Festival of Trees

For the next week of Family Home Evening we went to a community event called the Festival of Trees.  There were lots of trees decorated that were but up for auction to raise money for an organization.  It was a lot of fun.  Because this was family night they had entertainment most of the night too.  Dancing, carol singing and more.  It was a lot of fun and Kenya had a great time.

I cannot get enough of these girls!

 Here are some examples of the tress there.  It was fun to see all the different themes and get ideas of how we can decorate our tree.

 They had face painting.  What a good job they did.

I like the top of this tree.  I might use this style for our tree.

What a fun night it was!  We really had a great time and would go again next year. 

November Happenings.

 Kenya discovered the fun of building a "tent".  We did this everyday for at least a week.  She just loved to go inside and sit.  This was the first week of November.

 Two weeks ago for Family Home Evening we made a turkey craft.  On the feathers we wrote what we are thankful for.

Proud Kenya and her turkey craft.

 Jasmin did not sleep through this activity!  We put her in Kenya's high chair and she had a blast sitting with us as we talked about things we are thankful for.  It was pretty hard getting her to let me put her hand flat on the paper.   By the end of the activity she was falling asleep.

What a happy baby!  Love her!

The finished projects. 

We hung these up on a string and put them over of table.  It was a lot of fun and great way to spend time together. 

Happy Halloween (Halloween Day)

So my place of employment rocks... it is pretty much traditionally mandatory that people dress up for Halloween when the come to work! I was loving it because I probably still would have worn something, but i may not have gone to such great lengths to have a good costume.

Per tradition our office joins the attorney's office next door and has a costume contest and goes out to lunch together. There's snacks and treats and not too much work gets done, but enough to keep us busy! It was such a fun day.

People really liked our costumes and the idea behind it! Thanks to Lois we were the 3 Little Pigs (with badges and attitude) and the Big Bad Wolf (with prison issue wardrobe and gingivitis). Lois and Kenya even made it on one of the local news channels. Well, it was because they showed up when a dentist's office was fulfilling there Halloween tradition by visiting other businesses and giving out free stuff!   http://www.clipsyndicate.com/video/playlist/25504/2980741?wpid=8668

 So for our offices there were a number of different costumes and great ideas too! There was a man-eating shark costume, a witch, the guy from the t.v. show Storage Wars, a bridezilla, Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, a Price is Right fan, and many other creative costumes. Nearly all the people involved have been doing this together for years.


We went to lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings and that is where the judging took place. We entertained ourselves by playing a fun trivia game provided by the restaurant. Oh, and the winner of the contest got a $50 gift card to Outback Steakhouse. So the winner of the contest was.......The Big Bad Wolf!!  Way to go team Draper!

The next pics are of Kenya trick -or- treating with our friends the Dye family. The kids love Kenya and Kenya loves them right back.

 

They all got tons of candy together and we just had a great time! It was so windy, but it wasn't really cold; the perfect fall, Halloween evening/night!

 

 Here is our little piggy running and squealing from house to house! It was so funny and cute. She just started doing it.



 Robert even got in a few Halloween scares. He says he has to get at least one each year. He got a bunch during work. (Good Advice: NEVER WHERE A MASK, ESPECIALLY ONE GLUED TO YOUR FACE, INTO A BANK...EVEN ON HALLOWEEN! Robert did and scared the tar out of the front receptionists! He played the part of a scary wolf-man to the letter, but just at the wrong place at the wrong time. "I was making a simple deposit at the bank where the recognize me. The teller women saw me as I was creeping to the outer glass doors. I saw this look of terror on all their faces thinking to myself "'Man this costume rocks! They don't even know what to do!"' Slowly I backed in through the bank doors and make my way into the bank where I say, "'Happy HOOOOWLAWEEN!"' I  then witnessed a huge sigh of relief from everyone in the bank and one of the ladies that I see nearly everyday said, "We usually have our sign up that says no masks." With confusion and still buzzin' from my amazing performance I asked, "So do you like my costume or what?" The lady repeats her self and says that I scared the tar out of everyone! After thinking about how I looked to them I apologized profusely and made the deposit, took some candy, and said, "I'm glad security wasn't around because I probably woulda got shot!" Nobody corrected me or humored me in saying that wouldn't have happened. So with egg on my hidden face I said, "Well, it might not have been so bad had my 3 little piggies been with me." Then the understood and said to bring them back with me later.




Kenya is such a cute squealing pig!




 I scared a couple of teenage girls on the way to this house and got this one on video!


It was one of the best Halloween's ever! We all had such a fun time!

Halloween Weekend (Continued)

This on Friday the 28th I-hop was doing free "scary" pancakes for kids only...well it was still more cost efficient for us to make our own so we did and they were delicious, scary, and there was probably less of a wait time to eat them! We did this Sunday morning!

This is what Jasmin did while we created and ate our breakfast!

The people who broke our first jack-o-lanterns bought us a new one.

Robert and Kenya were hard at work on a new pumpkin, because Robert's and Lois's were destroyed when they were first put outside!

That night our awesome friend Camille came over to help us make our gingerbread haunted house. Kenya did more eating than creating but it was fun!

Camille is so fun and funny! She and Kenya love each other!

Kenya grew a mustache while we were trying to salvage this beast of a haunted gingerbread house.

The house was a disaster!!

Nothing would stick, the icing tasted awful to anyone who knew what good icing tastes like, and some of the candy was either stale or too hard for consumption for human teeth.

Something we learned about buying a pre-made haunted house...DON'T DO IT! They are over priced, as far as taste is concerned, the toppings were mediocre at best and we could have done a way better job making our own! I guess the experience was the most important part. We still had fun making a huge mess trying to salvage it. And we got some ok gumballs out of it.