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.