A Week of Halloween Fun

Annually we have a spooky dinner! It is a Halloween theme dinner followed by Halloween themed party games for the family. The kids love it, and now that they are older, its fun to have them help in the preparations. This years games where a boccie ball game with a witches hat and mice, 3 corners a game of elimination and tail tag, where its a tag game to grab your opponents tail and the one who has the most tails wins. Each child gets a small goodie bag too.   Here are some photos of what spooky dinner looks like at our haunted house:

 

The center piece

This year we had a mice theme.

Dinner was spaghetti and mouse meat balls



Bread Stick Bones

In keeping with the mouse theme, which by the way as totally unplanned but came together nicely. We were making more creative food for the kids Halloween school parties. It made for a late night but a fun day.



Broom sticks for the little ones daycare class

Mice for our school agers!

School parades, parties and smiles:

One of my Dalmatians

Enjoy your celebrations and send me your successes!
~ DeAnn













































Mummy Treats

I am getting ready for our annual spooky dinner. Last night Teagan  made these mummy pretzels. They actually look even better now that they've been in the fridge. I think she did a great job. 

Teagan used: Pretzel rod's and white icing. She put it in a bag and cut the tip. The eyes are chocolate chips.



Spooky dinner is just that, a halloween themed dinner. I add a simple craft and a party game for our family. The kids love it and I love planning it.  

Salon night!

What a fun evening!  3 hair cuts, one good belly laugh when my son who got a little too picky, picks up the shears and gives himself a nice bald stripe on a perfectly good hair cut! 

 Time to start over, it still turned out great and I enjoyed the banter and how well he handled the new stripe  Later we did halloween toes and fingers. It was great sharing and chatting with the girls. Their toes and fingers turned out cute, with ghost, pumpkins and witches hats! We had so much fun playing salon this evening. It was a great time bonding with each of the kids, the room was filled with positive energy. 

~ DeAnn

Flippin for Ribbon!

Last night while the girls made a new batch of flower and bow clips. I FINALLY, got around to making Sadie's new flip flops she has been patiently waiting for:

1. I made and tied two bows together.

2. Instead of just gluing the ribbon to the flip flop, which won't hold. I secure it with embroidery thread. Sewing it through the rubber strap.
3. Glue your premade flower to the ribbon. Let dry. Simple and inexpensive! This project cost all of maybe $2.00 ~ DeAnn

Disney on the Cheap

Our adoption and fall break fell perfectly, and made for a great excuse to take Sadie to Disney for her first adventure. We love Disney, but it can really add up!  Here are some of our ideas on saving $$$ but still having a great time! I prefer to go to Disney during low season, to minimize the wait times and maximize the fun. We plan our trips to avoid the summer and holidays. Often traveling on Monday and going to the parks, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. After our arrival on Monday, we typically eat in the hotel room and walk over to explore Downtown Disney, followed by time to relax in the hot tub.

Planning a head is a must. For fun I pack our own glow sticks, fairy dust to sprinkle the girls with as they sleep and we make sure to bring our own Mickey or Princess shirts.   I recently made phone number bracelett's incase the little ones got separated from me. The kids all save and take their own spending money.

The practical side: I've found we've saved $$$ by booking a http://www.getawaytoday.com/ trip vs planning a trip independently or even with AAA.  We typically stay at the Holiday Inn on Walnut. It is close enough to walk to Down Town Disney, clean and the parking is free. Its one of the cheaper hotels, has a pool, hot tub and fitness room. With our package we also got a hot breakfast free, a perfect way to start our day. 

Here is where planning ahead pays off. We pack in our snacks and drink water at the park, I often take the disposable plastic cups the hotel provides or an empty water bottle or two. I plan our dinner meal to be made in our hotel room.  My best advice is to pick up a hot pot.

It heats up more then just water if you use your imagination.  This trip, we made soup, mac and cheese, spaghettios and even nacho cheese sauce. It only takes a few minutes to heat up a meal.  

So when we are getting ready to leave the house...the counters start to look like this:

If I can I also pack in lunch, but usually we budget for a late lunch at the park.

How do we get all of us, luggage and the kitchen sink in the Tahoe?  I love having this little extra hauling space. Easy enough for me to load and attach. 

I found humor in the below picture after paying $27.00 for 3 hot dogs and one drink.

We had a wonderful time at Disney this week! Love the fall decor, shorter lines and comfortable climate.

Love the ears, makes a fun picture but I'm too practical to buy it!

Disney is definately one of our happiest places!

DeAnn

Halloween Cupcakes..so fun to make!



I wish I could take credit for the idea of these cute cupcakes!  We had fun making them. The original used old fashioned candysticks in the tangerine/orange flavor. I didn't have those so we went with what we had on hand.  Take a look at our cute witch crashing cupcakes.



Adding Sprinkles

The witch crashed

We used licorice for her legs and molded

starburst to make her shoes

One of the finished cupcakes

And with the extra:

 They had fun icing and doing this simple pumpkin too!

Adoption Day

The day I've waited over 20 years for finally arrived! The day went smoothly. Everyone was dressed, hair curled and happy! We were greeted by our attorney, who guided us through the final aspect of our journey. I'm so appreciative of our attorney's role in our lives. He was the girls GAL/attorney and clearly saw the reality of the situation, moving to severance even when CPS was willing to provide more time to the parents.

Court it self was quick and uneventful .Lexi talked over the judge the entire time, being 3 you can get away with that. The girls on the way home, had a bit of sibling rivalry. Trinity not full understanding that Sadie is now her sister, no longer just her BFF. I admit, I had a twinge of buyers remorse or that feeling of what did I do?  The normalcy of sibling rivalry quickly gave way to laughter and imaginary play and joy filled my heart that we are a family now. The girls wanted to celebrate at their favorite park followed by a favorite rare treat, McD's of all places. By noon we were back at school. Where Sadie proudly asked that her teacher change her name tag to reflect her new name.   In the evening we had our first family birthday cake or I should say cupcakes with a candle for each of.  The big event, was now the girls could finally sleep in my room. Such simple requests that meant so much to 3 little girls as we welcomed them into our family for time and all eternity.

People are often worried about adopting from the foster care system. I have to say, we have no complaints about the professionals we where blessed to have met. Ok, honestly a few parent aides could use some training, but the real players were gracious and professional.  It has been a wonderful journey. I have always adored these wonderful girls, but with the finalization of our adoption, my heart has been able to fully embrace and love them like my daughters they were Godly planned to be.



4 of my 6 jellybeans



Moments after we became a family!

 A life time of love begins :)

Count down....

Getting so excited for our adoption day this Wednesday! Finished the girls bows.

Tomorrow we are going to do a dress rehearsal of sorts and take some pictures, in hopes of getting our announcements out shortly.  Enjoying this sweet part of life.  

Besides laundry, we tried for the very first time to carmel apples. We just followed the receipe on the bag and added sprinkles we had from our sundae celebration when school started. I'm sure their are better

receipes, please post if you have one!