Bootiful

I love Halloween decorations and as many of you know, I suffer from OCDD - Obsessional Compulsive Decorating Disorder.  Whenever I have any sort of decorations to put up I literally cannot sleep at night because I'm thinking of where everything should go and what things I need to buy to complete my decor.  I'm dead serious when I say I really have a problem.  I mean, who cares where my Halloween decorations go?  Is there anyone else in the world who lays awake at night debating whether a ceramic pumpkin should be put on the mantel or on the kitchen counter?  Like I said, it's truly a disease.  So, in order to help myself (and my family who has to live with my insanity) I decided to take pictures of where I put everything so I don't have to try to remember or re-think it next year.  I decided to share it with you, although I know it would've been a lot more fun if I'd put the pictures up BEFORE Halloween to get everybody in the mood.  I'll try to do that with my Christmas decor, though, how's that?

We'll start outside and then tour through the house.  

Here's one of the two wreaths I semi-made for our two front doors.  I bought them for $5 on clearance last year at Walmart and then took all the stuff off I didn't like and added stuff I did.

I made these little guys...

...and hung them on our chandelier along with the balls Cole and I made last year.

I added lots of candles and a few more skeletons for a spooky effect on Halloween.

Dining room table.

My friend gave me this door she bought at a garage sale and didn't want anymore.  The backside had a tons of hooks to hang pictures off of.  I didn't really have a place to hang it on my wall, but thought it'd look great as a Halloween prop.

Thanks for touring my home with me and helping me with my OCDD!

Creepy Creations

We made lots of fun things for Halloween. First was a haunted house cake (the cake was Red Velvet since it looks like blood!)


We made sugar cookies.

We painted pumpkins, which was actually a nightmare.  I thought I'd bought paint pens that were like markers, but they were really paint in tubes shaped like pens.  The kids got into them before I knew it and paint was everywhere.   Needless to say, the pumpkins aren't quite as cute as they could've been because we did a very quick job and then cleaned up!

And we, of course, carved jack-o-lanterns.  This one's Claire's.

Ava's (although Ava had absolutely nothing to do with carving it).

Cole's.  You can't tell in this shot, but he has vampire fangs.

Fall Festivals

Cole and Claire had their Fall Festivals at school (they can't be called Halloween parties anymore, of course, just like Christmas is now a bad word) and Ava and I were lucky enough to attend.

The kindergarten festival was pretty impressive.  There were tons of booths set up for the kids to make ghost suckers at, get their faces painted, toss bean bags, bowl pumpkins, etc.  

Cole with his friend, Savannah.

Cole's trying to make a "Frankenstein face."

Ava and I then went to Claire's festival, which was just in her classroom.  This is the only picture I took because my lens wasn't focusing.  I was freaking out about it (I had two shoots the next day and a wedding in Denver with Shannon a week later) and called Nikon when we got home.  As I was on the phone with them, I looked down at my camera and realized that the lens had been switched to manual focus instead of automatic.  Ava must've messed with it when we were in Claire's classroom, little stinker.  Glad that was all it was, though.  Whew!!!!!  Too bad, though, it meant Claire didn't get any good shots at her little party.

Wicked Fun

We had a lot of Halloween parties to attend this year. The first was at one of Claire's friend from school's house. Unfortunately, Ava and I were sick, so we had to stay home. Grant took Cole and Claire.

Claire was a spider princess this year. Not exactly sure what that is, but it looked cool!


Cole was going to be Harry Potter, then Ron.  Right before the party he changed his mind and wore this old pumpkin costume we have.  Whatever!  


He's trying to look tough here, but it's hard when you're wearing a neon-orange poofy pumpkin outfit.

Cole made the pumpkin pin he's wearing.

Next, Grant and I went to a Halloween party at our friends', Matt and Kim's, house.  Grant is Gilligan, which makes more sense when you see him with the Skipper and Mary Ann (a few pictures below).  There was no way I could find a maternity Ginger outfit, so I went as a witch.

I'm not quite sure what is going on in this picture.

Here's the Skipper (Scott) and Gilligan.

Mary Ann (Cami), the Skipper and Gilligan

Lots of witches came to the party (and a black cat).

All the girls.

We also went to the ward trunk-or-treat.  We dressed up as the Scooby-Doo gang.  Let's just say Velma's outfit is not the most flattering on my pregnant body.  Oh, well.  I did it for my kids.  My hair was pinned up better at the beginning of the evening, but this picture was taken at the end of the night after I'd been running around everywhere (I was partly in charge of the event) so it looks really scraggly.  And, if you can't tell, we sprayed Claire's and Grant's hair.  Grant's hair looked more green than blonde, but everyone got the point.

This was how we decorated the trunk.

And this was what we passed out.  

Halloween is such a fun time of year and I love all the dressing up and going to parties!  We've definitely been spoiled moving down here and we always have lots of fun events to go to.  We love it.