Total Slacker!

So it took me about two days but I finally caught up with all of my blogging.  I have been avoiding it for months.  To all of you who love us so much and got annoyed that I wasn't updating, I am sorry!  Now you have about an hour of reading and 18 blogs to go through.  Enjoy!

Knock Knock!

After the Trunk or Treat we went home to go Trick or Treating

with our new friend Gabriella.  She lives in our housing complex

and is the cutest thing.  She was a Pumpkin Witch and looked

adorable.  So we had two kittens and two witches.  We were

the cutest kids on the block!

As you can tell the people in the neighborhood had lots of candy to spare.

Because we live in a gated housing complex we don't get too many kids.

The girls only had to visit about 8 houses before they had full heavy

buckets of candy.  Each house just gave them handfulls. 

So now you can guess how much candy we have at our house.

  Anyone hungry for chocolate?

This house was fun because they probably didn't even get any

candy here.  As soon as the lady opened the door there was a

dog at her feet and the girls were completely focused on that.

They didn't want to go anywhere else, they just wanted to play

with the cute little puppy.  SOMEDAY I will get the girls a dog I swear!

Annual Lawn Chair Treating Cerimony

Every year the Trunk or Treat gets more and more pathetic.

This year I swear there weren't even any trunks with decorations.

Most of the people who participated brought their fold out chairs

and a bowl of candy.  It was truly sad.  I tried to convince them

to do a great big party for the kids and I would be in charge of

all the organizing but I got thrown to the curb.  I am really sad

about it because when I was a kid Halloween was a huge event

and super fun.  I feel sorry for my kids that they just run around

in circles three times picking up candy and running home to bed.

This may have been our last Trunk or Treat experience.  Next

year I am going to put on my own neighborhood bash for sure.

Haley wanted to paint her face green but I told her she was

supposed to be a cute witch, not an ugly one.  So we settled

for a couple of moles on her face.  She had been watching the

movie Halloween Town and thought she knew exactly what a

witch should look like.  Thanks for the costume Auntie Joy!

Below are two pictures...Can you guess who is first and who is second?

This year I chose to do a fortune teller theme in my trunk.  It actually

turned out much better than I thought it would.  I had everything;

a crystal ball, ouiji board, astrological charts, palm reading, potions

and of course gypsy music in the background.  My costume was great too!

I don't normally like putting scary pictures of myself on my blog

but Keeley looked so adorable in it I couldn't leave it out.

Adventures in Pumpkin Carving

Before I even got anything ready for the pumpkin carving

ordeal Haley and Kayla decided it was necessary to get a

marker and make sure there were designs all over their pumpkins.

They drew the most random pictures on the backs of their

pumpkins including pictures of themselves and of a toilet!

Don't ask???  Anyhow after they were finished drawing we

got out the bowls and knives and started on the tops.  Haley

was so insistant that she was old enough to do her own carving

this year.  I had a pumpkin knife and said okay.  She couldn't

even get the knife in before she needed help.  I just showed her

how to saw at it and then she got the hang of it.  By the time we

were finished she had bats and moon on one side, a carved face

on another side and yet another face out of plastic toys on the

other side of the pumpkin.  She was so proud of herself though.

She knew she could do it and she certainly accomplished getting

it carved, just not cleaned.  You can see in the pictures they were

all totally appauld by the stringy seedy insides.  Lucky Mommy

got that job of course.  Thanks for that kids!  Oh, did I mention

that after everything else they had to add glitter glue to them?

This is Kaylas drawing for her pumpkin.

This was probably the only scoop she took out of it!

One side of the finished project.

Yet another side.

Ballet Halloween Party

Their ballet teacher Ms. Nataliya decided to put on a huge

Halloween bash at her house the Monday before Halloween.

She is a party type and had her house totally decked out with

all kinds of scary decorations.  The girls were pretty scared at

first.  Even I got scared when we went into the bathroom and

there was a skeleton hanging on the wall that started screaming.

It was quite an interesting evening and the girls didn't want to go home.

There was this skeleton sticking out of the ground and Keeley

didn't really like it that much as you can see!

They played duck duck goose and the kids loved it.

Keeley not so much!

Ms. Nataliya had the girls practice a little dance the week

before and had them perform it for us.  Super cute!

She also did this skit with her husband as the wolf and

she was Little Red Riding Hood.  He chased her around

and all the kids were scared and trying to protect her.

It was funny but she sure knows how to entertain kids.

Outing to the Pumpkin Patch a DUD!

This year picking out pumpkins was quite a chore.

First I have to explain that the three weeks leading up to

Halloween were the hottest most miserable three weeks

I have ever endured in Hawaii.  There were no trade winds,

the sun was pounding, and the vog was so bad you couldn't

even see the ocean from our house.  So it is no wonder the

entire pumpkin patch was rotten and no good by the time

we got there to pick out pumpkins.  In fact, the day we went

it was extremely hot and after about 5 minutes even I was

complaining.  We found two small not completely rotten pumpkins

and decided it would be best to just go to Safeway for the third.

We should have just went to Safeway from the begining and

saved everyone the torture of walking through the dirt and sweating

in the heat.  When we got home we had to hose our legs off before

we could go into the house because we were caked with dirt.

It was totally not worth all the effort to go down there but

we did end up with three pumpkins and they didn't go bad

until the day after Halloween!

Okay, the whole pumpkin patch looked like this.  Kayla just

couldn't believe it.  We couldn't even find any pumpkins that

were not completely rotten or smashed.

Wotta tomatoes Haley and Kayla are.

Seriously, is this a watermelon or a pumpkin?

Palehua Relief Society Retreat

This year I am second counselor in the Relief Society and

therefore was in charge of the retreat.  We had it at the

huge rental house in Laie again like last year.  However,

this year we weren't going to PCC for the night show and

we weren't going to the temple session because the temple

was closed.  I had to come up with activities and dinner and

entertainment for the whole weekend.  It all turned out very

well, much to my suprise.  A lot of people showed up and we

all had a fantastic time.  Other than Val almost losing her finger

and Marcie dislocating her shoulder there were no incidents!

We just hung out, painted our nails, went for a swim and walk

on the beach and of course enjoyed eachother's company.

For dinner we had a luau theme with a hula show for entertainment.

Everything was great and we all stayed up too late and ate too much.

Thanks to everyone who participated and helped out.