halloween 2012. vampires and mummies and ghosts. oh my!

we've been feeling a little spooky around these parts.  

brady begged me to decorate their bedroom with spookiness.  he likes all of that creepy, crazy stuff...until it's time for bed and lights out.  he can often be caught swapping scary stories with grandpa graf, and it has resulted in his deciding to share a room instead of having his own.  

i saw that glint in his eye and said okay- as long as it wasn't TOO scary.  nothing gross.  nothing bloody.  no zombies or decapitations.  he did manage to get away with a few vampires before i drew the line there too...

it all started with the door.  he and liv began coloring halloween-themed pictures and doing activities at school.  mind you, it wasn't even october yet.

                 

in case you can't read this.  it's actually quite funny. apparently, brady really didn't want anyone who wasn't invited to come into their room!

do not enter

or zombies will attack

or spiders

or mummies

or bats

or aliens

or vampires

or werewolves

or ghosts

or goblins

so do not enter. and if you do, you will not believe it.

once the door was covered it creeped into the bedroom, wound it's bony fingers around their bunk bed and exploded, lasting until a few days after the actual All Hallow'd Eve, when i finally reclaimed their bedroom to normalcy.  

i am sure zach is grateful.  i wonder what he thought peering into the darkness every night.

and olivia- she promised that she LOVED it.  but every night she sneakily crawled into bed with me and wrapped her monkey arms and legs tight to my back.

of course once we decorated their room their cowboy pillowcases just looked plain silly.  mommy was also plain silly when she suggested to brady and olivia that we could go to the fabric store and pick out halloween fabric to make special pillow cases.  this was especially silly because mommy had a million other things she was supposed to be doing.

the look on two kiddos faces when they woke up the next morning to these on the couch was worth it though...

Olivia's: 

Brady's:

the backs:

and who can have a spooky room, and spooky pillowcases but not a spooky outfit?

thank you Pinterest, for giving me the idea of how i could do a mummy.  i didn't particularly like the one that i saw online so instead of gauze i used some scrap white felt and scrap green fabric.  i already had the googly eyes and a leftover "boo" from liv's pillowcase.  i decided to make the whole body of the mummy, and not just the face like what was online.  we used one of brady's play shirts turned inside out.

olivia's shirt came out SO cute.  I had bought her some striped tights and a black tu-tu imagining that i was going to make her such a shirt as this.  i will toot my own horn, in that this was entirely my own creation- made with scraps of felt and pillowcase fabric!

zach's outfit was a lucky find at my favorite thrift store for the kids- Once Upon a Child.  it was EXACTLY what i had been wanting to make, so imagine my thrill when i saw it just waiting for me on a rack and for only $3!!!  It matched Olivia's tights perfectly and saved me a LOT of time!

we got LOTS of use out of these outfits.  i made them the 2nd week of the month so Brady wore his shirt about two times each week to school.  he said other kids thought it was "the coolest." {yes, i am still a cool mom who can make cool things!!!}  Olivia wore her tu-tu and striped tights every chance she got.  and when she did i coordinated zach with her as well.  so whether or not he liked his, he sported it often as well.  

some more art work:

(thanks to my friend, Charlotte for giving me the idea to upload and do digi scrapbooks of the kids artwork!  No more binders and bins full of crumpled papers!  instead they get to feel so special seeing their artwork on the computer and later on i'll surprise them with their very own books full of their best works of art!

Brady's-

 


               

Olivia's-

olivia did some of the scary faces above in brady's section, but i'm not sure which ones.  she also did most of the papers on their door...

pumpkins-

we didn't get a picture of the pumpkins that they carved but they were adorable.  chris carved with the kids while i was at a young women's activity and i got to come home to a surprise waiting for me on the doorstep! they had lit the candles inside of their jack-o-lanterns and had them waiting for me!

these silly pumpkins were also inside waiting on the counter! they gave me quite a laugh!  brady's is on the left and olivia's is on the right.

did i mention that i like to decorate for fall?

now that fall is over.....

this isn't my decoration, or even my picture for that matter.  in fact i "blog-lifted" it from my friend Rachel's blog.  i do admire her eye for photography...i hope she doesn't mind....

butternut squash soup.

i got this recipe from my friend Charlotte's blog, which she got from allrecipes.com.  i made it for a vegetarian friend who came over for dinner (and for myself, since i like butternut squash soup and no one else in my family will even look at at).

i made a few alterations to the recipe, using a bit less onion and adding in a little more chicken broth because i thought it was just a bit too thick.

picture from here.i also served mine with roasted pumpkin seeds on top as garnish...

butternut squash soup: serves 6-8
4 T. chopped onion
4 T. butter
6 C. squash, peeled and cubed
3 1/2 C. water
2 tsp. chicken bouillon
1/2 tsp. marjoram
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/8 tsp. cayenne
1 pkg. cream cheese, softened (could use less)

1) saute onion in butter until tender.  

2) add squash, water, bouillon, marjoram, pepper and cayenne.

3) bring to a boil and cook 20 minutes, or until squash in tender.  puree in blender with cream cheese and reheat through if necessary.

family fall walk at rigby lake.

another beautiful fall sunday afternoon spent on a family walk.  we went to rigby lake which is closed for the season but still open to walkers.  it was so awesome being there all by ourselves!  the kids wanted to explore the island, so we skipped rocks and let them walk around the entire perimeter of the island.

after playing on the beach for a bit we headed over to the playground, where daddy taught zach how to climb up the slide! olivia tried monkey bars for the first time and brady showed us his skills on the high monkey bars!

we took a walk around the lake on the paved trail that runs along the river. it was beautiful and we're planning on coming back in the spring with our bikes.

at the end of the path it runs along a horse pasture and we enjoyed watching them and feeding them some hay

fall traditions.

i love fall.  the change of the season, making soup, muffins, yummy pumpkin-spiced treats, hot cocoa, sweaters, scarves and hats, decorating.  i love the crispness of the air, the brilliance of the changing leaves and landscape, the smoky smell of wood stoves wafting through the air.

i also love some of some of the traditions that we've established as a family.  

#1

since chris and i have been married, and during the times that we've lived in idaho we have always watched conference with his parents at their house.  it is wonderful gathering together in their family room and listening to inspired messages from our prophet, apostles and other leaders of the church.  i always feel so filled and driven to do better and make changes after hearing these messages.

this conference i wanted brady and olivia to be able to listen better to the talks, so i prepared sheets of paper with different key words for them to listen to each session.  every time they heard a key word they got to put a token in a jar and after each session they could use their tokens to buy things from the "conference good listener store."  

the kids earned stickers, Halloween socks, spider web decoration, puzzles, some craft kits, flash lights and candy corn.

this was a hit, and i loved how excited they were to fill their jars with tokens.  

i also printed out some bingo cards with the prophet in the center of each one (he was the "freebie" since he speaks during each session of conference) and then other random apostles.  when they saw one of the apostles they got to mark him with a peanut butter M&M (daddy got the leftovers because they are his favorite!)

#2

after the saturday morning session we have been going to a cute pumpkin patch in paul, a few miles from burley where chris' parents live.  the kids love picking out their own pumpkins!

                     

zach got to hitch a ride from grandpa who pushed 

him around in the wheelbarrow. 

                   

of course brady and livy had to join in on the fun!

we were in a hurry to get back for the next session, but grammie was nice enough to take a minute and snap a picture of us on the hay bales!!! this is as good as it gets with three squirmy kids who are hungry!

               2011

(VERY pregnant with Zach here!)

2010

#3

another "tradition" we started a few years ago was having our family pictures taken by one of my "besties" Charlotte.  She is an amazing photographer, especially because she can work with crazy small children, grumpy parents and take wall-worthy pictures in a total of 10 minutes!

i'm not going to post the family picture because we'll be sending them out with Christmas cards and i want an element of surprise, but here are a few others that were keepers.

                     

as a thank-you we took Char and the kids out for mexican (her hubs, jon couldn't make it).  here's the best pics we got with our four crazies....



we like garibaldi's because we can all eat chips, salsa and refried beans galore.  jane loved the beans and slurped them down faster than charlotte could keep her supplied! their food is really good too- i suggest the carne asada!!!

 proof that charlotte was there

i can never get a good picture of zach and jane together- but we have years to try!

the next day chris and i picked up our buds for a nature hike in the canyon.  char kept zach for me so he could take his nap.  i left chris in at the park with the kids for a bit while i visited  my friend, nichole who had a baby a month prior.  when i drove back down into the canyon i was met by chris and four eager kids to begin hiking!

the hike is a beautiful, easy one for kids with very rewarding views for minimal effort.  such a beautiful natural wonder that i miss now that we live in idaho falls.

                     
i had to edit this pic too- the shadows were too dark and completely eliminated sam.  he's in the pic now but looks like a ghost boy!

the kids were fascinated by this cave, and if it wasn't such a treacherous descent we would have tried to explore it a little

when we first moved back to idaho i couldn't believe that i gave up the ocean, lush forests, wildflowers and new england charm to move to "a desert wasteland."  over the past few years i have really come to truly love idaho.  i think of idaho as home just as much as maine now and see the different beauty that this climate and terrain has to offer.  everywhere you look you can find beauty.  it is different beauty than what i grew up with, but it is wonderful and always reminds me of our loving Heavenly Father who has clothed the land for us to enjoy.

although you can't see it in this picture, the entire face of this rock ledge is flowing with small waterfalls and red and green foliage.  it is spectacular standing in the canyon and looking around in all directions.  one of my favorite spots on earth.

these purple asters are my birth month flower.  i wish i could have better captured their dainty purple hue.

                   

                 

                


on the way out of the canyon we hiked down in behind the waterfall.  the kids loved the adventure of it and getting sprinkled with the spray from the falls.  

because i have a terrible camera, i had to play with this pic in editing just enough to make us out.  i kind of the effect it made with the spray in front of us and the sihlouette-ish look it lent to.

  sam and "my liv"

the kids enjoyed throwing pebbles off the side into the falls.

 two sweet girlies.