Monday 31 October 2011

happy halloween. . .

this halloween was filled with pumpkin head kick ball, parties & treats:)
allow me to elaborate on each of these events.
last friday, logan & i took wilbert & nuvia to the park to play
pumpkin head kickball.
if you are confused it's ok, but the game is exactly as it sounds:
you put a pumpkin on your head and play kickball.


kickball is already somewhat of a challenge for me.
for some reason i always manage to kick the ball sky-high, making it
extremely easy for someone to catch it and get me out.
imagine trying to kick a ball with a pumpkin on your head.
first of all, the pumpkin is moist and wet and nasty inside.
second, you can't really see while you are attempting to kick/run.
third, it feels like you've added 5 pounds to your brain as you
try and run with the pumpkin on your head.
and fourth, you basically can't see anything.
i adopted the technique of running while holding onto the pumpkin
that surrounded my whole head.
i can say with 100% confidence that i looked like a complete idiot.
but so did everyone else so it was ok.


logan & i also went to our ward's halloween party.
it was the first "married" activity we have been to in a while because
logan has been serving in the bishopric of a single's ward.
logan & i went as marry poppins and bert the chimney sweep.
we were feeling pretty good about our costumes walking into the party.
who else would think of such an amazing costume?
well. . .great minds think alike:)
we were pleasantly surprised to see another couple that had
the same idea as us:)
i will admit that there was a part of me that desperately wished
we were the only mary and bert in the room, but we
ended up having a good laugh about it & had a blast at the party.
we almost talked the "berts" into doing a little
"step in time" dance in front of everyone, but they chickened out.


today at work i was on cloud nine seeing all the kids
dressed up in their halloween costumes.
i thought about going to work in my costume for like 1.5 seconds, but then
i remembered that i'm 23 not 16.
so i do what 23 year olds do best and decided to make some treats instead!
my friend lisa came over with a recipe for these cute
rice krispie pumpkin treats.
surprisingly, neither one of us had ever made rice krispie treats before, but we
managed to create these cute little pumpkins just fine.
thanks again lisa!


the night ended with a surprise dinner with logan:)
he got off work and said he wanted to take me out to a place
we hadn't been to yet.
we pulled up to a place on univeristy ave called the spice grill.
it's an indian-style place that has everything from spicy noodles
to indian style burgers.
i got a giant plate of spicy noodles and a mango shake.


overall this year's halloween had me in heaven.
we only had about 6 trick-or treaters come to our door
which was a little disappointing however.
i now have a heaping pile of tootsie rolls and rolos that will
obviously end up in my stomach over the next few weeks or so.
i remember going trick-or-treating as a youth.
for some reason i bought into the whole trend of taking a pillow case.
did i honestly think that i would hit enough houses and get
enough candy to fill one of those things?
dumb.
i remember those pillow sacks half way filled with candy would
last a few weeks or so.
my sibs and i would eat pieces here and there throughout
the weeks after halloween, but sundays were the pig out days.
i remember racing home from church, changing into pajamas, & meeting
up with my brother and sister in the basement and literally
stuffing our faces while sitting in front of the tv.
what a happy childhood.

hopefully all of you had a happy halloween as well:)
i am already looking forward to next year.













Monday 24 October 2011

deal dragon weekend. . .

this past weekend was glorious.
it was fall break for provo school district which meant
i got to enjoy a 4 day weekend:)

on friday night logan & i decided to take advantage of a "deal" that
he purchased a few weeks ago.
logan loves a good deal.
this guy came to the door selling these deal dragon coupon books for $20.
it has like 200+ deals on it for food, entertainment, etc.
if i had answered the door, i would have stopped the guy mid-sales pitch
and told him to take a hike.
i've never been a fan of buying things from door to door sales-people.
logan however is a lot nicer than i am and actually listened
to the guy's speil & bought the little booklet.
when he came inside and showed me his purchase
i couldn't help but stare at him with a look like "really?" on my face.
i feel like those coupon books are just an excuse for you to spend more money.
i gave him a hard time about buying the booklet for a few days, but i have
come to realize that our deal dragon coupon book has
been well worth the $20 spent:)

on friday night logan & i ventured up to mapelton to the model-a-cafe.
we had seen this place a few times while driving to my brother's
place in spanish fork.


we chose this place for our date night dinner because of the deal dragon.
with our little booklet in hand, we received a free order of cheese fries.
the best part was that we didn't even have to buy anything to get the fries.
they were %100 totally & completely free :)
of course we decided to order some other things because we were
starving, but the cheese fries were indeed delicious!
the deal dragon coupon book has a whole section of things
that you can get totally free!
it's pretty dang great.


i ordered a club sandwich which was ginormous & logan got
the chicken cordon bleu sandwich.
why i decided to get fries as my side dish is unbeknownst to me.
i think i chose them because the only other option for a side
dish was mashed potatoes and mashed potatoes and a
club sandwich is not a good combo.
needless to say, we left the model-a-cafe filled with fries and
ready for our next adventure.

logan used our deal dragon to buy some tickets to hee haw farms.
i had been bugging him about going to a haunted corn maze or something
halloween-ish for a while.
we decided to bring wilbert & nuvia along for the fun.
at hee haw farms they have a bunch of separate events.
they have a haunted corn maze, a haunted hay ride, & a haunted walk through.
typically each event is $10 a piece which is insane.
we decided to get tickets for the haunted hay ride, which would have
been $40 for all 4 of us.
enter the deal dragon.
logan bought tickets for all 4 of us for $20!
the kids were so excited on the drive there i thought they would burst.
as we were waiting in line to get our wrist bands, this nice lady walked out
and handed me some wrist bands for the haunted walk-through.
she said her family was leaving and didn't end up using them.
as if our deal dragon wasn't enough, this lady just made the night 10x
more exciting-for free!
the kids had fun running through the hay, going down a
huge slide, and looking at the live farm animals all before 8:00
when the hay-ride started.
unfortunately, it got dark a lot faster than i anticipated, therefore we only
got one semi-decent picture of the night:


nuvia looks like she wants to die in the pic for some reason, & it is also
very very very grainy.
i blame my phone.
so around 8 we got in line for the haunted hay-ride.
a big group of us piled into the back of a truck filled with hay which was pulled
by this random guy on a tractor.
the ride was surprisingly scary!
they had people running around the truck bed with chainsaws & even incorporated
live animals into the ride.
this one guy ran around in a butchers coat asking if we liked bacon.
he was holding a real baby piglet that wouldn't stop squealing!
eww.
after that was over we decided to use the wrist bands the lady gave
us to get into the haunted walk through.
we took a tractor ride about 5 minutes north of the farm.
when we got out there we could see that the walk through was partially
inside an old building & partially outside.
as we stood in line wilbert & nuvia were having the time of their
little adolescent lives.
they were giggling and jumping up and down and couldn't wait to get inside.
a lady who ran the walk-through made an announcement a couple minutes
before we entered the building.
she talked about some rules-no swearing, no running, etc.
then she said that if at any time the walk-through became too scary & anyone
couldn't handle it, they could simply tell the person "haunting" them to
stop immediately and let them out the emergency exit.
i scoffed at this.
i looked around in the line and saw parents standing there with kids that
couldn't have been older than 6.
nuvia is 10 and wilbert is 11-there was no way we weren't going to make it through.
as we made our way to the front of the line, the lady cut off our wrist bands &
let us enter the walk-through.

nuvia made it a grand total of 30 seconds inside and screamed to be let out
of the emergency exit.
i was in literal shock.
we walked into a big black room with people in clown masks.
they were scary looking-but nothing too terrifying.
as soon as one of the clowns ran over to nuvia she literally covered her whole head
in her arms and started sobbing louder i thought
was humanly possible.
she started screaming bloody murder and curled up into a ball on the floor.
the big clown kinda stopped "haunting" us asked if we wanted out.
i told him that was probably a good idea.
i helped nuvia up as the clown escorted us to the emergency exit.
as we were walking out nuvia repeatedly said "sorry" through her sobs.
my heart sunk.
i had NO idea she would be that scared!
i felt bad for subjecting her to such a traumatizing experience, & the other
half of me was wishing i could have finished the haunted walk through.
as we walked out i could hear logan & wilbert screaming.
i wanted to be there screaming with them!
there was seriously a little part of me that was mad that i had to take nuvia
out & that i couldn't have fun inside getting scared by clowns!
all i could think about was the fact that i'm going
to be the worst mom.
when wilbert & logan finished the walk through, i told logan how i wished
i could have been inside with them getting scared & having fun.
he laughed and felt bad that i had to leave.
he said i had just learned a lesson on parenting.
i decided right then & there i'm not ready to have kids yet.
just kidding-but seriously.
nuvia played with my phone on the tractor ride back to our car & was just
fine for the rest of the night.
she apologized again for not being able to make it through, & i quickly
forgot about all the drama.
all things considered, it was a fun night & we scored some pretty
sweet deals.
if you are looking for a night of fun, i would suggest hee haw farms.
if you end up doing the haunted walk-through, let me know how it is:)


Monday 17 October 2011

it's costume time. . .

it's halloween time and halloween time means costumes:)
i have always loved dressing up for halloween.
i can remember almost every costume i've worn since i was like 5.
kitten, bride, witch, BYU cheerleader, waitress, vampire, crayon..the list goes on.
i'm lucky to have a niece that has a birthday is around halloween!
for the past couple of years we have attended my nieces'
halloween themed costume party, and for
the past couple of years logan & i have won the costume contest:)
for this year's costume i wanted to actually be something feminine.
the last four halloweens i have been:
an old man, a biker, a british police officer, and a boy scout.
i needed to mix it up this year.
i found this picture on Pinterest & it became my inspiration:

marry poppins & bert the chimney sweep!
after a little convincing logan decided he would do it.
he was not excited about the idea i had to smudge eye liner
on his face so it would look like he had been sweeping chimneys.
here is our version:

i literally found everything i needed for my costume
at my grandma's house:)
the hat, blouse, skirt, boots, gloves & bag all came from her!
i bought some fake flowers to put on the hat and got a bow for
50 cents at DI to complete the look!
we basically bought everything for logan at the DI.
we got his his neck tie rag, shirt, jacket & hat for around $13.
he wore his own pants and shoes, & made his chimney sweep all by himself!
we went to the dinky halloween isle at Smith's and
logan found a broken devil's pitch-fork that they gave us for free.
we bought some black pipe cleaners and logan whipped up his
sweep in about 10 minutes!

logan & i ended up in a tie for 1st place in the costume
contest this year at my niece's party.
my mom and dad came in the following costume:


my mom & i may or may not be very competitive people, and we may
or may not have been talking about our costumes
for weeks before the party.
she wanted to beat me & i wanted to beat her in the contest.
ironically we tied, but she admitted that mine was
the better costume:)


the party was fun & we enjoyed every minute of it.
i hope logan & i get the chance to wear our costumes at least
a few more times this halloween season.
if you know of any sweet halloween parties in the provo
area let me know:)




Monday 10 October 2011

finally fall. . .

it pretty much changed seasons overnight here in provo.
last week it was 70 degrees and sunny, and then i literally
woke up to rain and 50 degree weather.
while i would have liked to have a little more of a transition into fall, i must
admit that i am thrilled that my favorite season is here :)
so far our fall season has included the following:

cheering on our football team!


buying pumpkins for the porch.
(technically the little white one is a squash but it looked fall-ish to me)


baking cinnamon rolls.
i wish my house could smell like cinnamon goodness all the time!


finally getting to wear my hunter boots:)
i have literally been waiting for hot weather to end so i could wear these.
i'm obsessed, i'll admit it.


made a trip to halloween city.
if you don't have one close to you i feel bad for you.
halloween is my favorite holiday & if you don't think halloween
is a real holiday then we probably shouldn't be friends.
i love dressing up and finding costumes & i love seeing what
other people choose to dress up as even more.
our costumes for this year are in the works as we speak :)


i think it will be pretty hard to top last years costume, but
we will try our best.
(in case you don't know who were are- go watch the movie UP!)


besides the treats, halloween costumes & pretty leaves, i love
fall because it's the season logan & i started dating :)
we had 2 classes together and some of our friends got together to
carve pumpkins in the middle of october.
this is officially the first picture of logan & i ever taken!
don't we look like babies?!
and by "we" i mean logan.

logan thought it would be a good idea to
carve a pumpkin to look like our teacher's face.
i went with it.
i remember he asked me to carve his hair.
???
how to do you give a pumpkin hair?
i was nervous because i didn't want him to think it was lame/have no
artistic or creative ability whatsoever.
i was terrified while trying to give that pumpkin the best
head of hair i knew how to carve.
i apparently impressed him because we ended up talking
till 3am that night and as they say, the rest is history!


this was our finished pumpkin that was supposed
to resemble our teacher, along with the pumpkin our friends carved.
theirs says 'LOW SES'.
as in low socioeconomic status.
it was supposed to be scary.
we are sociology majors...we thought it was hilarious.
logan actually brought the pumpkin to class and showed it to our teacher.
we thought he would love it and give us extra credit or something.
nope.
he laughed awkwardly and i could tell he was wondering why we would
take the time to carve a pumpkin that looked like his face.

i now hold a special place in my heart for pumpkin carving.
i'll be sure and take pics of the pumpkins we carve up this year:)