Wizard of Oz in Corn Country.

A few years ago I saw a picture of my friend's family (Emily Daniel) dressed up as characters from the Wizard of Oz.  It was adorable!  A year or two later (the last few years have been a blur!) I found a Dorothy dress at the Goodwill Outlet.  I decided that it'd be fun to do the Wizard of Oz theme for our family's Halloween costumes, especially while living in farm and tornado country.  The dress ended up being the only thing I had to purchase.  The rest of the supplies we had on hand and each costume came together with a little creativity and inspiration.

 Roo as the Scarecrow, 

Aimee as the cute {cowardly} Lion.

 The day of our ward Trunk-or-Treat I had the idea to take pictures of each individual instead of a group picture.  It worked like a charm and was so much better than trying to have us all dressed, looking at the camera and smiling in unison.  When we got home from the activity I spent the remainder of the evening working Photoshop magic to stitch all of us together in this cornfield (a picture I'd taken at the end of our family photo shoot with Em).  There is something magical about having something that you've dreamed up in your mind and bringing it to life.  I love how it turned out and want to print it on canvas and hang it up each year in October.

 Brie as Dorothy, 

Alex (per request) as the Tornado :0)

Me as the Wicked Witch of the West 

and Dad as the Tin Man.

Spooky Kitty Party.

Before Aunt Emmie came in to town, on Instagram one day I saw the idea of doing a Spooky Kitty Party.  With Em having recently gotten her kitty {Gracie Lou Lou}, Halloween around the corner and Em's birthday being just over a month away, I decided a Spooky Kitty Party was in order during her visit.  Thanks to the Dollar Tree, some banners I designed, printed & strung together and some items I had on hand, things came together easily and turned out to be purrty darn cute.  It made me happy since Aunt Em always puts so much time, thought and effort into making things special.

Em bought the black cat from Aldi.

 Our Kitty Crew.

 I felt like a giddy little kid decorating this stuffed animal table :0)  I couldn't help but make it look fun, with the set being newly renovated (the chairs and table legs had all been different colors so we made them uniform with a few cans of white spray paint).  I picked a favorite stuffed animal friend for each of you: Dino for Roo, the panda for Alex, Minnie for Aimee and the ballernia bear for Brie.  Some masks and felt kitty ears were the purrfect touch :0)

Dinner was simple, Pizza and lemonade.  I was going to do some sort of veggies but didn't get that far.  For dessert you guys decorated (gluten-free) "oreo" cookies to look like cats.  You read a monster story and put together a glow-in-the dark puzzle with Emmie, we listened to some fun Halloween music, she gave us our Halloween box with goodies and that was our evening.  So fun!

I had to include a few of these darling pictures of Aimee and Emmie.

Halloween '14: Baby Crew.

I promised myself that I would blog something before we leave on our trip for Utah.  So here's a short and sweet post about our Halloween.  Brie's OBGYN costume inspired me to be a very pregnant patient which inspired Alex to be a maternity wing construction worker, Bry to be a good looking nurse and Roo to be the big brother.  It was fun to easily pull off coordinated outfits :0)  We all went to Brie's Kindergarten class for a party.  That evening we had some pre-trick or treating finger foods for our neighbors (the Burchetts) and a couple from our ward (the Seaders).  Once bundled up, we headed out to knock some doors and get some candy.  We lasted 10 doors tops, it was SO windy and cold!!!  Afterwards we came back home for a jello slurping contest and a few rounds of donuts on a string.  It was a great Halloween.

Graden Nerd Squad.

(Click to enlarge picture)

Since Bry went on the job market last month I've had academia, colleges, professors and all things graduation on the brain.  So when vistaprint.com was running a special (40% off + free shipping) I decided to peruse Pinterest for ideas and then designed some family tshirts in honor of Bry graduating.  I was planning on saving them for May, but with a NERD theme for Halloween I couldn't help but pull them out to use.

To start off the evening we had a fun and festive dinner (mummy dogs, witch chips, buried dip, boo juice and chocolate cobwebbed pudding cups).  When it came time for trick or treating we got in our rain gear (It had rained all day long) and headed out.  It sprinkled here and there and we got dripped on when the wind blew the wet branches, but other than that it was really pleasant and perfect for tromping around and puddle jumping in our galoshes.  There weren't a lot of other families out so the kids were told at almost every door to take a handful of candy and to even take a few pieces for their parents.  We didn't mind that ;0)  Brie led out and was the first one to each door, I got to hold Alex's hand as we walked around the complex and Bry carried sweet, content little Lij.  

Halloween jokes are a tradition here in St. Louis, so this year we were prepared.  With a little bit of prompting and coaxing at a few of the doors Brie told her practiced joke, "Why did the cyclops give up teaching?  Because he only had one pupil."  I thought that was fitting for our NERD theme ;0)

All in all we had a FUN evening celebrating and spending time together as a family.  We're squeezing in the moments as we can between Bry's campus visits.