Halloween and Abby's Birthday!

As we were getting ready to go to Denver on Halloween day, I came out of the kitchen to find this...

"Help Mom!  I'm stuck!"

We drove down to Denver right after Michael's class on Friday (Halloween).  And hit some not fun traffic.  Abby cried the last 30 minutes and just about drove us nuts.  We were so glad to get to Michael's parent's house where we were greeted with warm bowls of yummy chili!  It was so good.  The cousins then doned their costumes and headed off down the street.  Abby and I were still eating, so we missed out on pictures, but caught up with the trick-or-treaters a bit later.  I have NO pictures, but I'll get a few from G&G Huntington who took some.  Just know they were CUTE CUTE kids.

They traipsed down the leaf covered street from house to house, so excited about each door.  The parents hung back at the sidewalk and laughed.  I dressed Abby up in her dinosaur costume and she "walked" up to three houses and got a treat.  She was loving it!  Ellie was also a dinosaur, or more accurately a "hyper carnivore" which she learned about on Dinosaur Train. 

 So many people had decorations out and Ellie was fascinated with them.  Making her the slowest in the group, cuz she wanted to look at the spooky things.  I missed this, but supposedly it was the highlight of the night:  Ellie was lagging behind looking at stuff and Aunt Amber told the kids to "wait for Ellie".  Cousin Coulsen (2) then shouted "ELLIE!  Come along!" all dramatically and with an arm waving for her to come.  He's so cute.  

When they got home, they checked out their stash and began eating it.  Yuck.  Ellie just finished her candy the other day and I'm so glad that's over.  We don't eat sugar like that in our house normally.  I don't buy it, and therefore we don't eat it.  And our moods are a lot better for it.  So now her mood is stable. 

The next day we celebrated Abby's birthday.  Her Great Grandpa and Grandma Hurst were even able to make it!  Michael picked out a cute polar bear for Abby and I picked out this fun ball track thing.  She loves them both.  She gives her "Polar" big hugs and talks to it in a higher pitch like a mommy.  It's adorable!  All the cousins were ready to help her open her gifts.  It was funny.

Then we had birthday pumpkin pie!  Happy Girl!

I made her her own little pie in a ramikin.  It had really thick crust and so she basically just scooped the pie and whipped cream out of it like a bowl.  She loved it!

Aunt Amber kept trying to get Abby to put her hands in her hair to no avail.  She just didn't want to.  I was greatful.

Pics of Abby's first year were hung around.

The next morning before we knew it, Ellie and Coulsen had snuck outside and started jumping on the trampoline. It was so cold.  And so funny.  Nothing like laughter and joy to keep you warm I guess!

Burr...

Hope you all had a good halloween :)

Ellie's Birthday Party!

 It's only half a year late, but here goes...

We had a party for Ellie's 3rd Birthday this year.  It was her first party with friends and she was so excited.  I woke up so sick, but Grandma and Grandpa Huntington came the night before and helped me pull it all off.  I figured...I planned it well and bought everything in advance.  I just didn't plan on being so sick.  It was so hard and stressful, but turned out great in the end.  Grandma and Grandpa took over the giant waterbed thing we made, bless them, it turned out to be quite the project.  (If you ever intend to attempt this project, don't do what pinterest says.  Spend the money on the thicker plastic and it will actualy do what its supposed to!  It was pretty sad to me that the plastic tore so quickly after all the effort to make it.  It was still a neat sensory thing, but not as cool as it would've been with thicker plastic.)

In true Laramie fashion, it was gorgeous the day before and on the day of the party...wind.  In Laramie you accept the wind, it's just part of your life.  But it really was a bummer that it made it so cold that day when we were playing in water.  The kids didn't hardly want to touch the waterbedsa  The dollar store water shooters turned out to be a great hit and really saved the "activity".

Next the kids took turns poking the water balloon pinata.  This was hard for the younger kids including Ellie.  She was so distracted by all the attention that she wasn't even really looking at the pinata while she poked, as you will see in the following pics.  It was hilarious.  The kids really liked it still.

Oh this cake.  It looks beautiful, but was obnoxious.  I tried making a yummy cake from scratch the night before, and of course, as things weren't going my way that weekend, it fell.  I was so bummed cuz it tasted really good.  On to plan B.  We bought an angel food cake the morning of, and I used my yummy Swiss Meringue frosting and homemade lemon curd and raspberries to whip this up.  It was so fun to assemble, and came together sooo fast.  It tasted good too.

Ellie was so excited about the cake and having people sing to her.  And then midway through the song, she got all bashful and blushing.  It was so funny.

And then she blew them all out!

 Before the cake, we served the kids PB sandwiches, watermelon, carrots and sugar peas.  It was yummy.

As you can tell, the weather really changed over the course of the party.  After the water balloon pinata, we pretty much stayed inside to eat our lunch and cake and presents.

After the party, we had some leftover balloons that Michael's parents and brother Matt and his wife Kaitlin put to good use with an old fashioned balloon toss.  It was really fun to watch.

Cute Newleyweds!

So in the end, we pulled it off and the kids had fun.  I slept hard that night, glad to not have that stress anymore.  For me, the roughest part was being so stuffed up in the head and having body aches, that I couldn't think straight or remember what I was doing half the time.  It was soooo frustrating while trying to get everything prepped to forget so often.  A huge THANKYOU to all who helped out.  You made Ellie's day so special.

July 4th Craziness!

We spent this last 4th of July in Sandy at Grandma Elaine's with all of Michael's family and cousins.  Michael and his bro took on the task of trimming the trees.  There were loads of dead branches to be had.  Michael made a harness for trimming this tree in particular so that he wouldn't die.  I was so glad he thought of it. :)  He learned all about trimming trees when he worked on the grounds crew at the Denver Temple and he enjoyed putting his knowhow to work.  He was our resident monkey.  I just love how this tree is covered in moss.

Abby had avocado for the first time and loved it as you can see!   She has always loved to feed herself.  It's messy, but I get to eat at the same time, so its worth it.

So about a month before our trip I chatted with my friend Alicia Wall who has been gone from Laramie for two years, and it turned out she was coming down to Salt Lake area at the same time as us!  We were so excited to get our kids together.  Ellie and Bryant are only two months apart and they loved eachother... until they moved.  That was a sad day.  So it was fun that they were able to stop by one afternoon and hangout.  Bryant is such a sweet boy.  If we lived close, I'm sure they'd be good buddies.  Thanks for coming over Scott and Alicia!  So good to see you!

July 4th is also cousin Coulsen's birthday, so of course there was a party.  Ellie refused to go down the slide.  I'm guessing she didn't like the water that sprinkled from above.  She really doesn't like water on her head.  So instead of playing in the water, she "flew" between Uncle Chris and Uncle Matt.  As you can tell, she loved it!

Michael's sister Amber made this adorable cake for Coulsen!  And it tasted really good too.  The rocks on the left are made of chocolate and tasted amazing.

Birthday Boy Coulsen.

Coulsen thought the cake needed a prayer before we ate it.  So cute.

As you can tell, the kids couldn't wait to eat it!  They thought it was sooo cool.  And it is.

Michael and Matt did their usual firework hacking of tanks, adding on all sorts of things for their "TANK WARS".  Michael reverts to a little boy around fireworks and I love it.  It's so fun.

Amazing, I made it into a picture!

Ellie squirting Grandpa Kerry in the face.  Way too close...

The launching begins!

Sister in law Amber with her new camera!  Yea!

(not to be confused with Michael's sister Amber, I know, it can get confusing sometimes.)

These boys were so cute all lined up watching the fireworks.  Love Tyler's expression!

BOOM!

Here I am about to launch my favorite firework.  36 Parachutes!  

And here we are all running around trying to catch the parachutes.  It's pretty much my favorite activity of the night, and maybe because I feel so much like a kid!

Can you tell they are related?

(Stephanie, Kathy, Amber)

Matt and his awesome California candle.

We bought a lot of mortors this year.  This is my favorite kind of firework right here.  It was so fun to lie on the grass with Ellie and watch the big fireworks above.  Ellie was up till 11:30 that night.  It was aweful for her, but she had fun as a zombie.

The next day was Callen's birthday so we celebrated some more!  I got this idea from Ellie's birthday party where we had a waterballoon pinata.  If I had a tree this would have happened for her.  I didn't know we were going to have so many parties and I thought it would be fun for the kids to do, so Stephanie was gracious and let me do it for Callen's birthday.  And I don't think we could have bestowed  it on a more excited participant!  He loved it! 

We put some little toys in the balloons too.  You can see some in some of the balloons.

A bat with rough sandpaper rubberbanded on worked fantastic!  Highly recommend this technique over forks, toothpicks, etc.

As you can see, it was amazing how tough some of these balloons were.  This one took on about 8 hits before it popped.  Surprisingly tough!

Callen blew and blew and blew.... caught you Steph!

Eating some fantastic Tillamook strawberry icecream.  Summer bliss!

When we got home we remembered that "Oh ya, we had a leak from above into our apartment that made us move everything away from this area of the house and essentially make it a disaster area the day before we left!"  Story of our lives.  Leaks, leaks, leaks, and mostly from above!  Not fun.  But Ellie found fun.  She found my formal dress and put it on.  She loved it!  So funny.

That's all folks!  I think I'm finally all caught up!