Jazz Game

My team got tickets to the Jazz game on the first row.  It was so amazing!!  I can't believe how close we were.  Literally sitting on the floor.  We got a fancy dinner at the 100 Club before the game too.  SO MUCH FUN!!

Decluttering

Today I cleaned out my nightstand and I found so many fun little gems.  My old BYU ID and my high school glasses.  And my favorite picture of Claire and Luke when they were tiny.  Why in the world do I have all of this stuff in my night stand....time to go into storage!

Happy Halloween

Oh how we love dressing up for Halloween.  It's fun to come up with costumes and for some reason I just love homemade costumes for myself.  This year I saw a picture of a leg lamp and couldn't wait to do it.  After spending time and money buying all the supplies to make my own lamp shade Todd found one that was perfect in our storage room.  So I wasn't up all night crafting :)

Tayson decided he would help me and take the girls trick or treating this year.  I mean why not get candy while helping out.  Smart kid.

Luke dressed up as Star Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy

 Tayson was a skeleton

Elsa

And of course my little Princess Anna (who had cute braids in the morning but decided not to keep them in).  She really wanted the coronation dress but it was $100 so she decided to wear the costume she got for her birthday and asked me to buy her a toy instead. win win.

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 :)

Tayson's Talk

Tayson gave his first talk in Sacrament meeting today.  He did such a great job and didn't seem nervous at all.  Then again, what did I expect...the kid loves a captive audience.  :)

His talk was on James 1:5 - he had such a great joke at the start.  Here is the first part of his talk:

Hi my name is Tayson Johnson I just turned twelve and I got the preisthood two weeks ago and I'm talk already - sigh.  To introduce myself I'm going to tell you three things I like and three things I don't like.  I like video games, sports and my awesome dad.  Three things I don't like are homework, waking up early and my dad telling me to write things about him being "awesome".  I was asked to speak on James 1:5.

Luke gave a talk in primary too.  It was crazy having both boys give talks on the same day.  His talk was on how wholesome activities strengthen the family.  He wrote his whole talk and even changed it a little on the fly because he realized our family bonded more in Cancun staying in a hotel together than just focusing on the Whale Shark tour :)

It was a very proud mom day today!

Luke's Party

Luke wanted to have his birthday party at Classic Skating.  It was so much fun and all the kids had a blast.  There are bounce houses, arcade games, skating, scooters, pizza and ice cream.  And all the parents could hang out while the kids wore themselves out.

Heidi came with all 6 kids - so I got to cuddle with sweet baby Jack.

Our neighbor Ryan was the only friend who came - and it was his first time to ever eat ice cream.  He said it was good but really cold!