Halloween 2011

Sara's Cousin's Birthday

The birthday portion of Sara's quadruple birthday-halloween bash was kind of like a gifting free for all!  With 4 kids opening presents, we kind of let them all just open on their own. That was good for Sara since she really just wanted something to drink!  Once she got open a gift though, she was captivated and ready to play!  Since we hadn't had a family party for her, we gave her a few extra gifts from mom and dad along with the gifts from uncles/aunts/grandmas.  I think her favorite gift was a large pony accompanied by 2 baby ponies.  She goes to sleep every night with those things and loves to brush their hair with the little brush, comb, mirror set she also got.  Amongst other things, she got some bracelets, necklaces, and hair clips-all "pretty" things that this girly tomboy loves!  Sara had a blast overall at the entire party. If she wasn't into a particular game, she just transitioned to the playground to slide a few slides and swing a few swings.  She loved eating her frosted cookie (though afterwards I realized we never sang happy birthday or lit any candles!)  Overall, it was a fantastic idea for a party and a great way to celebrate birthdays and families! Here's a quick reel of some more party pictures.

5 Hours of Halloween Parties

It is definitely Halloween season!  We had a stream of 5 hours worth of halloween parties tonite!  Thankfully I didn't have to go to the second one since I was having contractions and was just dead on my feet after working in my classroom all morning and then dealing with fraudgulant charges on our debit card early afternoon...mentally and physically I was out of it!  Regardless, the kids had a BLAST of a day!

We started with a quadruple Halloween birthday party for 4 of the cousins:  Tyler, Kaitlynn, Amber, and of course, Sara!  Rebecca mostly headed this Halloween themed birthday party, and all the kids got to dress up for the first time in their halloween costumes:  Sara is Dorothy (resurrected from Karianna's use of the costume a few years ago), JD is Thor (my favorite costume of all time), Karianna is a beautiful, nice witch, and Jordan is Ironman.

 The party was seroiusly great fun.  Rebecca, Suzanne, and I each made up a few carnival type games to play and the kids rotated through them for the first hour or so.  We played a ghost squeeze-it walk, pin the nose on the pumpkin, a pumpkin toss, toilet paper mummies, and halloween fishing.  Steven and Kristen were the most festive adults in attendance, wearing alltogether amazing clown costumes, and the kids loved watching Steven made his balloon animals (JD went to bed with his last night, although I think it was originally JOrdan's-I think JD confiscated it because he loved it so much). 

 Pretty much all the boys came in superhero costumes with the exception of the youngest boys.  I love it when they do that, makes for great pictures-we could film our own version of "The avengers" or "Super Hero Squad"!   The girls of course looked beautiful as various girly characters.  I wish Sara would have deigned to be in this picture, but alas, she could not be distracted from the playround.

 The kids won prizes and treats at each game station and overall had a blast hanging out with their cousins-all of them! The only people we were missing were Jacob and Jennifer, and Rob and Steve!  Pretty complete if you ask me!  And yes, I am in my 33rd week of pregnancy, big belly and all.

 Before we hit the actual birthday portion of this party, we did manage to get all 17 cousins (soon to be 18) lined up for a picture, halloween costumes and all. This is never an easy task, but it was a lot easier to have them sit.  It also made it possible for the 4 babies to be in the picture, though Peyton wasn't having any of it!  Karianna was in baby heaven-she loves holding Shanna or Brenna!

 Overall, it was a super day with the cousins!  This party lasted 3 hours and then the kids moved on to their 2nd halloween party.  Since that belly of mine was contracting (fake, but still not fun), Jared's parents came to pick the older three kids up for their ward's trunk or treat.  The older kids had just enough time to wash their faces, wet down their heads after 3 hours in a warm park, and put their costumes back on!  They returned from trunk or treat with buckets of candy, full bellies, and lots of smiles.  They loved hanging out with their grandparents and Aubrey and I love that we live so close that we can do things like that!

As for Sara and I?  We went to bed.  Sara was pooped out from all the festivities, but it was apparent she had a blast.  I'll post about the actual birthday part/presents later since that's a whole slew of pictures as well.  Happy Birthday Sara Grace-and happy Halloween!

A Coincidental Dream?

Karianna woke up this morning extremely sad.  Her eyes were bugging her, very red and itchy and she was a slight bit warm. You could tell she wasn't feeling good, and Jared ultimately made the decision to keep her home from school.  She sounded like she was doing much better around lunchtime, which was a good thing since tomorrow is the big quadruple birthday party for the cousins (costumes and all). 

It wasn't until I got home that Karianna shared with me that the real reason she wasn't feeling good is because she had a bad dream last night.  In her dream her cousin Makayla died.  That's pretty scary in itself, especially for a 7 year old.  In her dream, Makayla had to find a light bulb and get it to light up in order to come back to life.  She wasn't able to do it though, and that made Karianna sad when she woke up.  Karianna did say that she felt a little bit better because Makayla's spirit was still with her.  Every time Karianna talked about it, she would start to cry and say something like, "I can't talk about this a lot, it makes me too sad".  She finally told me, "I would feel so much better if I could just see Makayla!"  Nearly made me cry to see my little girl so emotional.

Luckily, Makayla is coming to visit tomorrow for the cousins party, but in order to help Karianna gain some closure, I called the Hammerquists so Karianna could hear that Makayla was in fact okay.  Makayla was indeed just fine at the Hammerquist home, but I was surprised to hear that the following happened at Makayla's school:  a kid brought a gun to school.  The school was on lockdown, called the police, the student was arrested and expelled, and all the kids brought home letters about what had happened. Suzanne and Mark first heard about it via social networks, though it was exaggerated to the point where people were saying there was a shooting-that didn't happen luckily, but it was scary to think a gun was on campus. 

Everyone is fine of course, but it seemed so coincidental that Karianna had her dream the night before a *potentially* dangerous situation occured at Makayla's school.  Even more coincidental:  today marks the anniversary of the College of Nursing shooting, at which Suzanne was an eye witness and quite literally, a hostage. 

Just a strange connection in events and anniversaries today, just makes me glad everyone is okay and protected by the spirit. Also makes me grateful for my sweet, tender-spirited daughter who loves her cousin to pieces.

A Quick Dinner Copycat

I needed a quick dinner tonight to give my tired, pregnant body a break from kitchen duties.  So we pulled out the trusty lunchables.  I had to laugh when I saw Sara very carefully copying JD's [annoying] tradition of building the biggest lunchable sandwhich known to man. She seemed a bit miffed that everyone was laughing at her copycat-ness, so she wouldn't look at me, but the proof is still in the picture!

JD's cracker-cheese-bologna tower:

Sara's attempt to copy her brother: