11th Annual Pumpkin Carving

As always this years party had lots of food and lots of pumpkins.  I love this fun party so much!

 

Todd did a Jack Skelinton pumpkin this year - I love it so much!  And we grew it in our garden!!

Mystery Dinner

I love our annual Mystery Dinner - it is so much work but we have so much fun so it's totally worth it.  I tried to come up with kid friendly food and lots of variety this year.  We did 3 courses of 3 items each.

This years menu:

 

Bones and Blood
(they were served with marinara sauce not ketchup but the picture ended up with ketchup)

To make these I bought breadstick dough cut each strip into 4 pieces then shaped into a bone.

Stay Puft

This is brownies with a marshmallow and heated up frosting -
the faces melted a little but they were delicious

Bloody Face
This is one that we do almost every year because the kids eat them and they are so easy

I want my Mummy

You can't see it very well but it was the one item I didn't get a picture of.
It was a hot dog wrapped in crescent rolls

Ghastly Ghost
So easy and so fun
Heidi made these and she #nailedit

Monster Mash
These little cheese balls were yummy and kid friendly but a lot of work to make

http://www.makeandtakes.com/mini-monster-cheese-balls

King Tut
Megan made these and they turned out amazing. 
She did oreo truffles dipped in white chocolate with mini chocolate chips for the eyes.

Candy Corn
Pineapple, clementine, whip cream and candy corn. 

 Graveyard
pudding cup, crushed oreos and some jello worms
I have to do the jello worms every year because the kids absolutely HATE them and it cracks me up.

I did drinks a little different this year.  I gave the kids 3 options and just had them choose.  They could do "the undead" which was a mummy juice box or "casper"  which was a white cup with a ghost face drawn on with milk or "love potion" which was red kool-aid with dry ice.  All the kids changed to love potion once we started serving drinks :)

Costumes are required :)

And of course the kitchen must be hidden :)

Sidewalk of Fire - 10 years

Our neighborhood puts on the best block party ever for the 4th of July - Sidewalk of Fire.  We do carnival games, food eating contests, deserts, and a seriously awesome firework show.  I got to run the bean bag toss game for a couple of hours while the kids played on the street and got their faces painted. Then we kicked it on blankets and enjoyed the show.

Eternal Families

Last night my parents wanted to kick off the 50 year anniversary celebration at the temple doing sealings.  Talk about the perfect way to celebrate eternal marriage!  I love my parents and the example they are to me.  Next part of the party will be in Cancun. Ah yeah.

Father's Day

Today I am grateful to celebrate what an amazing father I have and what an amazing father my kids have.  My kids are so lucky to have Todd as their dad.  He loves them so much.  Todd is willing to do anything for our family and is the rock that hold us together.  When things get crazy he is steady.  He is so much fun and loves to play with the kids.  He loves the garden and anytime I can't find him he's out doing work to make the garden even better.  He is always willing to go along with any crazy thing I come up with.  We throw parties and play just dance - and he is right in the middle of it all never complaining.

I am also so very grateful for the dad I grew up with.  Today in church they had us go around the room and say one thing about our fathers.  It was so hard for me to pick one thing for my dad. I ended up chosing his unconditional love.  He is the perfect example of loving people more than anything else.  He loves his family and puts family before everything else.  Things never matter as much as people to him.  He loves without judging and has taught me so much about love.  I am so grateful for his example and that I get to be his daughter.

Easter

This year we didn't do Easter baskets and I didn't even buy all new outfits for the kids.  We just kept it simple and spent time as a family.  I bought some plastic eggs and 1 small bag of candy for the kids which they loved.  Then after church we dyed eggs - each of the kids got a dozen eggs.  Everytime one cracked Luke or Sophie would eat it up.  My parents were in Peru so we hosted dinner at our house and instead of the traditional ham dinner we bar-b-qued and it was amazing.  I love spring!! 

Driving Home

Well spring break 2014 was just as epic and I hoped it would be.  We hit the road and broke the drive up into 2 days again.  We slept at the Wal-Mart again (hilarious to me) and played Farkel (Claire killed us all) and had a nice easy drive home.  At one point during the drive I spotted Sophie's bum and it had 5 pair of underwear on ....when I asked her why she said everyday on vacation rather than change them she just added a new pair.  Oh Sophie.

The Caves

Our final day we did Jewel Cave and Wind Cave.  Sadly Wind Cave was closed when we got there so we just did the visitor center and the outdoor part (fine with me...being underground that long is creepy).  The kids did the Jr Ranger program again and got lots of badges.

My kind of Camping

Hooray for showers, toilets, beds, wifi and still being able to cook over the fire!

Favorite Childhood Memory

The thing I remember most about when I went to Mt Rushmore as a kid were the wild donkeys.  We would get out of the car and feed them carrots and apples.  We even put Heidi on the back of one when she was a toddler and it took off and bucked her off.  Sorry Heidi.  I was so excited for the wildlife loop and it was just as fun as I remembered it.