Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from Woody and the gang!

Sister

My sister and her family drove out to spend some time with us and this is what we did...

My sister is very creative and loves doing things with her kids.  We were very excited to be able to join her this time to decorate Halloween cupcakes.

My sister bought everything that you could think of to make these fun cupcakes...

and this is what they made...

The ones that look like they would be on Fear Factor were made by the kids.  They had so much fun making them and we even sent a plate home with our home teachers!

When we weren't off doing something, the kids had fun playing outside in the backyard.  My sister did a GREAT job taking lots of pictures of all the kids together.  I'm so grateful for her awesome camera and her willingness to take such great pictures. 

The kids were also entertained by my sister and her husband's i-pads and i-phones.  It's amazing how much you can do on those things.

One day we took the kids down to the park to let them run around and play in the leaves.  We also attempted to get a picture of all the grand kids together for my Mom.  We'll have to do some tweaking to get it right, but the kids had fun.

It was fun watching the kids play together.  They all got along pretty well, minus the little fights here and there, but they loved being together.  We did a lot of fun things with my sister and her family but there was one more thing that we did once my parents got in town too... but that is for another post.

All Dressed Up!

We went to the zoo again when my sister and her family came in town.  This time Josh and I dressed up in our costumes.  My dress arrived that morning from my wonderful Sister-in-law who made it (and did an AMAZING job) so we dressed up even though Josh's vest wasn't done yet.  We were stopped by a lot of people telling us how great we all looked.

The kids loved seeing all the characters again.  This time we waited in the long line to get a picture with the Wizard of Oz characters.  While we were in line I had an early teen girl who was behind us in line tell her Mom that she wanted a picture with little bo peep.  Her Mom told her that they were in line for Dorthy, then I was tapped on my shoulder a few seconds later and she asked if she could get a picture with me.  I was very flattered. 

We stopped by the Toy Story gang again and felt right at home.

You've gotta love dressing up for Halloween!!

Check, Check, Check

My To-Do list is getting shorter and shorter.  Well, I guess I should say Josh’s to-do list is getting shorter.  We are slowly getting everything done in our house, and I am loving it!

We finished the entry way.  We switched out the light to one that matches the kitchen.  Put up a mirror and hook rack.

 

We also changed up our bedroom from this…

to this!

  

We changed our bedding, put pictures on the wall and put curtains up.  I LOVE it!  It looks more cozy and much prettier.   We got all of the stuff at discount stores and love how it all goes together.

The other thing that I have been working on was making a Halloween wreath for my front door. 

 

I got the idea from my friend who got the idea here.  I think that it turned out pretty cute… I usually don’t make things, so I am very proud of myself for making something.

I am feeling much better that we have checked so many things off our list… now to the organizing and de-cluttering to get ready for my family to come visit!!

Characters & Treats

We took the kids to the World’s Largest Halloween party at our local zoo last weekend.  It’s always fun to see all the people dressed up in costume.  This year our family is going with a Toy Story theme.  Megan is Jessie, Bryson is Buzz Lightyear, and Connor is Slinky… you will have to wait to see what Josh & I are.

Of course we saw several other people dressed up in the Toy Story theme.  We started counting how many people were dressed as Buzz and Jessie, but we lost track.  So of course getting a picture with the Toy Story gang was AWESOME!

The kids all had fun.  Megan even chose to come with us instead of going to a friend’s birthday party.  We were pretty shocked with her choice, but glad that she wanted to be with us.  Connor loved getting treats.  After he got his first treat he wouldn’t let go of it.  It was a Crunch bar and I kept trying to trade it out once he got more candy for something that wouldn’t melt in his hand, but he kept grabbing it back out. 

We had a great time and are very excited to go again with my sister and her family. 

Two Great Weeks

Josh’s parents came to visit the last couple of weeks.  His Dad stayed for one week and his Mom stayed for two.  Here is a little bit of what we did…

One day on our way to Wal-Mart we got stopped by the antique tractor parade… totally random.

 

Grandma’s favorite place to visit while here is the local flea market. On one of the visits we found these…

 

This is what Connor thought about it…

Until Grandpa stood in front of him and said

“BOO!”…

Then the screaming and crying happened.  Thanks to Grandpa, Connor will start to cry whenever he sees a mask. (we wish we would have gotten it on video though, it was pretty funny.)

******

While they were here we went to the Caves (earlier post), updated our kitchen (latest posts), went out to eat a couple of times.  Once to Cheddars since they don’t have one in Cali

Then we took Grandma to a great burger and shake joint.  (I thought that this picture was really cute.)

Connor LOVED Grandpa and would get mad whenever Megan or Bryson were sitting on his lap.

We wish he could have stayed longer, but we enjoyed the time we had.

 

After Grandpa left we went to work on the kitchen, shopping for pictures and wall decor for the house.  Megan and Bryson decided that they wanted to jump in a pile of leaves and came asking us to rake the leaves, we gave in and gave them the rake.  They were so proud of their pile and wanted me to take pictures of them jumping into it!

Josh’s Dad also brought him out his old bow and arrow to practice some hunting so that he can get one of these (which was eating from our garden)

and eventually get his own rack for the wall.  (yeah!)

We had a great time with Josh’s parents and look forward to seeing them again.  Thanks for everything!

Home Improvement #2

Putting up a tile back splash.

Before:

During: 

It took two LONG nights and a couple of hours the next day for these two to finish this.  Many thanks to our friend for helping and to his wife who let him come. 

We were pretty amazed at how well our children slept even with them cutting the tile in the kitchen.  It is very loud, you can’t even hear the person talking next to you when it is cutting, but all 3 of our kids never woke up, and Grandma even fell asleep to it. 

After:

We also upgraded our light fixture and got one to match it for the entry way (next project)

   

We LOVE it!!

Home Improvement Project #1

We have been wanting to update our kitchen and with Josh's parents in town we decided to do it.  Josh's Mom has great designer ideas and her help has been wonderful.  So for the first project we decided to paint and add a chair rail in the kitchen nook.  After we decided on a paint color (we waited for the sale the paint store was having on the weekend) we got busy painting.  Linda and I put 3 coats of paint on and 2 coats on the chair rails.  Josh came home and didn't like our paint job... so after he watched a quick video on how to properly paint he and his Mom added a 4th coat.  Which made it look "perfect". 

So...... Ta Da!!

We had our wonderfully talented neighbor and friend help put the chair rail up and it looks great!

We also found this beautiful picture for a great deal and thought that it would match perfectly. 

 The only thing left to do in the eating area is to change out our light... it looks a little out of place now with how great the room looks. 

The next project that we have started is putting up a tile back splash.  Josh and our friend have tiled 1 wall so far and it looks great!  But you will have to wait to see the finished project!

Cave Tour

Last weekend we went to Mammoth Cave with Grandma and Grandpa Kelly.  We went on the Historic tour and learned about how they mined Salt Pewter, used tree trunks like pipes to bring water into the cave, and saw some their cool landmarks. 

Before the tour Megan was very nervous since she didn't know what she was going to be doing.  She was a little afraid that it was going to be all dark down in the cave.  Bryson was pretty excited like the rest of us.  There was a short walk to get down to the cave and then you could feel the cool air coming from the cave.  It remains around 55 degrees all year round in the cave.

Because of the cool temperatures they were able to rent out the cave for church services, parties & weddings back in the 1800's before air conditioning.  It was hard to take pictures since it was pretty dark, but none of the pictures give it justice to how cool and interesting it looked. 

One of the landmarks that we saw was called "Giant's Coffin" it looks really cool.  At this point of the tour they turned out all of the lights to show you how dark it is and how you can't see anything.  It was also at this point that Megan needed to go to the bathroom.

Lucky for Megan there was a bathroom in the cave, but it was still about 30 minutes away.  She was miserable and we kept telling her that she shouldn't have drunk her whole bottle of soda for lunch right before.  She would whine and people thought that she was scared of the cave.  We had to walk through some low ceilings and had to duck a lot. 

Connor would try to reach up and touch the ceiling; we even let him down to walk for a little while and he loved it.  He had a hard time being held the whole time.  We were a little disappointed when we got down to the caves that we weren't able to use the hiking backpack that we had brought down.  So we took turns holding Connor on the 2 hour tour.  But after the tour we knew that the backpack wouldn't have worked out with some of the low ceilings that you had to duck under.

We made it to "Fat Man's Misery" and had to wind our way through narrow passages that also had low ceilings.  But not as low as "Tall Man's Misery" where Bryson even had to duck.

Once we made it through we had reached the bathrooms which coincidently was called the "Relief Room"  Maybe because you didn't have to suck in or duck down anymore, but it was a great relief to Megan.  Megan was in better spirits after this point.  I was even surprised at how both kids never complained about the 2 mile walk through the cave or the hundreds of stairs we had to climb at the end.  They were great troopers.

After the tour we got a picture with our great tour guide, Ranger Rick, who was amazing.  He was so funny and kept the tour interesting.  We then took advantage of the beautiful scenery and got some pretty pictures.

I LOVE this picture, everyone looks so good and it was the perfect spot for a picture. 

This was the best shot of our family.  We would love to go down there in the fall since it would look amazing.

On our way out we took some pictures of the touristy spots that we had past on the way in.

We had a great time and would love to explore more of the many caves that are there.  Thanks to Grandma & Grandpa for a fun time.