Making Slime

A couple days after Halloween, we got together for more 'Octoberish' fun by making slime. After jumping off the outside wall several times, we finally convinced them to come in and give the actual activity a try. It's just white school glue, water, and Borax, but you have to add it in a certain order. It made actual, real slime. Pretty cool!

Halloween!

I'm really suppose to be cleaning the kitchen, so I am of course blogging. I decided that this is a least a somewhat productive form of procrastination. And since I haven't blogged in forever and never got around to the actual Halloween day, here it is. We had a super fun Halloween. Everyone got all decked out and then we took the kids to the carnival at the library first.

They had all kinds of fun games that earned them tickets, which we traded for prizes when we were done.

Dexy, the blue crayon. Did you expect anything else from my blue obsessed boy?

Ollie was a purple crayon, Jude an aviator, and Alice a ballerina. They all looked so adorable.

Even face painting was a part of the fun.

Then onto more games!

Soon the grown-ups....

.....and the baby decided to take a stab at the fun as well.

Then we came back to our house for a quick mac 'n cheese dinner before heading back out to do the actual, door to door trick or treating. The boys got the point of it this year and were really enjoying the activity.

The Stielme's house was the best! Look at them all into the Halloween spirit!

Even Alice, who was quite the trooper through a long day of lots of activity, seemed to be having fun.

It was a good time! We cetainly did enjoy Halloween to it's fullest this year.

Halloween Carnival at Tati's School

We tag along for fun things that Jude gets to do with his Tati (Grandma Leslie) sometimes and we got invited to tag along again at her school's Halloween carnival. It was lots of good fun; a train, bouncy houses, swings, nachos and cotton candy! It was very dark when we finally dragged them away. They were wiped by the time we were finished.

Tie Dye Pumpkins

The boys went up North with Brian for a couple days so that he could do the Thanksgiving Point Halloween golf tournament with his dad and they were carving pumpkins up there, so we decided not to do that this year. We decided to tie dye pumpkins instead and it was so much fun and the shirts turned out so cute! We went to Cristina's house on Monday and did the dying for FHE.

Then she brought the shirts over to our house the next afternoon and we drew the faces and other fun Halloween related things onto our 'pumpkins.' It worked so well and they all turned out so precious that I'ved decided we should tie dye a shirt for every holiday!

The Big 30!

On October 18th, (I know, behind again) I turned 30. It has come. But really, nothing is different. I took my family to Menchie's for my birthday and then we celebrated with cake and Derek's family the next day. I made myself this delicious sponge cake. Cristina decorated it for me, gangsta style.

Blowing out my 3 whole candles. We decided to play it safe and just did one candle per decade.

I filled this bad boy with whipped cream and Nutella, which was Cristina's fabulous idea. It was so delightful! We couldn't wait for it to cool, though, so it was drippy. Didn't matter. Still SO GOOD!

Down on the Farm

On the 15th (I know, I'm behind), we took the kids down to a farm for a little activity they were having. There was handprint painting on horses, a petting zoo, frog hopping races, face painting, and lots of stinky farm fun. OK. Just being a stinker. We really had an enjoyable time. The boys' favorite activity? Climbing on this ricketty, collapsing fence. Of course!

Vegas, Baby!

Brian and I had our 5th anniversary on Wednesday Oct. 12th. We've made it to the first milestone, happily and well. So, we decided to go to Vegas. Brian's parents and sister came down on Thursday evening. We left Derek and Cristina with the boys until they got here and took off at about 4ish. We checked into our room at Palace Station hotel, got our free dinner buffet that came with our package and then headed down to Las Vegas Blvd. We loved the Venetian (where we found that big, beautiful waterfall) and spent a lot of time in there just looking at all the amazing stuff, eating gelato, watching people get gondola rides and enjoying the beauty of their work. Then we headed on down the street, stopped at the Sugar Factory where we wished we could see the boys' faces of sheer joy, wandered through more amazing hotels, and watched the beautiful Bellagio fountains. At about 11 (we know, when the rest of the party was just getting started) we were tired of walking and headed back to our hotel room. We watched the movie "The Help" and then went peacefully to bed knowing that no one would be waking us up in the middle of the night. In the morning, we slept in (so nice), checked out, went to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory, and then to old Vegas on Freemont Street. I wish we could have been there at night! It would have been so fun with all the old signs, like the classic cowboy, all lit up. Not to mention the fact that they closed the street off, paved it, and covered it with a light canopy! Next time I guess. Then we quickly went to the other side of the Blvd which we didn't get to the first night to go to M&M World and the Coke Store. We paid a measly 7 dollars for all of those Coke products from around the world. Majority of them weren't very good (those all ended up on the tray in front of me), but a few were quite yummy. We then booked it home because we had told Grandma and Grandpa to keep the boys up so we could see them before they went to bed. We made it back about 9. The boys were excited to see us and to tell us all about the 1 1/2 day party they had been having themselves. They had gone to Menchie's, McDonald's, story time at the library with Angela, Costco where they got berry smoothies, Cafe' Rio, the park, and had just generally been given whatever they wanted. Which, afterall, is the grandparents' job! They behaved well and still traded their tokens for chocolate milk and shows though, so it was a perfectly fun and acceptable party time for them, too! When we finally got them to settle down and go to bed it was about 10:30. Then they konked out fast, though. It was a fun time for all involved!!