It's a PARTY

Last night we threw our first ever Halloween party.  We had such a blast.  We had lots of food and games.  Grant has been so excited since we handed out the invitations. 

I spent most of yesterday putting up the decorations and the boys were in awe.  G kept asking me, 'mom are you getting ready for the party?'

I put hanging balloons all around the family room and in the kitchen over the food.  I just used fishing line to attach everything.  I used my banister and my blinds to attach the fishing line (no tape and no holes in the wall).  It worked out great.  Of course the kids loved to jump up and hit the balloons. 
 

For the food I made broccoli cheese soup and a pumpkin soup.  To save time I just made the soup ahead and froze it and then pulled it out earlier in the day to thaw and then just heated it back up.  We also had mini grilled cheese sandwiches, mini caramel apples, and Swamp Water (green punch). 

We of course had to have a dress up party. Mike showed up with a costume a couple of weeks ago and that pushed me over the edge to actually put on a Halloween party. Grant and Linc were little pirates. I was a witch and of course Mike was a COP. He also monitored all the games which fit perfect with his costume.

The games. We had a balloon pinata (which looks like I didn't get a picture of). I put candy and prizes in balloons and then blew up the balloons and the kids had to throw darts at the balloons. We also had the mummy wrap, bobbing for apples, pumpkin carving, and the ball race which consisted of the kids pushing the ball around a pumpkin then back to their line without using their hands or feet.

Out of Africa

On Friday I took the boys to Out of Africa.  They had such a great time.  We got to feed the giraffe and see all the lions and tigers.  Grant loved the tiger show and would cheer on the tigers when they would get the toys or splash in the water. 





Lincoln just wanted to eat the cookies that our bus driver was feeding to all the animals on our safari.  We had an up close personal encounter with the giraffe.  The giraffe reached in our window to reach the bucket of cookies.  He even licked Lincoln on the head. 

Spooktacular

update: Check out Ashley's blog post to see all the other entries and make sure you VOTE

A couple of weeks ago one of my friends posted some pics of her FALL porch display.  Of course it inspired me to get my porch up and running.  I set out to find some old crates and went to every antique store in Cottonwood, which there are a LOT, before I finally found what would work and was a reasonable price.  So I started to put up some decorations using my new found crates.  Then Ashley had to post this post.  I then of course had to add more things as the weeks went by and to make it my porch rather than a copy cat of Ashley's porch.

If you have ever been to Cottonwood then you know that pretty much the only store is Walmart which doesn't have a huge selection of decorations or crafting supplies.  Thankfully I made a trip to Mesa for a few days but I didn't have much time to run around and find some things.  But we made due with what we could find and thanks to Pinterest and all the great ideas that I found.

So here is the porch in all of its GLORY.
 

My boys love the bats and LOVE to touch them. They look so great hanging from the porch.


I made the garland with just some string and some pom poms that I got in the dollar bins at Joanns. 


We had to replace some of the pumpkins because they went missing.  My little friend named Lincoln LOVES the glitter pumpkins and would carry them around the house.  I would find them in random places around my house in hidden cupboards.  I still can't find one of them and I am not sure if somebody took it or if Lincoln found a great hiding place for it.




I already had the pillow in my house so I just added it to the porch. The wreath was only $2 to make. I had to buy a ring and then I had the tulle and the material and I just tied it around the ring.
 

Ranch Fun = guns & polliwogs

Over Labor Day we went to the Calder Family Ranch.  We love to get away from the heat and of course let our boys enjoy the outdoors.  Our boys are Ranch boys for sure.  As they get older they love going there.  They had so much fun exploring, playing in the dirt, catching polliwogs, riding in the truck, and of course shooting the guns (don't worry it is just an air soft gun).



Enjoying the Truck riding looking for bunnies.
 

Crazy HAIR from the wind.
 
 

 Playing at the play house.
 

Mike took the boys to the frog pond and collected a bunch of polliwogs. Grant and Linc both loved the polliwogs. Grant would carry them around and would take them out and rock them on the swing. He would tell me that he loved them. He even tried to sneak them in the car to take them to home. Most of them were dead by then because they had been dumped out and handled by two sweet little boys.
 
 

Frog for Dinner

via

Before church this morning I was preparing the chicken to cook.  Grant was pretty bored so I thought he might enjoy seeing the chicken and helping.  Of course there wasn't much helping since the recipe is super easy.  I told him I had to pull out the stuff inside.  He of course told me it wasn't a chicken it was a frog.  So we continued with the chicken being a frog the rest of the morning.  After we cleaned and dried the chicken I told him we had to tie it up.  He said, "It is a nice frog and we shouldn't tie it up."  I told him we just had to tie its legs up so he said that was ok then.  As I was tucking the wings under he asked what I was doing so I told him and he then said, "I want to eat the wings."  I told him OK he can have the wings after we cook it.  He was so concerned about where the frog went when I put it in the oven.  He checked on it in the oven too.  When we sat down for dinner I told Grant that he had frogs on his plate.  He said, "One frog and two frogs."

So if you want frogs for dinner this is a great recipe.  The only changes that I made are that I used dried thyme and I added a lemon to the cavity and added some lemon wedges to the sides and put some lemon juice on the breast.  It turned out yummy and so easy because it cooked while we were at church.  

(A huge thanks for pinterest for helping me find this recipe yesterday!!!!  Want some other great ideas from pinterest you can go to www.pinterest.com/jpkellis/. )    

River runs through it

Last weekend we took the boys out for an event filled day. We started the day with going to a local orchard and picked blackberries, plums, and peaches. I loved every second of it and it brought so many memories from when I was younger helping my Grandpa during the harvest time. The local orchard was owned by an older gentleman that totally reminded me of my Grandpa.

Linc got to ride in the backpack and loved every minute of it. Grant on the other hand hated every second of it. He didn't like trudging through the tall grass and hated the blackberry bushes because they had thorns. He LOVES blackberries and we could only get him to pick blackberries if he could eat them. The thought of picking them and putting them in the basket was something he didn't want to do.



Later in the evening we decided to head down to the Verde Valley river. We grabbed some dinner and found a perfect spot for the boys to play in the water. The boys LOVED it. We had a hard time keeping them out of the river. Linc didn't care if the current swept him away he would still keep on going after we pulled him out.

Derrick's Wedding

Several weeks ago we attended Derrick's wedding in Houston. Both the boys got to come with us. The wedding events turned out great. Unfortunately we had sick boys most of the weekend but they both were troopers though and made the best of it.









After the wedding in Houston we had an Open House in Mesa. Aunt Donna came and got the boys to do their rockin' dance moves. They loved dancing.

Our big news....

It looks like we will be making a big move down to the Phoenix area again. I am not sure when we will be moving but hopefully it will be sooner than later.

Mike received another job offer a couple of weeks ago and actually started his new job this past week in Chandler. To say the least I am still trying to wrap my head around things since it all happened so fast.

It is another big change but we will adjust quickly and I feel so blessed already.

4th of July Family Fun

We had a family reunion with the Kellis' family over the 4th of July. We spent the week in Heber, UT with lots of family. We loved it and my boys love to be around their cousins.



Going for a ride in Grandpa's truck. It started raining before we made it out of the drive way. The kids still loved being packed in the back.



The kids spent most of the time in the game room playing arcade games and pin ball.



Going on a Hike.





Taking a Sunday afternoon stroll.


FIREWORKS!!!!! (that is the best we could do with firework restrictions)