family home hauntings

tonight for family home evening we had a blast and took a little twist on the infamous christmas gingerbread house and made haunted halloween houses to celebrate the greatest holiday ever.

michael bracing himself before the madness began

before we started we needed to fuel ourselves with some dinner. we ate mummies to get the creative juices flowing

the final masterpieces:
jenn and cosmo's haunted mansion (and no thats not a snow man above the door, its a ghost! booo)

erika, angela, and julia's haunted creation... this was rebuilt and demolished several times due to differences in the creative process.
julia was quite proud of her dead guy on the right.

and the winner of the night- dad, mom, and michaels ultimate haunted house!
the picture does it no justice.

the architects

the question is....what do we do with them now???

its perfect

happy perfect birthday to joshua!

we went to the monastery and the boys played a game of sand volleyball and the girls watched. ....it hurts my arms..... wah.

the not so encouraging cheerleaders: amanda, ashley, jenn

the players: josh, matthew, cosmo, sean

i think this is cosmo and josh trying to be manly, but they just look like popeye..... fail.

in the end it was a perfect night!

happy birthday garrett

today is my nephew garrett's 4th birthday!

he is the smartest raddest kid i know, and i'm not just being bias, he really is :)

garrett is always quick to give hugs and kisses! i'll take as many as i can get!
he has so much life and character to him!
he's always good for a laugh and he will tell you himself that he is funny!

we are rockstars!

i can only hope that my kids will be as awesome as garrett!
(i think alot of that has to do with the awesome parenting super skills of his parents...)
i didnt have any recent pictures of him, so if you would like to continue your journey and see how rad my nephew is, go to my brother and sis-in-laws blog http://wearewhimpey.blogspot.com/ . they are the perfect little family and i love them and miss them!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARRETT!!!

cowabunga dude!

friday night rolled around with no solid plans.

after a quick trip to a thrift store for the final touches of halloween costumes, we recruited our friend sean and decided to get some fresh air and go longboarding.

luckily its been cooling down at night, or i would have nixed this idea pretty fast.

thumbs up! i'm not falling!
sean and cosmo. sean may look like he's a pro, but he's not moving.

haha i just sold you out sean!

this is pure talent- picture taking while riding!
look at how much fun we're having!
look closely...... yup. 2 boards. i told him if he fell and broke his hip again, i wasnt helping.
i'm a good wife.

sorry boys, she's only 17

meet my little sister angela. she is drop dead gorgeous.

tonight was her homecoming so i went over to my parents to help her get ready. this is where growing up with 5 girls in a house comes in handy! we had all of us working on her and helping out.

here is the final outcome:

we found the dress for a smokin' deal, and mom made the jacket. she's a miracle worker. she found material that would match the dress exactly. it looked like it just came with it.

pictures can not do this dress justice since its black its hard to see detail. the silhouette of it is super awesome and there is a belt around it with a black flower out of material to clasp it together.

we were going for a classic old hollywood feel, so i made the feathered headband to top it all off.

why are these dang boutonnieres always so hard to put on??

angela and kevin.
funny story about these two- this is the first time they met face to face. his older brother knows alisha really well, and they always try to set them up. they've talked on the computer and the phone alot, but this was their first time actually meeting.
i think they were both a bit nervous.
he definitely has my vote.

i love love love putting full ensambles together (hair, makeup, shoes, jewelry) and getting people ready for things like this, so call me up the next time you need to be glammed up!

yay for me and my birthday part 2

i woke up on my birthday to the sound of cosmo singing happy birthday to me and carrying breakfast. waffles with strawberries and whip cream. mmmmmm....

i blew out the candle and made a wish, and the day began!

if you notice, the waffles are blue, and they are on a blue plate.. see previous post for the explanation on this...

along with a few other gifts: a vintage metal stawberry shortcake lunchbox! and dexter season 2, cosmo took me on a shopping spree. i think he immediately regretted it...

here are my 3 favorite stores.

i've found that its hard to find things to buy when i know i have $$$ to spend.
why is that? when i'm broke, i can find TONS of things i want!

after dragging cosmo around town, we went out to dinner with some friends to joe's farm & grill.
good food and great company

left to right: ashley, josh, me, and wood
cosmo, me, cheryl, and travis

yes, i have suspenders on. they were one of my great finds of the day! i got made fun of relentlessly, but i know they were all secretly jealous.

i know everyone says they have the best husband ever, but i really do.
i would fight you for it, but i'm kinda a wuss, so just take my word for it.

ash, me, and cheryl
i love these girls.

so birthday #26 was a huge success!!
thank you to everyone that called and text and posted birthday wishes!
and for those that forgot, or thought your 1 year anniversary was more important..not naming names....shasta..... you are dead to me. you can redeem yourselves next year on sept 27th 2009.

"if its your birthday we'll make a blue cake, and we'll eat it off these blue plates.."

on monday night for fhe, we celebrated my birthday with my family. it was really fun to have them all over to our home sweet home.

cosmo made me a blue cake with blue plates again.

its becoming a little tradition.

(this stems from a lyric in a song by my favorite band bright eyes. -see title of post-)

my first birthday that we had together when we were dating, he came up with this on his own and surprised me with blue cake and blue plates, and he's done it every year since.

greatness.

singing happy birthday to me!
brodie stole a taste of frosting. he may or may not have had some help from me......
we got a 3 foot sub from steve's krazy subs and chowed it down so fast that i missed getting a picture of it.
then we all crammed into the living room and played boom blox on the wii

(brodie has scary demon eyes in this picture!)

the mastermind behind all of the birthday events.
isnt he chaming!?