Happy Halloween

We wish you a happy Halloween! If you couldn't tell, for the ward Halloween Party, Claire was Cinderella Tahlia was a fairy mother, Jeff was a 70's game show host (notice the extra long, skinny microphone), and Lily was Rapunzel.

For actual Halloween Trick or Treating Lily was Ariel, the mermaid, and Claire was a fairy.  So cute!

Point Defiance Park and Some Pictures of the House

Since today was a beautiful sunny day, we went to Point Defiance Park in Tacoma after church.  I had been there one time with my mom, but Jeff had never been there.  We had a great time exploring the forests and beaches.  There are amazing views of the Puget Sound and the forests are so green its easy to forget its Fall.  If you come visit us, we'll take you there!

Since it was such a nice day, Jeff decided to snap some pictures of our house, our view, and our decorated front porch.  (For some reason, no one else in the neighborhood has decorated for Halloween.)  Enjoy!

Pumpkin Pizzas

We made personal "pumpkin" pizzas for dinner tonight and it was really fun.  I just made pizza dough, but instead of the usual - one large - I made 4 small pizzas.  The girls enjoyed decorating theirs to look like a jack-o-lantern.  We used pepperoni, olives, and mushrooms.  Claire ate all the leftover olives and started stealing other peoples. That girl is a lot like her father.

YMCA Halloween Party

I am really loving this Halloween/Fall season.  My kids are getting into it, especially Lily.  She's changed her mind about what she wants to be for Halloween like 16 times.  In fact, I thought she was going to be Rapunzel, but then she decided she was going to be Ariel for the YMCA Halloween Party.  We'll she what she decides for the ward party and for the actual Halloween day.  Claire decided to be Belle and I only had to redo her hair twice...that's pretty good for Claire.  She looked really cute.  For some reason I didn't take any pictures, but a YMCA employee did and promised to email me so when that happens, I'll post a picture.

Lily likes to hear about spooky things (but not too spooky) and has been drawing ghosts and vampire costumes.  Claire HATES spooky things and if things get even remotely spooky she starts to cry (like when I pretended to be a witch).  Good times.

Lily's Joy School Halloween Party

Lily has really been enjoying Joy School once a week with the kids in her Sunbeams class. This week they had their Halloween party. The parents were invited to the end to see the kids sing their Halloween songs in their costumes.  It was so cute.  Lily had a little bit of stage fright and danced really timidly and sang really quietly even though she knew the song really well. Oh well!  Here's Lily in her Rapunzel costume.

Pumpkin Patch

One of our friends had some extra admissions to a local pumpkin patch she got from Groupon and invited us to go with her family. We had a great time getting lost in the corn maze.  The hayride was so muddy that it felt more like a monster truck ride than a hayride.  The girls each got a coloring book and mini pumpkin to take home. Such a fun fall day!

Oh yea, and those awesome pumpkin shirts were made by me!  It was really easy.  I sewed a long straight stitch along about half a spool of thick orange ribbon and then gathered it.  I pinned it in a circle, working from the outside in and sewed it in place.  I sewed a loop of brown ribbon for the stem in place first.  It took me about 2 hours to make them both.  Most of the time was spent figuring out that I should work from the outside in (and not the other way around).

Swimming Lessons

Lily has started swimming lessons because she is pretty nervous around the water.  I was worried that swimming lessons would be traumatizing for her (because they were for me as a little kid)  but she is doing great.  We practice what her teacher is having them work on in open swim time and I think that is helping.  Claire is a little sad that she's not in swimming because she has no fear of the water.

Here's Lily at her first lesson.

The Wedding

Skye and Rachel's wedding was wonderful!  It was very beautiful and sweet.

On our way over to the church we saw this lovely sign at a local business.  We had to flip a U-turn and go snap a picture!  Then we stopped for a "snack" at In-N-Out Burger to tide us over to the luncheon at like 2 or 3pm.

The wedding cake was awesome.  Skye baked and built it himself and his boss at work just added the final touches.  Who bakes their own wedding cake?!?

The ceremony was great.  Very simple but very moving.  When Rachel started walking down the aisle with her father I just thought, "Wow! She is so beautiful!  Skye is a very lucky guy."  And then I looked over at Skye to see his reaction.  He must have been thinking along those same lines because he was getting very emotional....which in turn made me get all emotional.  It was so awesome to see how committed he his to her.  I can't wait to go to their sealing in a year.  Wouldn't it be cool if it were on their one year anniversary?  It would be awesome any time their both ready really. :o)  Here's a picture of the happy couple.

On a side note, Lily and Claire got to be the flower girls.  Well, really just Lily, but I made Claire a matching dress and they both got to walk down the aisle holding Tristen's hands.  Lily was very particular about throwing the petals.  She would only throw one petal at a time.  If she took 2 petals out of the basket she had to put one petal back.  It was pretty funny.  In all, four petals were thrown down the whole aisle.  Here's my cuties in the awesome dresses I made (that took me forever).

Arriving in Vegas

When we landed in vegas in the morning we were all pretty hungry.  Jeff suggested we get some breakfast and I suggested we do it Vegas-style...at a buffet!  So after some quick research we decided to go to the Bellagio buffet for breakfast.  We arrived only 2 minutes before they switched over to the lunch buffet (and the higher lunch prices) so we enjoyed 2 meals in one! It was delicious. Here are the girls at our table.

Also, the Bellagio was decked out for fall with amazingly huge pumpkins, apples, cornucopias, etc. in their atrium.  Amazing!

Traveling to Kingman, AZ

We flew out of Portland, OR to go to Skye's wedding to save about $400.  We arrived at our hotel the night before our flight at about 10pm...then I was on the phone till 11pm convincing hotels.com that they owed me free parking...and we all finally went to sleep at 11:30, well except for Jeff who stayed up until 1:30am working (he's CRAZY).

That would have been fine, but our flight left at 7:30 am.  Factor in the shuttle and our snail-like pace through the airport and we all had to wake up at 5 am to make the 5:30am shuttle...well, except for Jeff who had to wake up at 4:30am so he could shower and shave since he'd already missed a day or two (really he's CRAZY).

We all looked lovely on the plane.  Lily and Claire were the only ones willing to smile for the camera.

Lily and Claire making Halloween cookies