Towers of Spice

Like I said, the day after Lily's birthday party was Logans. He is a funny guy. And for weeks he had been saying he wanted to make "GUM-DROP TOWERS" for his birthday with toothpicks and gumdrops. ha ha. Who knows where he got that idea. But I was game. We found the coolest store in the valley with all kinds of candy called: SWEETIES. You should go. 

We bought 10 pounds of gumdrops,

and had us a party.

Oh the talents of Cousin Vinny...

All of the boys just made towers, but Logan made his initials, LV, for his tower.  I was impressed.  Then the boys went outside and Bruce played basketball with them for over an hour.

 We rarely do cakes for birthday desserts, because well, we don't love cake.  Even though I gave Logan his choice of any dessert: homemade cinnamon rolls, sugar cookies, Oreo-Freakout, etc... Logan was my best friend and said he really wanted the dessert pizza from Peter Piper. Since we were already getting pizza for the party..... done dealio.

HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY LOGAN!

OoOoOh Halloweeeeen

{2 little Sophie feet ghosties, 

and a Sophie hand halloween treeeee}

My 5 youngest kids have all gone to Mrs. Leavitt for preschool, she's the best.  Since "Mother Natures Farm" is where her little preschool field trip is every October, thats where I always am too.

But this year I almost didn't go.  It was the day before we moved, I had just found out the movers were coming a day early and there was still TONS not packed.  We were going to skip the field trip day, but I woke up and decided, "Guess what, things will get done one way or another, even if I have to stay up all night. I am taking little Sophie on her field trip!".  And so we went, and wasn't that the most important place I could have been?  Yes it was.

And then Halloween night came along...

Even though this is how I found Sophie dressed earlier that day helping Bruce clean out the garage (hooray, we can park in our garage now)... I did not let her wear this for Halloween.

Traditional HALLOWEEN Rage:

Here's the story.  Our new street has 3 houses.  I didn't think anyone would come on Halloween.  I normally make popcorn in the big popper and play halloween music out all night.  I was sad for a lame year with no trick or treaters.  We were deciding what to do.  Then literally the night before Halloween I said, "You know what, even if only 10 kids come, I am going to still make it festive for them."  So we pulled out the popper and the music and the halloween decorations last minute.  That day I was busy getting it all together so I wrote a TO DO list of everything to get done, hoping to avoid the last minute halloween stress.  Bruce walked in and said, "Can you write NO HALLOWEEN RAGE on the to do list?"  I laughed, because he knew the routine, 30 minutes before 'go time' I start stressing and yelling that everything isn't done and the trick or treaters are going to get here darn it.  So I wrote it on the to do list, and had such great intentions of skipping the traditional halloween rage...  Then unfortunately right before 'go time', Logan came in throwing a fit about a costume thing and I lost it and yelled at him.  Then he cried and stomped around saying, "the list says NO Halloween Rage".  ha ha. Welllll, we don't always stick to the list.

 China girl (cuz I couldn't find the bee costume. With a cute tiny bun, and no face paint like I meant to do.)

 A Silly Lily Witch (that we couldn't find the matching hat to for Trunk or Treat, but we found it for Halloween, hooray!)

 Hippy Chick (I called my sister that afternoon and said, do you have a costume Emma can wear, we don't even care what it is, we didn't know what Emma was being until 5:30 that night when Carrie showed up with this cute thing and Emma's 13 year old cousin did her make up for her so awesome)

 Authentic 50's Chic (the only costume prepared over a week in advance, because Ashlin was in charge of herself, she went to a couples halloween night with her little boyfriend and they were both so cute)

Notice I have no photo of just the boys... because they wouldn't come when I was taking pictures.  But you can see Logan was a nerd above, came up with it all on his own and bought the glasses with his own money.  Dallin was some kind of crazy super hero with leopard print leggings (that he cut from a full body leopard print leotard we have that was so cool, that I was so mad at him for cutting up!!)

Halloween night was a success... there were TONS of trick or treaters on our new street, it was a par-tay.  I was so surprised all the little kiddos trecked so far to trick or treat to us.  But we gave out popcorn and the Cleggers gave out snow cones, and that did the trick.

---BOO!---

Spooky Day

There are many times that I go to bed stressing about all the things I messed up that day, but this is one thing that I at least deserve a "You Did It!" sticker for.  I had TWO birthday parties at our new house {Lily's on friday, Logan's on saturday}... SIX days after moving in to new home.  We had expected the house to be done sooner... and Lily and Logan had looked forward to having their birthday parties at "the new house" for MONTHS.  Then we didn't even move in to the new house until the week after both their birthdays.  BUT I was good on my promise... and told them we would just have their parties a week late, right... after... we... moved... in.  {EEK}

It kind of stressed me out... we had multiple construction workers here during Lily's party, and there were unpacked boxes everywhere.  But she didn't care at all, and was just SO excited for her BIG day. Since it was even closer to Halloween than normal, she had a
sPoOkY bIrThDaY pArTy...  

sPoOkY mEnU:

Ghosts, Jack-o-lanterns, Mummies and Witches Brew

We played SPOOKY MUSIC-al chairs, and Lily requested specifically that they do a halloween craft.  So they all made halloween wreaths to hang on their bedroom doors.

 Then instead of cake, the kids made FRAKENSTEIN rice crispy treat rectangles. {Well hello, Coop-a-Loops}.

But the CUTEST part about the party was the sign Lily made {on her own} to tape to the front door to greet all the little party comers, "Welcome Wichis and Goblins... BOO"

  I love that girl, who is now 7.

Now let me tell you the ugly party details...  It was so crazy before the party, that I didn't have time to get everything ready.  So I had my wonderful party helpers ASHLIN and EMMA doing musical chairs with them or free play, between each activity, while I frantically prepared for the next activity in the kitchen... making the food, then cutting up the craft project needs, then literally making the rice crispy treats.  AND during the party, we had multiple construction crews here: a guy laying tile in my bathroom, the touch up painters doing touch up paint through out the house, our builder, the cabinet guy, a crew of guys outside putting the chimney cap on the house AND the cement front pathway was just poured the day before so we had to put up CAUTION tape all over roping it off so no party comers walked on the new cement... AND don't forget that I didn't realize Bruce had a scout campout and all his little scouts were arriving out front to leave on the scout camp out in the middle of her party.  ha ha, wow. But it was seriously still a success, and the kids didn't even notice, I love kids.  And the most exhausting part about the party was that when it was over I knew I had Logan's party the next day.