It's time for the big reveal! Woo hoo! Halloween is so much fun! These costumes were a lot of work, but they were fun to make once I got going. And I learned a few things as I went along. For instance: Duct tape really doesn't like to be painted very much.
Left to Right: The Enderman, the Jockey Spider, and the Creeper! They turned out super cool!
The Creeper face! Before the rest of the paint got put on it.
I made Kurtis take a picture of me, so that there is evidence later when my kids are trying to tell me what I never did for them. Ha!
Here is Zach in the school parade. His friends thought his costume was pretty dang cool.
Yeah, it doesn't really fit him any more, but I'm not gonna argue with him about it. It's called picking your battles.
Riley and his friends. They thought his costume was pretty cool, too.
Yesterday, we finally got around to carving our pumpkins! Hooray!
Kaleb is so fun.
When Kurtis was complaining about how hard it was to make smaller cuts on his pumpkin, I told him to go get the drill. He said, "What drill?"
Kurtis's pumpkin. It's the Pumpkin King!
I made Zero.
I got better shots of our pumpkins in the daylight. Here's my Zero.
If my mom ever sends me another email telling me that I come off as hating my children/family on this blog (I guess she's forgotten what sarcasm is), I will simply refer her to this post. Yesterday, I spent the entire day working on Zach and Riley's costumes just so they could be ready for today's Halloween parade at school. Zachary, Kaleb, and Riley love a certain game called Minecraft. I have never played it, and don't really have any desire to, but Kurtis seems to be enjoying it as well.
One day in late September, Zachary comes to me and says, "I want to be a Creeper for Halloween." "Yeah, and I want to be a Spider Jockey," says Riley. "Ooooh! And, Mom! Mom! I want to be an Enderman!" Kaleb exclaims. "What the heck are those?" I ask. They are some bad guys in Minecraft. Which is a game where you build a world out of blocks. Everything is square and Lego shaped.
This is a Creeper:
Oh, he's kind of cute! You might say. Well, he isn't. Apparently, Creepers creep up behind you and blow themselves and you up. Or they go into your house that you've spent weeks building and decorating and BOOM!
This is a Spider Jockey. Apparently the Zombies and Skeletons catch on fire in the day time and aren't very fast. But if you put one on a spider and give it a bow and arrow, they can move. And kill you.
This is the Enderman. He's just creepy looking on his own, but turn your body in his direction and look at him, he teleports right up to your face and kills you. Seriously. Freaky.
I took one look at the Creeper and thought, "Oh, great. That is going to take forever to make." So what did I do? I procrastinated. Wednesday was my day off, so I took that day and some cardboard boxes and cut and duct taped them together. Oh, yeah. I couldn't find the duct tape, so I had to go buy more, and because I don't have a car, that means I walked to the store. Now, the store is not very far away. The whole trip took me about 20 minutes, but It would have take five or ten (max) if I had a car. I was lucky I was the only customer in Ace, so I was in and out really quickly. And I walk pretty fast.
Did I mention that I also had to go visiting teaching, make those cute treats for the other ladies I visit teach, but won't be able to get to this month, and make soup for the ward party that night? Oh, and go to the ward party. The costumes weren't ready in time, for it so we were lame and didn't dress up, but the kids didn't really seem to care. They still got to go trunk-or-treating.
So my day off wasn't really a day off, but I got the costumes put together at least. Yesterday was my painting marathon. My hand still hurts. I didn't have the day off, though. The girls got to watch a lot of Dora yesterday. Baby E was really mad at me by the end of the day. It was like she wanted me to actually pay attention to her, or something. On a side note (freak accident), there was a wasp in my house yesterday, and when Baby E's mom came to get her, she found it on her face. Then she started screaming and crying. It had stung her finger! :'( It was so sad! I killed it. He deserved it.
We had to go to Pack Meeting that evening, but I rock because I managed to get those costumes painted before I went to bed at 1:00 a.m. I know. I am amazing. But I am also pretty mean because I am not going to show you a picture of their costumes just yet. Muwahahahahaha!
The reason is because Kaleb thinks that his costume needs a square mask for his head. I was just going to paint purple squares around his eyes with face paint, but that isn't good enough for him, and so he refused to wear his costume to the parade at school today. Instead, he wore his Spiderman costume from two years ago. No, it doesn't really fit him that well any more. Sigh. So Halloween will be the big reveal of their costumes to the world. :)
So you can watch this instead! It's my Halloween song of the day!
Here is a cute Halloween candy wrapper idea to make the treats you give out this year a little more special! Oh, heck no! I do not put these on all the treats I give out to our trick-or-treaters! But I do like to give a treat out to a few of my friends (or in LDS lingo, the ladies I visit teach), and I think they like that I make it all cutesie.
I know. You totally want me to be your visiting teacher now,
Today, I took the kids to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two. That is the third time I have seen it, and it was still amazing. I asked the boys what their favorite part was:
Zach: All of it.
Kaleb: The whole thing.
Riley: The part when Harry Potter dies.
Me: That part is cool. But my favorite part is when Neville kills the snake.
Riley: Yeah, that part was really cool, too.
I haven't really blogged about the things we've done at Stamp Club lately. I wonder why. I really, really love Halloween, and so this month at Stamp Club, we made these:
We made this card. What a cute witch!
And we mod podged and embellished these wooden coffins I found at orientaltrading.com. You can put candy inside them to give to your friends. :D
Spooky! Love them!
Next Stamp Club is Wednesday, November 9th at my house!
I made myself some nachos with a side of salsa today. As I was eating it, Kurtis asked me if I would share. I told him to eat what he wanted. Then he said, "I'm going to make some more because I ate so many of them." Which he did. We like to buy the chunky salsa and then put it in the food processor so it is nice and thin. Like Chili's salsa, only nothing is quite so good as Chili's salsa. While I was doing that because we ran out of salsa, he ate them.
At least he made some more and shared them with me.
Yesterday was Riley's birthday. He's nine. It's kind of weird to think that nine years ago he was just a tiny little baby. But at the same time. It's wonderful. I love that he is growing up and becoming somebody who is kind and loving (unless he doesn't get enough sleep. Then he's not very nice to anybody). He is a smart little boy, and he knows it. I love that he knows it. He's confident. Unfortunately, he isn't fearless. He would probably do more active things if he weren't so afraid of getting hurt. He won't play soccer, he won't play basketball, and I think he would really enjoy those things, but he said he didn't want to compete. I told him he should just play and have fun playing and not worry about the competition part of it. It's rec league. They have to take everybody. Oh, well. Let's focus on his awesomeness: Smart, cute, kind, and silly. He's the whole package ladies! ;)
Speaking of ladies, apparently he does have girls that have crushes on him at school. One girl wrote in his birthday book: "Dear Riley, You can chase me as much as you want. Your BEST Friend EVER!" How cute is that? I guess he and a few boys in his class like to chase the girls at recess. Some things never change.
We couldn't find a marble cake mix in the stores (we went to two different ones), so Riley chose a lemon cake with chocolate frosting and Fall m&ms. It was yummy.
I asked Kurtis if he wanted to do the video or the camera. Even though this picture is pretty crappy, I still think it looks cool from an artistic standpoint. Riley wasn't very cooperative about getting a good picture and holding still. I'm not sure he is very comfortable in the spotlight, so he acts all weird when he is the center of attention.
He's pretty bug-eyed here (on purpose), but at least he is having fun. Nine is fine! :)
This is as close as we get to a decent picture of him on his big day. Awesome.
Opening presents and cards. I love this picture of Bonnie. She's so beautiful.
Here he is, reading his letter from Great-Grandma Sharp. I miss that lady.
From his parents, he got a computer game that is only online, so I took the cake mix box, put a picture of the game inside, and wrapped it. It's called Minecraft. He was pretty dang excited. But unfortunately, I don't think he was surprised because Zach wouldn't shut up that morning and kept asking if we had bought it or not. It's hard to keep a secret when you have to keep telling somebody to stop asking if Riley can use his birthday money to buy the thing they want. I was hoping he would be more excited. Instead, it was more like, yep. I knew I was going to get this. No big deal. :P
This is his present from Grandma Bonnie. She got him a dart gun. What's so cool about this one is that the darts stick to you because they have Velcro on the tips. Awesome! Oh, and see that cute girl in the background of this picture? That's Lili. She's Michael's girlfriend. I finally got to meet her, and she is fabulous. I like her. Michael showed me a picture of her a long time ago on his phone so it was really small and her hair was dark and short, so when she came in with her hair long and red, I was a little thrown off. That's not how I had pictured her in my head. But all girls change their hair all the time, so I shouldn't have been surprised. Riley wanted her to come back everyday, so I guess he liked her, too. :)
He had a pretty freaking great day. I took some video, but I haven't uploaded it yet. Maybe I will make a short movie out of it! I like movie maker. It's fun. I'll post it when I do.
Don't ask me! I have no idea what's going on. I was just a guest star in the last three episodes. But counting this one, there are ten more episodes left this season! I'm super excited!
Oh, and if you need to start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) click here! Then on the right side of the page you will see the word "Uploads (17)". Scroll to the bottom of the list and click on my sister's face. Yes, the girl who plays Dez is my little sister. We're ten years apart, so no she isn't really sixteen, but she passes. She's tiny (in a good way. She knows I love her)! :)
Saturday, as I was leaving for my play, Riley asks me if he can be Catholic. I asked him why he wanted to be Catholic. He told me it was because they don't go to church. I giggled, and said, "Catholics still go to church, Honey." Then, Zach (who was doing the dishes) said, "You don't want to be Catholic. They aren't the right church. They don't have the Book of Mormon!" Which also made me giggle. My kids are so funny. But Riley's response was the best: "Then I will just take the Book of Mormon to the Catholics!" This from a kid who is very adamant that he does not want to go on a mission one day. Which is fine. Then, as I walked out the door, I told him that if he took the Book of Mormon to the Catholics then he wasn't being a Catholic! I also told him he had to go talk to his dad about it now because I had to go, but I just thought it was funny.
This exchange told me a few things about both of my sons. They do have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. They do read it at night (Zach told me he's read it three times), and they do have a testimony of the gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints. Their Sunday school teachers are doing a really great job because I don't talk much about my religion with anybody. It's not that I don't want people to know I am LDS, but I don't want people to think it's the only thing about me. There's more to me than that. I believe in the teachings of my church and I believe in Jesus Christ. He taught us the way to live our lives in a way that will make us happy and that will help us get along with each other. Love really is the message of our church. And we must learn to love one another regardless of what others believe, or what books they read. God is love.
So, this is the final episode with Samantha (for now, maybe?). Hopefully we get to see more of her! I had so much fun filming these. A lot of the time, I don't like watching myself on the screen. There are too many times when I think, "Ugh! I can't believe I made that face!" It happened when I watched this episode. Guess and see if you can figure out where!
This morning, while listening to Morning Session of General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I painted this picture:
I'm the assistant stage manager for a the next play out at Heritage Theatre in Perry, UT. It opens Friday, and it takes place at a fishing lodge in Georgia. The set needed some art, so the director found the frame, and I said I could paint a picture to go in it. I Googled "lakes in georgia", and found a photograph. I just tried to copy it. It isn't exact. I'm not that advanced an artist to do that yet, but I do think it turned out pretty well. I think it is Lake Tugaloo which is in Northern Georgia. The play takes place closer to Atlanta, but beggars can't be choosers.
Here is a look at the picture:
I'm not sure if this is copyrighted or not, so please don't turn me in or anything. :) I'm not trying to violate any copy right laws. As you can see, I took some liberties to change the scenery a bit, and make the painting easier for me. I think I may need to take a trip to Georgia someday. I never thought I would ever say that! :D
