "oh... well, our power was out yesterday and just literally came back on today, and we were unable to make your cake you ordered". When I asked why they didn't call, they said "well, our power was out". That must mean all cell phones would not work in stores with no power, obviously. So they give me a replacement cake. That was yellow, purple and had "Happy Birthday Matt" written in every different color frosting, inlcuding pink, and it was totally a girl cake. They tried to soften the deal by telling me they were going to give me $10.00 off. I was annoyed, but there are more things in life to worry about then a cake, so I took the girl cake home.

And it sat on the counter, where none of us remembered it was there until the next day, where we took it to bowling to share with everyone there. So I am sad Matty did not get a cake, however, he did get Creme Brulee when his parents took us out for dinner, so that made up for it. :)

Happy Birthday to the love of my life! ♥♥♥

Sping is Here!

Adam wasn't quite ready last year for the training wheels to come off, but this year, he wanted to try again. Matt took them off and spent an afternoon teaching Adam how to balance, start and stop and after a few trials up and down the driveway with Grandpa and Dad, he is now riding up and down the sidewalk, turning, and stopping like a pro!
Hallie has also figured out how to ride her big girl bike, and is doing pretty good. She stops suddenly for no reason and it takes her a bit of time to get going again, so we are working on that.
But it is so nice to see them out having fun and riding bikes. It also reminds us how fast they are growing up!

From Bike Videos

From Bike Videos

We also took advantage of the recent warm weather and went to the park. It's a nice big new one, and had playground equipment that has been updated since we were kids. Gone are the days of the steel teeter-totter where you could jump off and about break the jaw or tail bone of the person on the other side. And Merry-Go-Rounds? Not the old kind where you can literally fall off if you aren't holding on. These are all plastic, safe, and made to ensure children's safety. While I am glad the kids are safe, it makes me a little nostalgic for our old park days. We all turned out ok. And you haven't experienced a slide until you go down a steel one on a hot summer day. ;)

Easter Crafts

We had a fun family night doing Easter crafts and making chicks and eggs :) We used our hands as templates for the "wings" of the chicks and then added our own fun to each of them. Hallie is getting the hang of using kid scissors, so she had a lot of practice cutting things out for all of us.

Here are the finished products: My chick has a bow, and hair, because she is cute like that. Hallie added a cross for Jesus on her chick. Matt and Adam added feathers. Adam's chick also has a baby duck that is what the "dace" spells. He's getting there :)

Easter Egg Time!

I think that the dye that we use to have when we were kids was SO much better than the lame dye that is sold today. I bought a ton of different packages last year on clearance for $.25 each, so we had a lot of fun decorations to use on our eggs. We had roller pain, glitter, tye-dye, stickers, and embellishments for our eggs. I put 6 colors with vinegar, and 6 colors with lemo juice to try to brighten up the colors. I find just using water the colors don't turn well and the tablets never fully dissolve. The vinegar seems the best, but I still miss those Easter Bunny dye kits we had in the 80's. I searched the internet high and low, and could not find them.


Regardless, we had a blast with all of our different things to use, and Adam loved the roller brush. Hallie tried it and promptly dropped the roller brush on the floor, instead of on the newspaper covered table, so we had her switch to a different station, which did not go over well. She is in the phase where whatever Adam does, she wants to do. So we had Adam do a egg with the tye dye and sure enough Hallie switched to that, and all was well in egg dying land once more :) Matt made me a very special egg, he spent a lot of time making it perfect, and in my opinion, it's the best egg ever made.

Glow in the Dark Putt Putt

I took Adam and one of his buddies to play putt putt one afternoon, and we had a blast. The entire place is glow in the dark, and the boys had a blast showing each other their teeth, their socks, and anything else that they could find to glow. The holes are all pretty fun and set up well to capture the attention of kids. It takes about an hour to get through, which is the perfect amount of time to keep their attention span.


After our adventure in putt putt, we went to lunch where they boys decided they wanted to go to Mexican, and when we got there, both boys promptly ordered hamburgers and french fries.....I asked them why they wanted Mexican, if they were eating burgers and fries, and they said "for the chips and salsa"! Well then, there you go. To finish off our adventure, we went to the park for a long time, and finished off with ice cream cones. It was a fun day, and the boys had a blast.

Adam Turns 6

I can't beleive that Adam is 6. I swear we were just celebrating his 4th birthday. It's surreal that he is suddenly 6 years old, losing teeth, learning to read and spell, and growing into such an amazing boy. We couldn't be more proud of what a great kid he his. He is such a loving, sweet, smart and genuine kid.
Sadly, he is outgrowing his love for anything Thomas the Train related, though he did tell us to "keep them just in case". He was asking for anything related to turtles, lizards, nerf guns, movies, lego's, or anything with a remote. He got his wish! His friends were very generous in the gift giving department and he was amazed at all his fun new toys. We made sure to sit down right away and do thank you cards, and Adam did a great job. He is just learning to write, so he was able to write "Thank you, Adam" and draw everyone a nice picture.
We planned a very fun birthday party for him at the jumping place, and invited all his friends. It was so much fun! All of Matt's college buddies and their families were there, and I think the grown men had more fun than the kids. I do remember one of them declaring "this is the best birthday party EVER"! LOL It was so much fun watching them all have so much fun. I was busy trying to take as many pictures as I could, and used up two memory cards! I think I need to relax on the picture front a little bit LOL. We have a great group of friends, and are so lucky to have had them celebrate such a fun event with us. Our friend Heather made Adam turtle cupcakes, which everyone declared the best cupcakes they have ever eaten, so they were a big hit.
Sadly, little Hallie was so sick, so she couldn't come. She had been battling a cold for over a week, and woke up with a fever, and was run down. We brought her so we could get a picture of her and the kids and Dad's, but she had to leave with Grammy and Grandpa. Poor girl got sick later that night and was sick allll night long. We are bummed she missed out, but promised to take her there another time to make up for it.

Later that night we had our families over, and Adam got to have another celebration, complete with a bug cake, and a few more presents. Happy Birthday to our big boy 6 year old, we love you so very, very much!!

Don't Forget to Brush!

Just some funny pictures I was taking with my new Nikon Camera (thanks Jarrad). Happend to catch the kids getting ready for bed. Hallie no longer eats the toothpaste, so we are doing good with brushing, and she only needs a little help from Daddy now. :)

Here Come's Santa Clause

It's CHRISTMAS!!!! Can you tell we are a little all over excited!? We had a wonderful Christmas. We had a lot of family in town, so there was a lot of events, and activities going on every day. It was a whirlwind few days.

Christmas Eve we went to my parents house, and Matt's parents came with, and we played games, and opened presents. We got a lot of really nice things, and the kids loved their gifts. Adam who had been asking for 3 years, finally got his Christmas Train that you set up around the tree from my parents, he was beyond excited. Its a huge set! He and Matt were excited to get home and set it up around our tree right away. Hallie didn't quite get that there wre still presents to unwrap and kept sneaking downstairs to watch Charlie Brown Christmas. We kept telling her she had another present to open and she would say "Another one, you've got to be kidding"!. It was so funny.

Christmas morning came early, and we stayed up late for Santa but the kids fell asleep before they could catch him in the act. I think he came pretty late, he almost forgot to eat the cookies we left out for him. Silly Santa!

The kids loved their gifts, and Grammy and Grandpa came over with even more presents! It was such a fun morning, and for two hours we took toys out of their packages. I think you need a engineering degree to open them, it is ridiculous how much packaging toys have. And the older the kids get, the more their toys need batteries. I am going to buy stock in Energizer.

We went to lunch at Grammy and Grandpa's, whre Matt and I were completley spoiled with gifts from them, and had a nice fun relaxing day, playing with all of our fun new presents.