Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone had a fun Halloween!  As the night grew darker and darker we set up our pumpkins and waited for the trick-or-treaters.  Finally, a little before 7:00pm we got our first knock on the door.  Of course, Chloe was so excited and proceeded to pee right in front of the door, in front of the kids.  At least it was our neighbors that are very familiar with Chloe’s “problem”.  :)

   

At night…

   

Like last year, we only had a handful of kids venture down our street.  A majority of the crowds stuck to the main loop in our area.  We saw a lot of cute costumes; Minnie Mouse, twin Batmans, Jasmine, Waldo and Odlaw.  There was also one other person who was dressed up as Where’s Waldo…my mom!  Her floor had the option to dress up as Waldo or their Macy’s uniform.  Chloe was our own little hot dog.  :)

   

The nieces looked cute in their costumes!  This was the first year that Kalea was able to pick her own costume.  I felt so bad when her first pick was sold out everywhere…no where could we find Woody.  Yep, Kalea wanted to be Woody.  Since her 1st pick was sold out, she went with Jessie from Toy Story.  *The pictures of the girls were from a few weeks ago. 

   

   

While Halloween is fun, I’m so ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I’m hoping 103.5 is playing Christmas songs early like last year.  Jeff already gave the okay to start decorating early this year!

Pumpkin Carving

Yesterday, Jeff and I went down to Daniel’s house to carve pumpkins.  We usually do the project at our house but the promise of steak and rice was our decision maker.  When picked up Shannon and took her with us.  She had brought some surprises for the girls and they could not wait to hang them on their walls.

   

After dinner, Jeff and I made quick work cleaning the pumpkins and brought them inside to carve.  We had one for Jeff, Danny and each of the girls.  I paired up with Brooklyn and Shannon started on Kalea’s. 

   

Brooklyn originally wanted a spider pumpkin but when she saw my Jack Skeleton pattern, quickly changed her mind.  Kalea went with the non-scary Mickey Mouse.  Earlier in the month I had picked up a batter operated pumpkin knife and could not wait to use it.  It was great!  Brooklyn and I powered through our carving and were done in no time!  Shannon tried out my “power saw” but decided the old school way was best for her.  After searching online for awhile, Danny came up with a cool idea that turned out pretty good!

   

   

   

   

Brooklyn used to be one of the most shy in front of the camera kids.  It took forever to get a good picture of her.  My big girl niece is growing up though.  She’s becoming more confident and has no problem smiling for the camera.  Or in the below videos, singing for the camera! 

 

Happy Halloween Mickey Mouse!

Jeff and I wanted to get in one more trip to Disneyland while the Halloween decorations were still up.  It just so happened that the Toy Story Mania ride had just reopened and we wanted to check out the new changes.  We got into California Adventure and went straight to Toy Story.  Seriously, 15 minutes after the park was open, the ride was already a 30 minute wait.

   

I didn’t see too many changes other than the ride decorations resemble the preschool more.  Jeff and I went head to head on the ride but alas, Jeff won. 

As we were making our way over to Tower of Terror, we walked through Bug's World and what did we see?  Christmas decorations!  Already starting to go up. 

We headed over to Disneyland after to get some Halloween treats (yum!) and enjoyed the Halloween decorations  It seemed like the closer we got to Halloween, Disneyland continued to put up more decorations.

  

California Adventure was not alone.  They had started Christmas decorating at Disneyland too!

Happy Halloween Mickey Mouse!

Noellie Bellie

I love this picture of Noelle.  The way her toy outlines her face it looks like a professional frame. 

Flashback Friday

We are carving pumpkins this weekend, here are a few of our finished products in the past.

  

Weekday Cuties

Crystal being a stay at home mom = lots of cute niece pictures!

P.S.  I usually let Hailey play with my cell phone whenever I’m around.  It was no different on Saturday when I babysat.  Today is the first time I checked my gallery on my phone.  I have 11 new pictures and 9 new videos.  When does a 1 year old know how to use my camera, let alone unlock my phone.  Watch out Chad & Crystal, she’s going to be trouble!

Chili Cook-Off

To make up for the horrible haunted hike, Shannon, Jeff and I took the girls to the CVFD chili cook-off at the Chino Fairgrounds.  As soon as you walk onto the fairgrounds, there were 2 huge jumper slides.  Of course the girls had to go on.  We bought them each access to unlimited slides and the petting zoo. 

I was worried at first about Kalea being able to climb up the ladder to get to the top of the slide.  But big sister Brooklyn did a great job helping her and making sure she made it up to the top.

 

 

 

After the jumpers, we moved on to the petting zoo.  They had to be escorted by an adult so Jeff went in with them. 

 

 

 

After the petting zoo, we stood in a short but forever line for the girls to get balloon butterflies.

Then we moved on to the chili!  They had about 10 booths set up and you paid $1 to get 3 tastings.  We went to most of them and all were pretty good.  Brooklyn liked the once best that were offering free crackers.  The girls also scored a blow pop each and a skeleton ring.  We had a quick lunch and then decided to call it a day.  As we were walking out, the firemen were holding a contest to try to squirt the weight to their opponent’s side.  The girls had a fun time and declared it was better than the haunted hike!