Our Halloween

WARNING: Ridiculously long post ahead!

Man alive! The past few days have been crazy busy. I apologize to the 15+ people who have called me and I haven't returned your calls yet. And if you called me before yesterday, I don't have record of you calling cuz Emma erased my caller ID when she was messing with the phone. And my cell phone? Who knows. It turns itself off all the time and then I can't find it. I don't know where it is. ?? :blah: I feel like I have been going NON-STOP and to top it off, my allergies are buggin' the crap out of me, I'm prego exhausted and I think I'm gettin' a cold. Thank goodness I had a fab past few days to help me rejuvenate!

Thursday nite, I went with Sarah and a couple of others out to RawHide where we went on a haunted stage coach ride and into a haunted house. Freakin' scary! Some dude came at us with a chainsaw at the end! And somewhere along the line I gouged my forehead with my fingernail and was bleeding all over the place. Nice. We had a super good time tho and hit up In N' Out afterwards. Tony was kind enough to watch A & E (even tho they were asleep 4 out of 5.5 hours that I was gone) while I was out enjoying some much needed girl time. Thanks babe!

Halloween Friday Alex's Kindergarten put on a Fall Festival. All of the kids got to wear their costumes, as long as they brought a book to correspond with their character. Tony and I
went to help out (thanks Stefanie for watching Emma!) and had a good time watching all of the cute kids. I'm super impressed with Anthem's kindergarten team and all of the time and effort they put into making sure the kids have fun. Tony did the face painting for the kids and did a great job! I took my camera with me so that I could get some cute pics, but after only taking 3 pictures, the part of my camera that goes in & out to zoom, wouldn't go back in anymore!! :'( I'm SO sad. It still wont' work. I can't afford another camera that's as nice & expensive at that one is, so I'll have to see if I can afford a cheaper one that will still take decent pics :( Ohhh, what's a girl supposed to do without a camera?? {sigh}

Friday after Alex got out of school, we got the kids ready and went to my dads house in Mesa. He loves trick-or-treating with the kids, he's a good Papa. My bro and his wife came too, it's always fun to see them. Emma hadn't napped all day long, and by 7pm, Alex was getting pretty tired too, so we didn't walk around the neighborhood for very long. Thankfully my dad let me put my memory card into his camera so that I could at least get a few pictures of the kids dressed up. Alex was Spiderman and Emma was a cute little cheerleader (a girl after my own heart). Eventually we walked back to my dads house and hung out there for a while until we were all exhausted & ready to go home. Enjoy these pictures!


My studly hubby & Emma


Poor tired Emma


Feisty, tired Alex


Alex and all of his bat rings.


Prego me! I'm only 12 weeks, but feel & look like I'm 25 weeks along! Seriously. . . I've got a huge cyst on my right ovary that they're keep a strict eye on. If it keeps getting bigger, they'll have to take it out because it's getting in the baby's way. Fantastic. And then this baby is seriously growning up into my lungs. I have the hardest time breathing. . .BLAH! Oh well, such are the joys of making more babies! Ohh, I was wearing a maternity pumpkin outfit, hence the pumpkin headband :D I love dressing up with the kids :)

After running a bunch of errands yesterday (Saturday), we came home and Tony helped me make dinner for a family in our ward. We made a yummy lasagna, french bread and Oreo dessert. We made an extra lasagna for our family and it was yummy! My dad was nice enough to come over & watch the kids while Tony and I snuck out and attended a couple of parties that we were invited to (yes, we're that cool . . . ha, kidding!). Tony took Saturday night off of work just so that we could go. . .we had a great time! We went to an old friend of mine from high school's house, who happens to now live just a around the corner from us, where I saw other old friends which is always nice. They had Rock Band set up which Tony was THRILLED to see. He's been wanting to play that for quite a while. We snuck out of there kinda early so that we could attend Sarah & Twylla's party. They're in our ward and those two girls are so much fun! They did an amazing job setting up Twylla's backyard with candle light & Sarah's hubby DJ'd for us. We played a fun game, had some yummy snacks & drinks and then did some serious dancing. Tony and I have got some serious moves and LOVE to dance. Not too many of the guys got out there, but all of us girls had a BLAST! We stayed there until about 10:30pm and then headed home to relieve my dad from the kids (who were still awake). But then Tony said that he really wanted to go back to Brad's and play the Rock Band just for a little longer, so we stopped by there for a few more minutes. When we got home, Emma had just barely fallen asleep and Alex was still awake and enjoying his time with his Papa. After my dad left, we all crashed, HARD. It was a really great night, so much fun to act like boyfriend & girlfriend with Tony for a few hours & leave the kids home. I'm going to be SO, SO sad when we have to move & leave this ward. :(

This morning, I woke up a bit later than I wanted to. It was stake conference today and it was being broadcasted at our ward building - our stake building is about an hour away. I considered not taking the kids this morning, because as usual, I would be taking the kids by myself because Tony has to work every Sunday. But I hurried the kids and I up and we made it just a few minutes late. I'm so glad that we went. Even though the kids got a little testy, I was still able to keep an eye on them and listen to the talks. President Boyd K. Packer spoke to us about these tough days that we're facing...reassuring us to stay close to the gospel and to prepare our youth for the trying times ahead, and to strengthen our families. I'm not sure who it was, but someone else talked to us and gave me some food for thought...

"How dedicated are you if you're not willing to sacrifice for your religion?" - I'm going to do some pondering on that and maybe post my thoughts on that later. :) I hope you all had a great weekend too!