It was a monster mash

In Mesa there is a Dia de los Muertos celebration every year around Halloween. This time we decided to be brave and check it out. There were lots of craft booths and musicians to make a festive atmosphere. The fun part was all the skeleton themed art and face painting.

We came across this lady dressed up as a skeleton. Allie thought she was super cool, but Hadley was quite scared of her (which was the exact opposite reaction we would have expected out of our children).

 There was also a chance to decorate your own skull! 

The girls each got to make their own sugar skulls.

 

The finished products for each of the girls. Allie went for color and quantity of icing (she thought we could eat them later), while Hadley went for beauty of design (thanks to Rach's help).

Miles enjoyed the entire experience (can't you tell that is his excite face).

We didn't start the fire...

We have been doing a ton of yard work recently, and thus have accumulated a lot of branches and leaves. Since it takes so long to dispose of these things in the garbage can (since we can only fit a little each week), we decided to burn them. Besides being fun for the pyro in the family (Rach) we decided to make it fun for everyone. We made smores for everyone!

Allie and Hadley liked the idea of roasting marshmallows, but really didn't like being within 8 feet of the fire. This was about as close as they got and ust for long enough to take a picture.

 

 

They may not like the fire too much, but they loved the marshmallows! Allie liked them so much she saved some for later (there is a little snack on her face, some breakfast on her arm, and maybe even next day lunch on her legs). We used really big mallows, that were extra fun to cook, but extra messy for eating.

Rachel even got a little messy 

(she didn't want me to show the really good picture with marshmallow dripping off of her face).

Miles ~ 1 Month

Miles celebrated his first month today! 

In celebration we decided to take a few pictures (because that is how all boys like to celebrate).

 At his one month check up he measured in at a whopping 9 lbs 10 oz (54%)

and stands a remarkable 22.5 inches tall (98%)

He is a great baby who loves to take naps, eat, and take more naps.

Adventure Time

I have started to build a pretty big reputation for creating exciting family adventures, and it is starting to get more difficult to continue to find things everyone enjoys (the price I pay for being brilliant I guess). So for this Columbus day holiday, I was tasked with creating a fun day for the whole family. So I tried to recycle a previous adventure (because it is hard being fantastically original every time) and go to the Scottsdale Train Park.

There were lots of model trains for the girls to see (at least for 30 minutes worth).

There was also a huge park for the girls to run around in. They particularly liked the swings.

There was also a playground Western town. 

Hadley and Rach got thrown in jail for walking on top of the buildings 

(They seem to look at home there, huh).

Allie busted out of jail instead. 

She is much more rambunctious than the rest of them.

Hadley was the stagecoach driver. Looking very laid back on the journey.

 The final activity at the Train park was the carousel. 

Since the rest of the adventure was not living up to my previous standards, I had to try and buy the approval (normally the rule is that we can only ride the carousel when grandparents are here). 

This mostly worked (as evidenced by the huge smiles on the girls faces). 

After the ride we went out to get ice cream, and that was the kicker 

(ice cream always makes things better).

Some elves - our little people that make cookies

Rach found a fun Halloween activity for the girls today (mostly because she wanted to eat some sort of treat, so she found a way to make the girls take care of that for her). So today we made candy corn cookies! It was a very impressive undertaking with multiple food colorings, refrigerators, ovens, and lots of helping hands (helping being used very loosely in this context). So here are some shots of making the delicious festive treats.

 The girls all hard at work on the cookies.

The delicious final product.

I helped a lot too, since it took big strong muscles to cut the dough into slices.

The cookies were beautiful and tasty!