Halloween Party 2009

I got to thinking earlier this month and realized I haven't had a Halloween party in a long time. I used to always have them for my four older kids but haven't for Emma and Olivia. Despite the fact that I had two class parties I was doing, I threw one at home for my little girls and their friends. The best part was the haunted house in our basement. Our basement is perfect for a haunted house because it has a long, dark winding hall. It was a fun party.

All the cute little girls at the party.

Cousins Katleyn, Mahri and Nicolene(she's hiding in the blue).

I had never seen these costumes before and then two girls show up with them on.

Bad picture but Emma won the balloon popping game.

Scary Jeffrey for the haunted house. We had my big kids and some of their friends help with it along with Jeff. They all did a great job - it was pretty scary.

Gotta have the smoking punch.

Class Halloween Parties 2009

Emma and Olivia had their class Halloween parties and I was in charge of both. It was a little crazy running back and forth but I was glad I could go to both - next year I won't plan both though. In this elementary school parents are not invited to attend the parties unless you are a part of the planning - and you can't bring siblings. In California you were welcome to join everything. I love being there when they have parties and field trips.

This is my friend Jacqui and her daughter Addie who is in Olivia's class. Jacqui made slime for the kids and had a great presentation.

Jill is our PTA president and her son Bronson is a friend of Olivia's.

Pictures got a little mixed up. This is Emma in her class party playing the touchy feely game.

Mummy wrap in Emma's class.

Emma and her grill.

Stephanie being silly.

Not sure what's going on here.

Funny kids in Emma's class.

Olivia and her sticky eye.

Olivia and her best friend Katelyn.

Silly

silly again

Olivia has a lot of silly boys in her class.

this is my dear friend Tera and her daughter Katelyn.

These boys were watching Thriller.

Had to call in the troops to help me with both parties. Such good helpers.

Halloween shopping

Halloween shopping with Madison Brown. They love this wall with all the scary things.

Weekend Getaway

Jeff and I had a fun weekend together. I'm sure our kids all had a good weekend too. They all stayed at a friends home while we were gone. We don't do sleep overs so this was a treat for them. Jeff and I flew out to California to pick up a car he was buying in Sonoma. He was going to go alone but I said I wanted to come with too. His response? You will only cost me time and money. Eventually he said I could go with. I did cost him time and money after purchasing an extra plane ticket and I suggested we stay an extra day so we could have more time to visit friends and family. He would agree now that it was worth it because we had a really fun time.

Here we are on the airplane.

Mom and Dad picked us up at the airport and drove us down to Sonoma to pick up the car. We stopped at the Jelly Belly factory on the way.

LOVE the view driving down there.

We ate lunch at the Sonoma Cheese Factory and it was delicious.

I don't remember what it was about this house but I was always fascinated by it. We used to live near it and would pass it often and I remember always staring at it. Maybe just because it was so close to the busy road or maybe because it was a part of the farm right there. Don't know.

First stop was to visit Jeff's Grandma and Aunt Tia. He couldn't wait to see his Grandma again.

This weekend was kind of a walk down memory lane for us. This is Al who owns the Baskin Robbin's near where we lived in Rocklin. He is a great guy. He has a really neat family story also about coming to America. We were in so often, Al didn't even have to ask what we wanted because he already knew.

These are our good friends Mike and Kelly Maxfield(and Hailey in the corner). We dropped by their house for dessert before heading over to the football game.

Maxfield family - Mike, Kelly, Nathan, Hailey and Andrew(the newest addition to the family was asleep).

We picked a great weekend to come home. Del Oro was playing Granite Bay. This is always a good game. There were sooo many people there as usual. Both teams were 5-0 (as usual when they meet up). We got there at the end of the third quarter and the score was 21-21. Went into over time but it didn't take long for Del Oro to win the game -Yeah. It was such a good game. My girls would give anything to still be at Del Oro. Oh and that is Mr. Pickle from the local sandwich store handing out candy.

We were racing out after the game because Jeff wanted to get out before everyone else. We had several friends that all met up earlier to go to the game together. Sadly, we couldn't see most of them because of Jeff's rush but we did see a couple Zufelt boys and the girls' friend Chloe. Chloe actually lives in Utah now too but you don't miss a D.O. game when you're in town. We also saw another friend that moved out of state but was there for the game. Something was going on with my camera- this was the best picture I could get.

Saturday morning we went to breakfast with dad then over to see his airplanes. The red plane is his and the blue one is his best friend, Evans. Dad and Tony built this plane.

This is Dad's other plane. He recently bought this one as an investment. The airport needed a plane that was more affordable for people to rent to get their hours in. So far he has doubled what he guesstimated it would bring in. Just so know one asks later because I'm sure someone is going to ask what he got, that is Jeff's new car in the picture also. He's embarrassed to tell people what kind of car he got but he is a car guy and he does love BMW and it beats the 94 Corolla he was driving his doctors around in. It is a near perfect car that he got at a great price.

We also met up with Jeff's brother Mark at a fall festival that was going on in Auburn.

Here he is with his wife Elizabeth and their two kids, Kaley and Joshua.

We loved this scarecrow. If you make it bigger you can see he is holding a smaller scarecrow in his hand and the other hand looks like Freddy's. His face is a metal mask too which looks cool/scary.

Jeff with his best friend in high school, DJ. He is a good guy and was also in our wedding line.

DJ with his wife and kids. Cute little almost two year old girl and a five day old baby girl.

I just love Donna. We worked at Lucky's grocery store together when I was fresh out of high school and in beauty school and going to college. We were bakery/deli girls together. Jeff was working as a courtesy clerk at Lucky's and Donna was his favorite checker(she had moved on to checking when he started). It is no longer Lucky's but she still works there and I am glad because I know where to go to say hi to her when we're in town.

We joined mom, dad, Mena and Richard for dinner at Tony's Saturday night in his new home. As usual it was sooo good. Here he is cooking up the potato hash.

Chicken cordon bleu with proscuitto on top. The potato hash is underneath. Oh my.

Ready to eat.

Our last stop was at the Favero's for game night. We were joined by Jaimi and Brian Favero and Mike and Kelly Maxfield. We used to have a great group that we would get together with often for games, dinner and birthdays. I really miss the good times with good friends.

Dinner With Old Friends

Jeff and I went to dinner with some friends who used to live in Antelope, California with us. It was a crazy, fun night. Every male there was in rare form that night -or maybe not so rare. We were laughing the whole night. You definitely did not want to have to make a run to the restroom that night-you might get a phone call while in there or a prank played on you when you get back.
Kevin Sherman said," who would have thought we would all be having dinner together in Utah one day?". It was fun seeing and visiting with these friends again, they are good people and I am thankful for their friendship.

The Larsen's(thankfully they live right by us so we see them all the time), Us, Sherman's on the right and Astle's on the left.

We had to get a picture of Shawnee trying to get her mouth around that big sandwich. Then we all watched to see if she could eat all of it.

Jeff's sandwich was pretty big too but we didn't tease him near as much as we did Shawnee. I love his green eyes.

Poor Shawnee. She unfortunately had to make a bathroom run. Among other comments made as she left for the bathroom, Jeff said something about "making room" for more. Sheldon and I were laughing so hard that we were both choking on our food. When she returned, all leftover's were placed in front of her since she was the big eater that night with that big sandwich of hers. Let me just say, she did not eat all of the sandwich and I am pretty sure it was her husband, Todd, who instigated all the jokes.