Pumpkins, Potatoes, and Projects

Halloween is big here! I don't know if it just our neighborhood, but people go all out! Decorations, haunted houses, tons of trick-or-treaters, and tons of candy. It was Curly and Lou's first experience trick-or-treating at houses and we all had a blast. People pull their freestanding fire pits onto their driveway, put out a buffet of food, pull up the camp chairs and chill. There were lots of "three for one" houses. Three neighbors "chillin" at one house, but each with their own bucket of candy and they aren't shy about giving it out either. When I was little you took once piece and said thank you, but two is the new one, and a handful is pretty normal. Curly and Lou came home with plenty of booty for the whole family...

Hmm...which one do I eat first?!?!

This pumpkin took about five minutes to carve, speedy compared to our monster pumpkins of the past. It's so cute and little.

This is our huge Halloween sweet potato that my Phoenician uncle grew. That is a large butcher knife stuck in it! Impressive eh - We made fries and a lot of potato soup out of that baby! Three meals from one potato.

And here we have our Date night/Halloween project. We painted Curly and Lou's room. Two walls were blue and the other two still had the nasty, grayish, dull paint that the contractor put on. Curly REALLY wanted pink, so we compromised on pink and green (which we put on the lower third). When we first finished it looked like an easter egg and we went to bed hoping it would look better in the morning - fortunately it did. Finished project pictures to come shortly.

Nintendo and Disney

Happy Halloween! We have had parties and more than enough candy this week to call it good and get ready for Thanksgiving. Friday night was our ward Trunk or Treat and on Saturday we went to my cousin's Halloween party. Both evenings were very fun and Curly and Lou loved prancing around as Snow White and Tinkerbell! We were informed that a costume was required for the party, so we threw together these Mario and Luigi disguises.


Can't you just hear the Super Mario theme playing - Do-do-doo ---da-da-da-doooo- da-do---da-do---da-do-do--da-do-doo....
It was especially fun to go to the party with Krista and her hubby and cute baby. We have been friends since highschool and I haven't seen her for a few years. They were decked out as Alice and Tweedle-Dee and put all the adults who didn't come costumed to shame! The weather was beautiful, the company even better...Arizona is a great place for Halloween.

Fall Fun and the Farm

Now we are having fun. It's nice to be settled and doing fun things with my family. We made Halloween cookies for family home evening. Curly and Lou loved decorating them, though I am sure that more of the candies ended up in Lou's mouth than on cookies. Curly loved delivering the cookies. Someone "spooked" us and so we were required to pass the "spook" along by leaving a treat for other people anonymously. Curly thought it was so great to sneak up to a door, leave cookies, ring the bell and run away before they caught us. She couldn't help giggling as we ran.
Curly's preschool class took a trip to Tolmachoff farms. I decided I had to see an Arizona farm so Lou and I tagged along. It was so much fun. We picked vegetables, including a pumpkin (that I found out was not grown at the farm), the kids went on a train ride which Lou is still talking about, we found our way through a corn maze, "swam" in a corn pit (like a ball pit), pet ponies, piglets, goats, and baby chicks, and ate ice cream. What a day!

Lou is thrilled to be picking radishes!

The train ride. I though the little lady bug cars very cute.

Curly's preschool class

And the BIG news of the week is that Lou is a "BIG" girl now! Potty training started out rocky, but Lou has steadily been improving. Yay for Lou!

One more must for fun. Curly and Lou think it is fall and love these darling hats that my talented cousin made for them. Unfortunately 100 degree weather is not conducive to sporting knit hats, so they wear them in the house. Oh how we miss the fall!

Curly's Request

Curly's final plea in her prayer tonight - "Please bless that when we move again, we can move somewhere that it snows!"

Come on down, the weather's fine!

Now I see why people choose to live here.

The weather cooled down this week to low 90s during the day and mid 70s at night. It is beautiful. It was cool enough to walk to the library with Lindsay Woolsey, a new friend from the ward, for book hour. Our family enjoyed a few evening walks and noted that there are at least 5 homes in our neighborhood for sale or rent... so consider this your personal invitation to move to our neighborhood :)

I also found a group of families with children close to ours in age and we arranged a babysitting group rotation. Fisher and I are looking forward to it's start next week!

The weekend was a wonderful end to the week. Fisher was home! It was General Conference! And the beautiful weather continues!