Halloween 2014

Our Halloween festivities are broken up over 3 events every year:  1-Trunk or Treat.  2-Pumpkin Carving with the Park family. 3-Halloween night.

We LOVE this time of year and had so much each of our traditional events.  First up this year was Trunk or Treat with our ward family.  Max & Ethan have been OBSESSED this year with 80s horror movies.  Max just HAD to be Feddie Kruger (Nightmare on Elm St.) and Ethan wanted to be Jason (Halloween).  Chris fueled their obsession even further by recording all the TV-edited versions of these shows this year for them to watch.  So here they are in all their 80s horror glory:

Friday, Oct. 24th--Trunk or Treat

Max-Freddy Kruger
Ethan-Jason
Tatum-Vampire
Chloe (neighborhood friend)-Monster High Girl

Carlie created Max's make-up for the night:)

Saturday, Oct. 25th:  Stake Dance:

This is the only event Carlie would dress up for this year.  She loves going to the stake dances now that she is 14.  So here she is in all her girl's camp gear:

Wednesday, Oct. 29th:  Pumpkin Carving with the Park Family

This has become one of our most favorite holiday tradition.  It all started because my good friend, Danika, hated carving pumpkins--the cost, the mess, etc…  This was our 3rd year doing it and we hope to do it for another 100 years:)  So much fun and Chris & Kevin get better and better every year in their pumpkin-carving skills!

The best part!!!

Max & Tyler

Chris showing his MAD SKILLS!!!

Completed pumpkins!

Crazy kids:)

Ethan's Pumpkin--Jason

Max's Pumpkin--Freddy Kruger

Tatum's Pumpkin--Carrie (from The Amazing World of Gumball)

Friday, Oct. 31st:  HALLOWEEN!!!

Well, we are officially old and our kids don't need us anymore to go Trick-or-Treating.  Tatum went with her neighborhood friends (and one of their dads), Ethan & Max went off on their own, and Chris, Carlie, and I stayed home to hand out candy.  We everyone got back home, we watched "Poltergeist" together as a family:)  (TV-edited version of course:)  So that was the perfect way to end our Halloween night!

Chris has found a new passion--make-up art.
He's always been very artistic and Max's face became
his new "canvas."  

Max's burned/charrred face.  

I LOVE my "Spooky Town" that I set up every year!
(And so do my students:)

I may need another table next year!

Ready to take on the neighborhood!

Elaine & Tatum

This is absolutely my most favorite time of year!  I LOVE decorating for Halloween and was a little sad taking it all down:(  But it was a great year and now we're ready to tackle Thanksgiving & Christmas!!!  BRING IT!

Tatum's 7th Birthday!!!

So my baby is 7!!!  UGH!!!  She just keeps growing up on me!

Well, she was insistent on having a birthday party this year--believe me, I tried REALLY hard to get her to take the $100:)  And she wanted it to be a Halloween party.  Her birthday always fall right at break so I never know how many kids will be in town.  I definitely did not expect this many kids, but we sure had a scary/great time!

Max & Ethan took it upon themselves to scare all the guests as they arrived at the party.  They are both obsessed with 80s horror movies at the moment--I blame my husband for that--Max is "Freddy Cougar" from "Nightmare on Elm Street" and Ethan is "Jason" from "Halloween."

The "Vampire Queen"

The Terrible Three!

We made super cute eyeball frames:

Tatum's favorite thing--crafting:)

Played some fun games--that the boys ran:)

 MUMMY WRAP:

The cute cupcakes

The Birthday Girl in the Birthday Crown!

It has been an unusually rainy year this year in AZ.  We saw a storm coming in so we quickly ran outside and took a group picture before it started POURING RAIN!

But luckily it only rained the last 15 minutes of the party so we entertained with some Halloween cartoons!

Happy 7th Birthday to my Tatum Jane!  We love you ohh soo much!  You make our family complete!

Band/Orchestra Kids!!!

With my kids going Heritage, they are required to take a fine art every semester--band, orchestra, drama, choir, or dance.  Well since my kids are not allowed to do choir (old deep-rooted feelings from my own high school days--haha:) they have to do band or orchestra.

Ethan has been playing the trombone this year.  I have been very "hands off" about this instrument because I've been so "hands on" with his piano.  So I figured this poor kid could use a break from me.  Well, he's doing AMAZING and is really enjoying being in band.  Seriously SUPER proud of this kid!  And Carlie of course continues to be amazing as ever on the oboe!  She taking this year off from musicals to really focus in on this instrument.  She is even learning to make the reeds right now:)  Super proud of this girl too.

So here are my awesome kiddos for their first concert this past Friday--September 26, 2014.

Suessical Jr.

Max was just recently cast in Actor Youth Theatre's production of "Suessical Jr."  He was cast as "the black-bottomed eagle named Vlad Vladikoff!"  (The bad guy that works with the Wickershim Brothers to steal the clover away from Horton the Elephant:)

Max has ALWAYS LOVED being the bad guy!  Ever since he was little, he always liked being the "Black Spiderman," the monster, the kid who was "it" or had "cooties" so he could not have been more perfectly cast for this role!  He was in heaven and it was his most favorite play ever!  

He only had one line in this play but he put his whole heart into it!  The Wickershim Brother sang, "Well just to make sure, we're handing it off, to a black-bottomed eagle named…"  then Max jumped out to say "VALD VLADIKOFF!!!  AHAAHAAHAAA!!!" then he coughed like he was choking on something.  Seriously brought tears of joy to my eyes every time I saw it--I was just SOO proud of him!

Max LOVED LOVED LOVED his costume!!!

The Wickershim Brother were his
BEST friends throughout this show.

The costumes in this show were AMAZING:)

The stage!

The COOLEST mohawk EVER!!!

Jojo and Vlad

BAD GUYS RULE!!!

So Max loved every single minute of every single rehearsal and was super sad when it was all over.  We are sure proud of our little "bad" guy.  This was such a great experience for him and he can't wait until his next play.  WE LOVE YOU VLAD:)

My New Calling:)

So I've been the Girl's Camp Director for the past 3 years.  This year, I had the opportunity to be both the 2nd Counselor AND the Camp Director.  So my life this year has pretty much been all young women--which is actually where I LOVE to be!  I honestly would not want to be anywhere else right now in my life.

After girl's camp this year, I had this feeling of relief because I knew that this was my last year as Camp Director.  I knew I wasn't done with YWs, I was just done in that capacity of YWs.  All summer I kept having feelings about being YW President.  I can honestly say that I had NEVER had feelings like this before with any other calling I've had.  I tried pushing these feelings away A LOT, but I knew.  Can't explain how, I just knew.  So when the call actually came, I wasn't surprised…just OVERWHELMED!  Just because I knew, didn't make the reality of it any easier:)  So I knew immediately who I wanted in as my counselors and secretary--I actually gave those names to my Bishop before I left his office.  These women had been on my mind for months.

So here I am a little over a month into my new calling and while it is super busy and a bit over-whelming, I am SOOO happy and SOOO in love with all these Young Women.  I can't even believe that I am being entrusted with these AMAZING girls.  And my YW board ROCKS!!!  I am surrounded by the absolute BEST women in my ward for this job.

These past couple weeks the girls have been doing flag football.  My dear sweet husband agreed to coach these girls up for 2 weeks of games against other wards.  Look how cute these girls are on week
#1:

During week #2 of flag football, we had record-breaking rain and flooding here in AZ.  So instead of canceling, we just played MUD FOOTBALL--which was WAY more fun!  Here are a few of my most favorite pictures from the night--it's sure great having a professional photographer as one of my counselors:)  

BEFORE picture--Football Beauties:)

BEFORE:  "OHH SCARY" picture:)

Good ol' Coach Meeker took some mud like a man!!!
Such a good sport:)