The rest....DA DA DA DAAAAA

Here is a picture of all the pumpkins outside the house! :) Dan did a good job lining them up for me.

Every year Dan does a FLAMING pumpkin. It never ceases to amaze me how many people think it's an accident, and they come to tell me that we have a pumpkin on fire. lol...I just say, "Yeah, I know."

Here are the kids along with Dan in his NACHO LIBRE costume. What a hit! Connelly was a little ornery, so we didn't get an individual picture of him, and he wouldn't wear his mask. O'well.

Here are the remaining pumpkins. Overall we carved 49 pumpkins, but we did multiple patterns on a lot of them, so we did a lot more carvings than just 49. I have to say, the Mater and Lightning McQueen pumpkin that Dan's brother Mike did is my favorite. AWESOME!!

Only 364 days until Halloween next year!

And more.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, we know we look totally crazy, but we enjoy this, so please don't judge us! Also, we have NOT carved all of these pumpkins alone. Our neighbors have helped us, and multiple family members also helped carve some. PLUS-we actually aren't done carving yet, but I figured it would be easier to post the ones that we have done so that it isn't as hard to post them all at once. Hopefully you can click on the pictures so that you can see them bigger.

We have had so much fun staying up late with our neighbors. I seriously have laughed harder lately than I have in a long time! Our neighbors are so fun.

I thought it would be fun to make cupcakes again this year. If you can't tell, I LOVE THIS HOLIDAY!!!

This is my cute table centerpiece for my table. Dan actually gave me the idea, and I thought it turned out so cute!

Halloween Party!

Tonight was our Halloween pumpkin carving party. We had a blast having friends and family over to carve pumpkins. Here is the invitation that I made. We are steadily getting ready to put out our pumpkins tomorrow night. We have had so much fun staying up late carving. (Note: thank you to those of you who have been helping us carve). We really appreciate everyone being so nice about the pumpkins. We just love to make pumpkin carving fun for everyone.

Halloween part 2

First of all, several people have asked me how I made my window patterns. I blew up regular pumpkin patterns with a projector, I traced the patterns onto black poster board, cut out the pattern with an exacto knife, and then put yellow tissue paper behind them. If you would like more detailed information, leave me a comment, and I'll be glad to explain a little better. :)


FYI-my husband is a property manager, so that is why our front door has a sign that says "private residence" on it!

I thought this spider was AWESOME!

Here is my first carving of the year. If you can't tell it's Optimus Prime. I spent a lot of time on it, so don't look too close at all the mistakes! Stay tuned for pumpkins galore. If you don't believe me, I'll just give you a little history...we carve about 45-50 pumpkins every year. We are what we call PUMPKIN FREAKS. We will put all the pumpkins out on our driveway the night of Halloween (and sometimes the night after too). If you are in the neighborhood on Halloween, please come by, we carve ALL sorts of patterns to please almost everyone.

Halloween part 1

Over the past several years, my love for Halloween has grown and grown. I have to admit, I think it all began when my roommate in college, Katie, painted her toenails black and orange. Her love for the holiday planted a seed that has grown and grown ever since! We have had a fun time decorating the outside of our house for the festivities. These are our windows! The only bad thing is that the stencils block out all the sunlight during the day...I feel like I'm living in a cave...lol. I think they turned out GREAT! My hubby is always so nice to help me with my projects.



Stay tuned for more pictures.

"Medicine Juice"

Ok, I know this is pretty weird, but Dan has taught our kids that his Eggnog and Sprite concoction is called "Medicine Juice." The kids LOVE IT. Dan is obsessed with Eggnog and he was totally thrilled to find out that stores start carrying it earlier and earlier every year. Random post, but I think it's pretty funny how excited the kids get every year for daddy to make them their first glass of "medicine juice." I'm not much of an eggnog fan. It is just too thick for me to handle. :)

I'm ALICE!

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I know I'm a total geek, but I honestly can't wait for the Twilight movie to come out!!! I plan to go at midnight the night it comes out!!!

Disneyland!!!! Beware of picture overload!

Oh my gosh...I feel like I just ran a marathon! We just got back a few hours ago, and I have so much to write about. So, please, don't read this extremely long post if you don't want to! To those of you who know us well, Halloween is our favorite holiday. It was so fun to see Disneyland all fancied up for the occasion. It was great! My ankle didn't hold up so well though. I'm afraid it pooped out about half way through. (Thank goodness for ibuprofen!)

First of all, we took Londyn to my sister in law, and that was REALLY hard to leave her. But, we left her home so that the other two could have our non-stop attention. So, even though I MISSED HER TERRIBLY, we went without her. It was good because Dan and I got to take turns riding with each of the two kids.

Oaklyn and Connelly have been saving their pennies (literally) for months and months. We took them to "cash-in" their Disneyland jar and they got to take their money with them to buy souvenirs. Turns out they had $112.00. I was so surprised that they had that much! (Thank you to grandmas and grandpas who send money for birthdays and such...because that is where the money went automatically). By the way, feel free to click on the pictures, for a bigger, better look!

I can't even describe how much fun we had. The kids were in 7th Heaven. I think the best part of the entire trip was to see Oaklyn with the princesses. She dressed up in her princess dresses for two of the days, and she even wanted to wear make-up. Cinderella was so cute with her. The rest were great too, but Cinderella talked to her for awhile, and Oaklyn was just beaming!


Connelly was terrified of the characters at first. I'm not sure why. He loved them from afar, but as soon as one would come near him, he would FREAK out. After a couple of days, he warmed up, and we were able to get a few pictures of him with some of the characters. It was really cute, while Oaklyn was talking to the princesses, he was hiding from them. Mulan kept flirting with him...and he just kept smiling. He's pretty shy!


We stayed at the Crown Plaza resort just down the street from Disneyland, and it was SO nice. We loved it. Our room was extremely clean and nice, and the beds were SOOOO comfortable. The kids slept so good (mostly from exhaustion!) I had to take some pictures of them, because Oaklyn sleeping with her Minnie doll was just CRACKIN' me up! They fell asleep so fast each night, it was amazing!

Overall, I had the best vacation I have ever been on. The kids were pretty whine-free. And they both did pretty good on most of the rides. The tower of terror in California Adventure scared Connelly a little, but I got a little scared myself! The only thing that could have made the trip better would have been to have Londyn there with us, but I'm afraid that would have created problems of its own.

We went to the Blue Bayou restaurant with the recommendation from a friend. Holy cow, the Monte Cristo sandwich was DELICIOUS. If you know Dan, he's what I call a food connoisseur. He also had some delicious shish kabobs (spell?) at the Bengal BBQ. I will NEVER go to Disneyland again without that sandwich! :)

Oaklyn's favorite ride was the Matterhorn, and Connelly LOVED the Buzz Lightyear ride.


We managed to take a break from the parks and take the kids to the beach for the first time. They LOVED IT. Oaklyn just kept saying, "Oh Mom, can we come to the beach AGAIN?" We spent a few hours playing around in the sand.


I'm glad to be home, but honestly, I CAN'T WAIT to go back again. The look on their faces was worth every penny. They are at the perfect age where they think everything is real. They were completely STAR STRUCK by all of the characters. It makes me smile to even think about it. I can definitely say that spending four days in the park was perfect. We had just enough time to ride mostly every ride and then re-ride the ones that the kids loved. California Adventure was definitely Connelly's favorite with the parade with Buzz, Mr. Incredible, Lightning McQueen, Woody...etc. We had a great time. Now, I just need to catch up on the laundry!!!

I am so excited!

This space once contained a Disneyland countdown!