Quick Post - No Pictures

I love our new house! There is still a ton of work to do, so I may not have time to post much, but if you have my contact info, I'd be glad to text, email, or talk to you individually about it.

The older kids love having their own rooms. I love my kitchen and laundry room. (How domestic of me. Tee hee!) I love our new town. Everyone has been super helpful and really friendly.

Well, I've got to go unpack now. We have so much stuff, it's ridiculous.

Will post beautiful pictures later!!

Moses' Birthday Party

Guess who turns 5 on Tuesday?

I took a cue from Andy's mom from Toy Story and threw him an early birthday party before we move.

Moses wanted a Lego party, but me being the sneaky mom, I convinced him that a Halloween cookie decorating party would be way more fun (and much less planning for me). And it was!

When I was done inputing all the email addresses for the evite, I realized I had invited almost 20 families! All I wanted to do was invite the kids from Moses' CTR and preschool classes, but his preschool class consists of almost all the sunbeams in our ward, too. They're both huge classes.

I did have the brilliant idea to invite parents and siblings, too, so even though that meant more kids, it also meant more adults to help out. Sometimes I have really awesome ideas, and that was one of them. All in all we had 10 adults and 24 kids at the party.

Big crowd. Little table.

A bird's eye view of the cookie madness.

I made all the cookies and frosting, but I asked everyone to bring a bag of small candies or sprinkles for decoration. Everyone stepped up. It was a ton of fun.

Working hard.

Check out that concentration.

I decided at the last minute to make certificates and have a contest for most creative cookies. I have six cutters, so I did six certificates: Beastly Bat, Creative Cat, Silliest Skeleton, Tastiest Tombstone, Punniest Pumpkin, and Goopiest Ghost. These kids were the winners:

The Hallow-winners!

I didn't want to give my kids prizes, because I would rather have given them to the guests, but after careful consideration, I just had to give "Punniest Pumpkin" to Akiko.

Check out those white chocolate fangs!

After we did prizes and presents, we did cake. My amazing friend, Kim, and her daughter weren't able to make it to the party, but she still offered to make Moses' cake for me. I was sooo glad she did, because I was trying to figure out how I was going to bake 120+ cookies and make a cake at the same time.

I asked her to make a Lego cake for Moses, since that's what he really wanted, so I drew out a plan for Kim, and she produced this perfectly adorable masterpiece:

The nubs are Oreos covered in fondant.

This party ended up a huge success. Moses had tons of fun, got to be with all his friends, and got lots of fun presents. The kids' cookies were all super adorable. Clean up wasn't as daunting a task as I imagined either.

I'm glad I was able to do this for Moses. He's such a special little man in my life. I love him so much. I'm probably not going to be able to do the traditional birthday blog on his actual birthday. We move on Wednesday.

So, Moses, my wonderful biggest boy, Happy 5th Birthday. I love you to the end of the universe and back!

Halloween 2012

Halloween got spread out over the course of a week and a half or so this year. Our ward party was kind of early, but I got our costumes done in time. I'm really pleased with Akiko's and Moses' costumes. They turned out fantastically.

My Kiki and Tombo

Joseph was worried that nobody would recognize Akiko and Moses. Most people didn't, but there were about a dozen or so that knew who they were. A lot of people thought Moses was either Waldo or Harry Potter. I mean, the only fake round glasses I could find were "Harry Potter" glasses, so I don't blame them. They looked super cute though and loved their costumes. I love that they turned out so well.

I actually got Joseph to dress up this year. We didn't do a family theme this year. We coupled off; Akiko and Moses, Simon and me, and Joseph and Asher. I asked Joseph if he'd be willing to be a pharaoh to go with Asher the mummy, and he surprised me when he agreed to it right away. I didn't have the time or the talent to come up with something on my own, so I just purchased Joseph's costume online. Joseph even let me put eyeliner on him. What a great sport!

My hot pharaoh and my cute little mummy.

Asher's costume was just a hand me down from Moses, who wore it three years ago. We moved to the Bay area right before Halloween that year. I fretted for a long time over whether I should make the kids' costumes before we moved, but I eventually decided to just buy costumes after we'd moved.

When we got here, though, I couldn't justify the cost for the quality that was available. I threw the kids' costumes together at the last minute. I just tore an old sheet into strips and hot glued (because it was faster than sewing) the strips to some gray Garanimals basics that you can get at Wal-mart for a couple bucks. I also wrapped some around an old beanie for the cap. This costume is one I'm really proud of.

The happiest mummy I've ever met.

Asher was kind of upset when he saw himself in the mirror once we got his costume on. He kept saying, with a frown, "I not a moster. I a good boy." He eventually forgot he was dressed up and went on his merry way.

I told Joseph to give me a "stern, authoritative" look. This is what I got.

Simon just wore Asher's old mouse costume from a couple years ago. I was a black cat, but we didn't get any pictures of me until Halloween night.

My scrumptious little morsel.

Asher liked to run away from Joseph and hide.

Halloween morning, we woke up early, got everyone dressed and headed to the elementary school for Akiko's parade.

Two peas in a pod.

There's a Japanese girl in Akiko's class. Her parents got such a kick out of our costumes, they kept taking pictures of them. They may have taken more pictures of Akiko and Moses than they did of their own daughter.

Asher just played on the playground the whole time. Well, he ran off once or twice, too.

I sneaked Moses into Akiko's parade, since technically he was part of her costume.

Immediately after Akiko's class had paraded, we had to leave to get Moses to school on time. I dropped him off, ran a few errands with the little kids while donning my costume, and returned for a quick parade at preschool.

Moses' twin friends were Thing 1 and Thing 2.

I love these kids!

Once everyone was home from school, we finished carving pumpkins and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas until Joseph got home, so we could trick or treat.

This picture was the 8th try to get everyone (Asher) to cooperate.

Four little jack-o-lanterns all in a row.

My tasty treat and me.

Joseph got stuck on the train from SF. Our World Series champions had their big party Halloween night, so SF was packed and the trains were all running late. He finally made it home and we headed out.

Asher got the hang of trick or treating right away.

Our candy tax is 25%, so we just collected it in a bucket that Simon carried.

Up and down and up and down with Asher, all night long.

We had tons of fun this year. I think Joseph is starting to get more into the holiday now that the kids are older and there are more of them. I'm looking forward to next year, since I've already got a costume idea.