Breaking Dawn release~!

 Forget William and Kate; the most anticipated wedding of the year belongs to Bella and Edward, so of course we had to celebrate!  This time we went tropical, and everyone brought their best tropical/exotic dish.  There was some really great food! 

Sallie helped with decor, of course.  This lantern configuration was her doing.  It was really beautiful!

 The dessert table.  I made chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling and cream cheese frosting. 

 I made these chocolate filigree hearts, but they melted and fell over.

 Some of the details.  I meant to have a quote here when Bella wakes up and says "Why am I all covered in feathers?"

 Since we were celebrating a wedding, we had to have a sign in book and wedding photo.  We also played the purse game and found out who knows the bride and groom best.  It was a fun night and we enjoyed the movie and each other's company.  One more to go!

Art day

 Handprint turkeys

Fun lunch Friday

 Witch for Halloween, in honor of my birthday, a cupcake,

and a turkey for Thanksgiving.

Turkey FHE

One Monday before Thanksgiving we had an FHE lesson about Tom the Turkey learning how to control his anger.  It was a cute story where the turkey turns colors every time he gets angry.  For the treat, I made these brownie and pretzel turkeys.

Fright Night '11

 Keaton had intended on being Mickey Mouse, but the costume didn't work out, so we pulled out our trusty Fireman costume again.  Since Waverly and Savannah got pink hair, the boys had to have dyed hair too.  Keaton looked more like a mad fireman.

 Savannah the punk rocker.  We put this costume together; I sewed black netting on the hem of the skirt, and sewed the black netting over shirt.  She added the gloves and jewellery.  It was a fun costume!

 Brighton was Batman...with floods.  He was showing me his Batman moves.

 And this is Batman throwing out his spider webs (we got a little confused:)

 Pinkalicious with her cupcake treat bag.  I spray painted a used pair of shoes and added some glitter.  I love her pink hair!

 I made Brighton mad by turning one of his sand buckets into a cupcake.

 THis is the only picture I got of all 5 kids together.  Irelynd was Bride of Frankenstein again because I didn't get her witch costume completed.  She wouldn't pose for a photo, so this is all I've got.

 Chloe met up with us the last 30 minutes of our route.  Her costume was awesome!  These 2 are so funny together.

Savannah playing her air guitar

I love PInterest!

Another PInterest project. 

Halloween mantle

 Finally, my favorite holiday to decorate for!  I had to start from scratch here, so I made most of these decorations. 

 I spray-painted black some branches I picked up on the side of the road just off the hill close by.  I cut out bats from cardstock and hung them with thread.  I used a tin container of my MIL's and covered it in black fabric and ribbon and filled it with black tulle.  Great pull-together vase, I thought!  I used old bottles and filled them with colored water.  I had meant to cork them with corks and label them with some fun printable labels, but didn't have time.  I found the black and blingy crossbones at Tai Pan for $1.50, and the back crow at Dollar Tree.

 I made the hat using directions from Pinterest.  I liked how it turned out.

 My intent with this mantle theme was witch-based green, purple, and black, so I was excited to find this ceramic witch shoe at Tai Pan.  I love it!

Another PInterest project.  Very tedious to glue on all those eyes!  But I love how it turned out.  SO fun!

Troll Eyes gift

My mom found these chocolate peanut butter truffles at Kara's Chocolates for $1 a bag.  I used 2 of them and made them into a simple apothecary jar for the ladies I visit teach.  I bought pickle jars at Dollar Tree, choosing ones with black lids, emptied them out, washed the jar and peeled the label off.  I found this jar label online and Mod Podged it on to the jar.  Add the eyeballs and some ribbon, and voila!  Easy and unique gift!

Disembowelling Jack

 We carved our pumpkins after our Halloween dinner.  Brighton wasn't too keen on touching the "guts", so he found a solution:

 He was so proud of himself; he found some plastic gloves and used those to protect his hands.

 The twins eventually got in on the action.

 Notice the protruding tongue...heehee!  Like father, like daughter!

 Somehow I missed getting a photo of the completed pumpkins, but here's mine.

And Ireynds

Halloween dinner '11

 I'm always on the lookout every Halloween for something new to serve my family, that's creepy, but not gross.  This year I made Dead Man's hand Meatloaf.  I stuffed the hamburger mixture into a latex glove, and then slit the fingers and carefully slid the glove off.  It's hard to tell from this picture, but it worked really well, and really looked like a severed hand.  The cheese added on afterwards gave it the look of skin.

 Our table.  I was missing my big black cauldron in storage.  I bought dry ice 2 days before to use, but it evidently evaporated because the bag was empty!  I don't think even Irelynd would eat that!

 I liked this dish the best.  These are jello "earthworms".  I found the recipe on Pinterest; they're made by pouring a Jello mixture into upright straws, letting them set, then blowing them out.  It was labor-intensive, but the result was so cool!  At first the twins and Brighton refused to touch them.  It took some convincing that they were not really worms.

And dry bones breadsticks.  Yum!  I love Halloween!

Halloween breakfast

I made these fun ghost and pumpkin pancakes for breakfast one morning before Halloween.  The recipe for the pumpkin ones was from Family Fun and they have become one of our favorite breakfasts!

Water Gardens Pumpkin Walk

 We discovered Central Utah Water Gardens through my job this year, and went to their Pumpkin Walk in October.  We looked at all the fun carved pumpkins entered in their pumpkin carving contest.  The winner was an Angry Birds pumpkin.  The kids came in costume for a free donut.  Waverly was SO excited to finally get to wear her Pinkalicious costume.

 We drug Grandma with us.  It was such wonderful weather, for late October!

 Isn't she a cute Pinkalicious?!

 Woody helped us go pumpkin bowling...

 ...and then the girls had to try to identify the gross items in the pumpkins.

 "Ew!"

We sure have gotten our money out of this costume; Savannah has worn it every year since we bought it when she was 6 or 7.  I love the addition of the striped pink tights though!