Tanner's Preschool Halloween Party

Here are the chocolate covered Oreo Pops Dave made for the boys to take to their classmates.  They are supposed to be pumpkins.  I think they are cute and they were very yummy!

It was still rainy and wet from the hurricane so they paraded inside...

I have such a cute little Dino!

And look at this cute costume my friend, Jessica, made her sone... It's a Kubota tractor, she didn't have the tires on it for preschool, but afterwards at the Market she did.  Her hubby works for Kubota, so cute!

 Tanner's teachers and class...

No Power

I had read about some friends on fb, baking brownies and stuff to have when the power goes out.  So I did the same, I baked some brownies and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (and it was a brownie that I ate that started my tummy hurting all over again!  ughh!  it was awful!)

And I tried really hard to stay on top of washing dishes and counters because when the power went out I couldn't really do that without running water.

I was a little exhausted by night time.  So Dave made the chocolate covered Oreos for the boys classmates for Halloween (will be in next post).  While he was working on it the power kept going off for a minute them coming back on.  And a couple minutes after he finished the power went off and stayed off a little after 11 pm.  And with it being so quiet we could really hear the wind whipping around outside.  I heard the Allentown area, where my parents are, about 45 minutes east of us had winds that measured 90mph!  Craziness!  I think we only had about 60-80 mph.  Dave heard something fall or fly off the house, after the wind calmed down a bit, grabbed a flash light and went outside and saw the coupler (I think is what Ralph called it) and little maybe 2ft by 2ft square cap thing that goes on the top of the roof, it's a square thing that sticks up and has vents to let air flow in the attic or something.  So Dave put a tarp in the attic to catch any water till the morning when he temporarily fixed it, the best he could do without power.  And luckily that was really all the damage we had!

So we played games with the boys for awhile and they played with legos and we just a great time!  We also go to try some MRE's we had bought in the spring and they weren't too bad.  Dave had eaten them on his hike with Andrew on Memorial Day weekend.  So we plan on ordering some more for food storages.  We don't get the dehydrated ones, because you have to add boiling water.  We got the ones that you can eat cold or warm up.  And Dave warmed them up on the grill.

 I also sat down and burned some of the edges on the silk circles I cut out a couple days ago to make some more silk flowers.

Dave's parents had power so we asked if we could come and get showers and they invited us for dinner as well.  Polly and Mike had also lost power but got it back about 1-ish.  And since it was starting to get cold with no heat, we have 2 coal stoves but they need power to run!  The kids and I then slept at Polly's house and Dave wanted to stay with the house.  Which was good because the power came back on about 5:30am, just in time for him to start the coal stove and go to work.  Jayden had a 2 hour delay so after I dropped him and Carolynn off at school, Tanner, Mackenzie and Kolin (because I was watching him, and Tiff brought him to Polly's house) returned home to a semi-warm house.  And quickly got ready for Tanner's Halloween party at preschool and ate a quick lunch.

So in all we only lost power for 30 hours which is great!  There were people without power for days!  And I think some didn't have power for over a week!

Getting Ready for the Storm

We had lots of warning with Hurricane Sandy.  We knew for days it was coming and were told to be prepared to be without power for a few days.  We have a well pump, so no power means no water for us.  So I filled almost every cup we had that had a lid with water, and some pitchers.  Despite what we have in storage.  All though we don't have much in storage because we also have a hand pump that filters water and Dave thinks he's gonna go across the street and pump water.  But if I'm home a lone I don't want to run across the street to pump water and leave my kids in the house.  So what harm did it do to fill some containers of water.  I also filled our washing machine (we still have our top loading machine from 11 years a go when we got married.) and I filled some buckets for flushing toilets.  I thought Dave would say I was crazy when he came home, but he then filled our big cooler of water and the bath tub.  The thought had crossed my mind but I thought I had done enough already.

We did loose power and we did use most of the buckets of water to flush toilets and I did drink most of this prefilled water.  Normally I drink 80-100oz of water a day.  But I cut back when traveling or when the power goes out so I don't have to go potty so much.  But knowing I could flush toilets because I saved plenty of water, I didn't worry.  Plus I had some stomach issues this week and had to drink extra water to flush out whatever was making my stomach hurt so bad.  I think I have IBS, I have thought so for awhile.  But then a little bit ago after I drank a huge glass of my milk, like 30-60 minutes after, my stomach hurt so bad!  So then I thought Dairy.  But I had taken my dairy pills and my stomach just started hurting real bad after eating some sweets and junky kind of food.  Oh, it hurt real bad!  So now I'm back to thinking it's jus IBS and I read that drinking tons of water can help.

Staus Annual Halloween Party

After we picked our pumpkins (see my previous post for those pictures) we headed back to Becky and Ralph's for the party!

We first had our mystery dinner.  Everyone was given a menu and told to order 2 items...

And then the first 2 items were delivered and you could order 2 more items.

Carolynn didn't have any utensils to eat her "Possum Guts" with and all JJ and Austin ordered were a spoon and a knife, I don't remember what they were called, maybe the wizard and firebolt.  Then JJ ordered a mummy and dragon eye, he wasn't too keen on his food looking spooky.

 Dave helped his parents serve the food.  While we were waiting for our food we could drink some "Elf Tears" or some punch, sorry I forget what the called the punch.  Becky had frozen some green ice in a glove so there would be a hand in the punch.

As always we all enjoyed the fabulous mystery dinner!!!

 Next it was time for the game.  Ralph based it off of Harry Potter, which I'm sorry I never read.  So those that did read it were the team captains.  And each team was given a clue and had to follow them all over the house and yard.  One clue was inside of a gator bottle that was tied to the fence around the pool and the bottle was on top of the pool cover and we had to fish it in, it was pretty cool.

At the end each team found a broom.

 While we were running around outside Mackenzie and Kalaela played inside...

Next we carved our pumpkins!

How cute is pappy's pumpkin?

 Becky tried an experiment this year with the pumpkins, the kids really enjoyed it.

And Cheryl really wanted to put Kalaela in a pumpkin...

Then we put Cozette in it and she really did not like it!

 Then Mackenzie, and she just wanted to sit down in the pumpkin and she was so mad when we took her out of it.

Kalaela was making some cute faces at her Uncle Dave, rather I think she was copying his faces.  It was so cute!

Mackenzie sure loves her daddy!!!

 Ta-Da....

Thank you Becky and Ralph for another awesome Halloween party!!!!!!

Trunk or Treat

We had our ward trunk or treat and the kiddos couldn't wait to go!  Mackenzie loves her giraffe costume!  It was given to me with some clothes.  I have a giraffe costume the same size that Tanner wore, but this one is much nicer and more "real" the one Tanner wore was yellow and orange.  Anyway, when I got the costume bin out Mackenzie grabbed the giraffe and giggled and growled!  She just loves it!  And when I put her in the van and she saw her self in her mirror (because she still faces back and I have a mirror on the back of the seat so I can see her) she growled!  It was so cute!

 I had bought this dino/dragon costume at the tag sale a few years ago for really cheap thinking JJ would want to wear it, but he never did.  Luckily Tanner loves it!!!  And he's so cute in it too!!!

Jayden didn't want to wear a costume.  He cried and cried!  So I got him to put on his Halloween t-shirt and he said he'd wear a Superman cape and the Spiderman gloves.  However I did bring his costume along in case he'd change his mind when he saw everyone else dressed up, but he didn't.  Later he told his Uncle Andrew that he didn't want to wear it because it had a mask to go along with it and you weren't allowed to wear masks at the trunk or treat.

Pappy with Mackenzie and Tanner

The Staus House

The Donly's

Sharon and Kids

 They did face painting this year, which was pretty cute.  Of course my kiddos didn't care for it, but Brody and Kara got their faces painted...

And my boys favorite game, basketball!  And they both got it on their first or second try.  And Tanner especially loved this game because Rhett was in charge of it!  They sure love their cousins!

 They had to guess what body part was in the bowl...

 Throwing wet sponges at people...

 Jayden got behind there and let people throw wet sponges at him!!!!

And he did the donut game!  But he told me later he didn't like that his face got all sticky and he went to the bathroom to wash it off, which is totally fine.  I'm just so glad that he did it!

The Houghtalings, aren't they so cute?

Most of the kids, some were still in the haunted house.

Trunk or treating time...

 When we got to Pappy's truck Mackenzie wanted to stay.  So I let her sit with her Pappy for awhile while I ran around taking pictures of some of the trunks.  However, I missed the trunk that was really decorated nice!  I don't know how I missed it and I'm sad I don't have a picture of it because it was pretty cool.  Well, and because I was able to get some family shots, they were covering the decorations of their trunks.