Halloween 2013

Does it make me nerdy because I like the fact that "Halloween 2013" is a rhyme?

Let me tell you, we had sooooo much fun this Halloween! It wasn't hard to beat last year though, with Chris working and me not doing anything. 

We sure turned that around this year!

 

We decided to dress up about two days before this. That's kinda how I roll though, I'm not excited, not excited, not excited, then suddenly within 2-5 days before Halloween I suddenly catch the bug and go all "LET'S DO THIS!" 

But, I think our costumes came together pretty dang well for such short notice. 

We started off the night with a minor candy crisis. You have to understand, since we've been married, we've never had trick-or-treaters. First we lived in a college town, in a basement: no trick-or-treaters. Then, we moved up north, again into a basement: no trick-or-treaters. So obviously, once we moved into our house, what reason had we to expect any different?

Except....

children overrun the ENTIRE neighborhood here. ESPECIALLY on Halloween. 

There are over 150 kids JUST in our ward.

So 5:30pm rolls around, and I can't figure out why our doorbell keeps ringing.

When it finally clicked, Chris & I shared a mutual look of horror. We had zero candy. We frantically dug through boxes, kitchen drawers, and backpacks to finally come up with a half-bag of airheads. Chris used those while I ran to the store and picked up 3 more bags. We were only going to be home for about 45 minutes, or as long as it took us to get our costumes on, and then we were going to Chris's mom's for some homemade chili. Mmmm. So of course I figured that 3 bags would be more than enough. 

{Do you like the skeleton photo-bomber?}

Well, in the short half-hour it took us to get ready, we ran through ALL. THREE. BAGS.

Holy trick-or-treaters batman.

At Susan's house we enjoyed some delicious food, and tried to avoid getting detention from Professor Snape.

Next in line for the night was a dance at the U of U. We met up with a couple friends and their friends, and danced and shouted and put our hands up like the ceiling couldn't hold us. 

{see what I did there?}

But really, it was so much fun. 

After a few hours of music madness we hopped over to visit my brother who happens to be attending school there. And then finally, at about 1am, a very tired mad hatter and her king of hearts crawled into bed and called it quits.

It was a great Halloween!

Fresh Air

Easy & Adorable DIY Fabric Flowers

A couple weeks ago, I helped put together a baby shower for my sister-in-law. I picked the invitations and decorations, because she was having a little girl. And who doesn't want to decorate for a little girl??

These are the invitations I created:

I was pretty proud. I think they turned out so cute!

For decorations, I needed something simple, but still adorable. After searching pinterest for a couple hours a little bit, I found a really easy fabric flower garland. 

Here are the instructions:

First, gather up all your extra scraps of fabric, your scissors, and your hot glue gun.

Then, grab something to use as the base for your flowers. I used a combo of some old interfacing and some blue felt. Trace a small circle {smaller than you want your flower} and cut it out.

Be smart like I wasn't, and layer up your fabric from the very beginning to cut out several at once.

Then, layer up your flower fabric and cut out a slightly larger circle.

Take one circle and fold it in half, then in half again.

Do this to four circles, then glue them to your base circle like so:

Fold two more circles into quarters. You need a total of six folded circles to make each flower.

Glue the last two circles right in the very center of your flower.

If you want, you can clip the tips before you glue so they sit a little flatter.

Repeat this process six million times. I recommend having a good tv show {or several} to watch.

I ended up making two different sizes of flowers, along with a fabric-scrap letter. You can find instructions on how to make one yourself here.

If you are making a garland with your flowers, simply hot glue them to a piece of twine or string. I used twine, and used big lace bows to string it up. I can't believe I forgot to get a picture, but there you go. 

Here are a couple pictures of the table:

I thought the flowers were a cute little touch. And, if the other little children at the shower don't try to eat them, you can re-use them. {maybe some DIY hair clips or headbands!}

I would love to try my hand at making some different styles of fabric flowers, maybe to use as home decor. Or maybe just for fun because they are so pretty.

Just look how gorgeous!

{you can find all these on my pinterest account.}

Picture{perfect}

We may be a small family, but we sure do have a lot of love.

{and also, man are we attractive}

'Tis the Season

I love our card this year. Seriously, it looks so. good. 

Happy Holidays. 

Love, Us

Part 2 {Hawaii continued}

And now we're on to part 2 of our Hawaii trip.

Wednesday morning my brother dragged himself out of bed and went with my parents to the wedding rehearsal. 

There he is, pushing fake grandma in her fake wheelchair.

Chris & I, however, had the morning to ourselves. So where did we go? 

The open-air, four-story mall of course.

And since we were in a high-class mall with stores like Cartier, Kate Spade, and Juicy....

....we had to go to PretzelMaker.

Then we met up with my brother and headed to the International Marketplace while my parents enjoyed a night to themselves for their anniversary. 

Thursday we woke up BEFORE the crack of dawn to get on a bus that would take us to Pearl Harbor.

This turned out to be a terrible idea. What would have, in our car, taken us maybe 20 minutes, took us 2 and and a half hours on the bus. TWO and A HALF hours. With commentary from the bus driver.

Once we got to Pearl Harbor, we taught the pigeons tricks, walked through the museums, and took a ferry out to the memorial.

It's a beautiful memorial. It makes me sad to think of how many people died and are still trapped on the ship even now, decades later. 

There's a spot on the Arizona that still leaks oil, even today. 

After the harbor, we headed back to get ready for the main event--the WEDDING.

{i love weddings!}

The leis were in honor of the groom's {and my mother's} parents, who have passed away. 

It was lovely. The beach, the sunset, and the gorgeous, eloquent ceremony. My mom totally cried.

Then we headed inside the GIANT {ridiculously expensive} hotel they were staying in {seriously, they had a dolphin pool in the backyard}for dinner and dancing. 

Kim, the bride, is a nationally-renowned dancer, so she performed a dance just for her husband. 

{awwwww.}

The next day was BEACH DAY! We started out with a submarine ride.

Which was pretty cool for everyone. Except Chris. Who apparently gets mad motion-submarine sick.

But he did recover.

There's totally a turtle in that last picture. 

Then we squeezed every last hour we could out of the sun and enjoyed the beach to its fullest. 

It's so great to be a sibling.

Then we had a crazy-good dinner at this suuuper high-end restaurant. Like the kind of restaurant where you get teeny  tiny portions because the food is so good.

Saturday we packed up our hotel rooms and went out for a last breakfast with my uncle and his {now} wife. They're cool like that.

This is what Chris had:

Yep. That's a burger. 

{granted, it did have an egg, hashbrowns, and bacon on it...but still.}

Then we caught a bit of a parade, went shopping again, and found the best shave ice stand ever.

Then we spent the last of the afternoon on Waikiki beach, watching crazy people jump off the boardwalk into water clear {and shallow} enough to see the rocks at the bottom.

Oh, and Santa was there. No biggie.

Moral of story? Hawaii is awesome. 

One day I'll make it back.