Happy Halloween!

Prepare your self for picture OVERLOAD.

A Halloween post has to be filled with lots of pictures :)

Every year our friends get together for our annual Halloween party. Now that the Taylor's are in New Mexico :(, Devin and Jessica have become the new hosts and of course they put on a GREAT party. It's always a blast to all get together and everyone's costumes seem to get more creative each year.

I don't have many pictures from the night, but here's a partial group shot.. missing Jessica, Mel and I (Jess was taking a more official group photo with a timer camera, but i don't have that pic yet).

Costume prize this year when to the Chickens!

Awesome costumes, Meagan and Ty!

We played some fun games, including this design-a-costume-in-5-min-with-limited-supplies contest. Our group won, with with Ty's kind cooperation to be transformed into hula babe!

Woody and Jessie, from Toy Story 2.

One of the best surprises of the night were when Mike and Jaime showed up unannounced!! They drove late the night before all the way from NM, just to be here for Halloween. Yay, we love the Taylors!

Moving on to Halloween Day:

Meet Toy Story 2 + Cinderella

Buzz Lightyear

Cinderella

Aren't they so CUTE?!

The kids were both SO excited to dress up this year. They'd been talking about their costumes all month. I made Ava's dress, and she had fun watching in all come together, which made her extra excited for when she could finally wear her dress to all her parties and trick-or-treating.

Sadly, it was pretty cold and rainy right during trick-or-treat hours, but the kids were too excited about trick-or-treating for us not to go.

So we braved the weather, took our umbrellas, and went for it.

It was pretty miserable at first.. it was so windy which made it FREEZING.

After shivering through a whole entire 3 houses, it was time to improvise. We took the carseats out of the Jetta so the kids could easily hop in and out of the back seat between every few houses to warm back up. The new plan worked out fabulous and the kids had the best time trick-or-treating. The rain eventually turned into a sprinkle and the wind died down too, so the last bit of the night was much better. Cohen had a blast.. He "flew" from house to house yelling, "To infinity and beyond!". And at 'scary' houses, he would shoot the decorations with the 'laser' on his costume. After each house he'd ask, "Can we go to another house?!?", not wanting the experience to end. Kids are so much fun :)

After trick-or-treating with the kids, we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for our family Halloween party!

Bubba = scary, tall guy

He and his friends did a haunted porch again at my parents' house. They had six guys dressed up like this, all wearing stilts, creeping around the front yard. And they carved tons of pumpkins, had black lights, mist, and all sorts of other spooky stuff.

The Andersons = Cop & Robber

Todd was a hilarious looking cop! He reminded me of some dorky police man off Reno 911 or something :)

The Larsens = Oompa Loompas

Vanessa went all out sewing and creating these awesome costumes! They definitely took the cake for costume prize i think.

Mom & Dad = 50's

They win cutest costume prize :)
Ava was in total princess mode at the party. She was acting the part all night, all proper with gentle manners and pretty smiles. She was Vanessa's lovely assistant throughout all the games and activities :)

The activity of the party was playing Minute to Win It. Boozie and Devin modeled the game exactly after the TV game show, with actual clips of the show and everything.

Here's Todd attempting to knock down a standing pencil 15 ft away with rolling marbles. (The only one to accomplish this was Dad).

Cohen took a turn going for the pencil with the marbles, it was pretty cute :)

Here's a less than flattering shot of me trying to hook 3 keys in a minute.

(Todd was the only one to accomplish this task)

This challenge was funny.. Put an oreo on your forehead and keeping the rest of your body completely still, move the oreo to your mouth with only your face, not letting it fall. Cody had no problem with this one! (I had a picture uploaded of him here but I accidentally deleted it while typing and I'm not about to reload it and then bring it from the top of the post down to the bottom.. Anyone have any good advice on rearranging pictures in blogger, with a laptop? I struggle) Ava also tried out this challenge and actually just about got the cookie into her mouth!

Family Halloween Photo (Catudals your were very much missed!)

And that was our Happy Halloween :)