Halloween Night

It's finally here-Halloween night! We were super excited for the festivities. First we headed to our annual neighborhood party. There were several yummy soups to choose from, breadsticks, scones, & homemade rootbeer. Delish! There was a bounce house & pony cart rides for the kids, so of course they had a blast! While they were busy playing we were busy chatting with all our great neighbors and friends. There were some amazing costumes...I think the Smurf was my favorite! After the block party, we headed over to see Grandma & Grandpa Jones then went trick-or-treating in their neighborhood. This was the first year that we did the traditional trick-or-treating instead of a trunk-or-treat, and the kids loved it! Plus it was good for them to walk off some of that sugar! It was a long, but fun night. Happy Halloween!

Halloween Party

We had a great time at our Christensen Family Halloween party this year. We ate yummy food, played fun games & laughed a lot!

This year Danny was a nerd, I was a witch, Averee was a monster bride, Adelyn was an Egyptian princess, Owen was Jack Sparrow, & Reese was a black cat.

One of the games for the kids was to see if they could put a bunch of bones together correctly to make a skeleton. They did a great job-especially Averee-she has been studying that in her science class. Next thing we know Averee says 'Look mom, look at my skeleton'. She had positioned her skeleton doing her favorite dance move-hilarious! We laughed for 5 minutes & kept that skeleton on the wall for days!

Here is the whole gang: Danny, Reese, Maren, Owen, Adee, Averee, Jason, Angie, Aiva, Lydia, Dad (Ryan), Mom (Verlene), Alesha, & Kyle.

My sister Alesha had the best costume-she was Mrs. Edward Scissorhands. She looked amazing!

My dad is not a fan of dressing up-but my mom made him at least wear a capeLater he ditched the cape for Mrs. Scissorhands wig-looking good!

Owen (Jack Sparrow) was fascinated by the homemade rootbeer. This was our first attempt at making our own-it was delish!

Averee the Monster Bride

Adee the Egyptian Princess

Witch Tea Party

My cute friend Dani Jensen threw a Witch Tea Party-it was so fun! Everyone had to come dressed as a witch, some of the hats were amazing! The decor was so cute & the food was so delish! It was a great nite spent with the greatest friends!

Rachel Page & Tiffany Blanchard Elsha Gubler, Lacy Franke, & Mandy FentonBrenda Andrus, Kayla Hall & Mandy Fenton

Me, Camille Jennings, & Tiah Wright

The whole gang sitting down for dinner

All the witches together...that is Glinda the Good Witch front and center

Rachel Page, Tiah Wright, Brenda Andrus & Mindy Buchanan

The tables were so cute & totally decked out

Lacy Franke & Mandy Fenton

What a fun night-I just LOVE all these girls! Can't wait till next year!

Pumpkin Carving

What would Halloween be without carving some pumpkins? The only problem: I didn't get pictures of the results! And now they are all rotten & wilted. Oh well, that's life huh? But we did have a great time carving pumpkins with Danny's brother Ryan & his family. We printed out some stencils & let the kids pick the one they liked best. Then Danny used a skill saw to cut out the stencils. It worked pretty great. Adee loved scooping out the pumpkin guts, but Averee wouldn't even touch it. So funny. The pumpkins turned out so great-too bad you can't see them!

Adee picked a cat face

Averee picked a witch flying infront of the moon

Owen picked Jack Skellington

Staheli Farm

My friend Rachel & I were both single moms for the night so we decided to be brave & take all the kids to Staheli Farm by ourselves. It wasn't as hard as it sounded :0) They have added a lot of fun stuff since last time we went a couple years ago. The kids had a great time on the horse swings, the corn slide, the rope swing, learning to rope a cow, riding on the hay wagon out to the pumpkin patch, eating yummy food, petting the farm animals, watching the pig races & listening to the kids in the Haunted Corn Maze scream!

Owen & Adee learning to rope a cow. It is harder than it looks!

Reese loved all the farm animals

Averee & Adee playing with the water pumps

All the kids, patiently waiting for their dinner :0) Averee, Emma, Owen, Tyler, Sara, Adee, & Reese

Haunted Gingerbread Houses

One of our favorite Halloween traditions is decorating Haunted Gingerbread Houses. We all love it! I pre-assemble the houses using graham crackers & a hot glue gun. So much easier & faster! That way we don't have to deal with the crying & frustration of the kids not being able to put their own houses together. They just get to go straight to decorating! Even though all the houses start out looking the same, they are very different by the end of the night. We invited Ryan & Shannon's family to come join in the fun.

Averee is getting pretty good at this!

Reese did a lot better than I expected...such a cutie!

Owen used more frosting than anyone else...he kept burying his candy in piles of frosting!

Adee & Megan hard at workAll the kids really enjoy this annual tradition. And the mess is TOTALLY worth it!

BOO to you!

One of the best things about this time of year is all the fun activites & festivites that go on...

The costumes: This year Averee was a Devil, Adelyn was an Angel (although usually those roles are reversed!), Owen was Mario, and Reese was a LadyBug. So cute!

Our costumes were pretty fun this year too...what do you think? It was hilarious to see everyone's different reactions to our 'announcement'

The Parties: I love parties! I love planning them, going to them, thinking about them-all of it! We have a couples costume party every year & I look forward to it SO much! Plus, there are always a few family parties and such to attend... Todd and Michelle threw a great family party this year complete with apple bobbing & Mummy Wrap-up!The Halls...what a cute senior missionary couple huh? Good thing they came cuz there were some shady characters at the couples party that needed a good missionary discussion or two!We all had a blast at the couples party this year...we played 'Minute to Win it' style games & it was pretty hilarious!

And of course, no Halloween would be com,plete until we decorate our annual 'Haunted Houses' and carve pumpkins... Until next year...BOO!!!