Bands of America 2014

We spent last Saturday at the Bands of America competition in Saint George. My cute little sister was performing with the Orem High School Marching Band. I was part of this band almost 10 years ago and it was fun to see how much it has changed over the years. The biggest change was the size. I think it was a little bigger when I was part of it, but they did great. 

After the competition we got to steal her away for a minute. We went and had lunch and the kids had a chance to hang out with Aunt Rachie for a minute. Tears were shed when we had to leave. We spent the rest of the day watching other bands perform. Although they didn't get an award, they still did a great job. Congratulations Orem High School!

This is Halloween: 2014 Edition

Our family really likes Halloween. This year we all dressed up as characters from the movie Maleficent. We saw the movie when it first came out and Lexi (and all of us became obsessed). Lexi asked me to make her a Maleficent costume the minute we got home from the movie theater. I came up with a little makeshift costume, but we decided right then that the movie would be our inspiration for our costumes this year. 

Lexi volunteered/begged and begged to be the magnificent villain Maleficent. She took her role very seriously. Trick-or-treating took forever because she tried to cast spells on every object up and down the pathways to the homes. I'm really glad her costume turned out. We were a little nervous, because there wasn't a pattern for anything similar so we made it up as we went along. We used a $2 piece of fabric we picked up on clearance and ended up turning it into this beauty. Lexi rocked this costume and especially loved the bright red lipstick that came with it. 

Our little Daxton was Diaval. His costume was made by cutting out approximately 600,000 felt feathers. Ok. So there probably weren't that many, but we really did cut out feathers for days. We then hot glued all of the feathers onto an oversized sweatshirt that we found at D.I. We cut out a piece of felt for his beak and glued two little button eyes on and he was done. He flapped his little wings but we couldn't get him to sit still to get a really good picture. Wiggly black bird pictures it is. 

 Mommy and Daddy got to be Princess Aurora and Prince Philip. I made Chris' costume (including the boots). Sometimes I surprise myself. Lexi said that Daddy was missing the hair, but we couldn't find a wig that looked just right, so baldy he was. With all of the crazy activities surrounding Halloween, I knew I wouldn't have enough time to finish my costume. After scouring the internet (mostly just Amazon) I found one and it worked just fine. Maybe next year I will successfully be able to make all 4 costumes, but I'll settle for 3 this year. 

And there you have it. Our cute and crazy little Maleficent themed family. Maybe I should try and figure out how to get everyone to sit still for a picture. Then again, maybe we'll leave that to the professionals. :)

 

We spent Halloween trick-or-treating in Saint George with cousins. We had the craziest and funnest bunch of people. The kids (and even Chris and I) had so much fun. Harry Potter and Maleficent spent the night dueling. Elsa and Maleficent were the best of friends, even though their pictures suggest otherwise. The kids ended up with loads of candy and can't wait to go again next year. 

 

We hope you all had a fantastic Halloween too! Hugs and kisses!

xoxo

Halloween Parties

Our kids were able to spend a lot of time getting ready for Halloween. The first party Lexi went to was for her dance class. She had a blast playing with the other kids, dancing around, and playing games. They learned a darling little dance to the Monster Mash song and she is still obsessed with it. It was fun to see all of the other kids costumes. Lexi was even more excited to be Maleficent when she saw the other Elsa/Anna combos - there were tons of them (which is what she originally wanted to be). 

The day after Lexi's dance party, we went to Daddy's work party. Every year the Aquatic Center in Cedar City puts on a big Halloween Spooktacular. Chris spent a lot of time getting things ready so we could have a fun time. They had games, a spook ally, a train, and picture opportunities. We did everything. Dax really liked riding the train and eating suckers. Lexi thought it was cool to meet the pirate and the princess, but the spook ally was her favorite. I don't like being scared, but at the end of the night we convinced Chris to take us through without anyone to jump out at us so we could see all of the hard work he put into it. Lexi liked hearing her Daddy say, "No scaring. We have kids coming through!" and she loved it. 

The night before Halloween our ward had a Trunk-or-Treat. I made some silly little statues that I saw on my favorite crafting blog (Makeit-loveit.com).  They were such a hit. Don't mind the disgustingly messy kitchen in the background. Halloween kind of exploded at our house for a few days. We ended up taking home the best trunk decor skeleton for our trunk. We made a little castle for the back of our truck to go with our Maleficent costumes. The kids had fun trunk-or-treating and playing with friends and I feel like the night was a big success. 

We had fun partying before Halloween. Our Halloween post will be up soon!