Catch Up!

First off HAPPY HALLOWEEN! It is my most favorite holiday! Not really sure why but I just LOVE it! These past couple weeks have been really jam-packed so I haven't been able to post much so here goes! Bryan's birthday was on wednesday so happy belated birthday wishes blog style to him!

He turned 30 so I threw him a suprise party that I had been planning for a very long time! It turned out so awesome! The best thing was that I actually suprised him which is really hard to do! He had no idea! Of course some white lies had to be told in order to pull off the suprise, I had to explain the sudden decision of my sister and her family to all of a sudden visit from Oklahoma and my parents from Ohio! The party was a Harry Potter theme and you might roll your eyes but HP is a big thing at out house, Abby even likes to listen to the books in the car! and it gives you so much to work with as far as party planning goes! I made badges and everyone was sorted into houses. I have a friend who has the sorting hat so I was able to borrow that to put the badges in! I have to give a huge thanks to Bryan's parents who planned the main game-Bill made mauraders map and a huge scavenger hunt outside all across the yard. Each group had their own map with an x and an arrow that they had to match up to a map at each of the 6 stations and it would tell them where they had to go next. How he kept them straight and going to different places I will never know! They collected lines to a riddle I made up and once they figured it out they had to go find what was there. It was awesome!

We also had our Primary Program a couple sundays ago. The kids were fantastic and Abby, being a new sunbeam and her first program was alittle timid but got up there and said her lines-loud and you could even understand them! I was so proud of her! She wasn't so sure about things during the rehearsals so I was alittle unsure of how she do-but pleasent surprise she did awesome! For the past couple years we have started doing an "after-party" for the kids as a thank you and a stress reliever! We did a survivor theme this year. I made a survivor logo for the primary program and made buff for all the kids (for you avid surivior fans who spy the mistake in the buff layout-I had it the right way but when I flipped the image to print on the transfers it went alittle wacky and obviously I didn't catch it!. When they came in we told them "You survived the program can you survive this?!" We had games and relays that all centered on the program and the songs they learned. They had a blast! While my family was here we decided it would be fun to let the kids go trick-or-treat at the mall-in theory it sounded fun. We got in and I thought (I THOUGHT) Bryan was watching Abby and Dylan while I was putting Lacey's wings on, I got up and looked around and said "Where is Dylan?" It is amazing how incredibly quick shear panic can hit you. Byran said "I don't know" I was like "what do you mean "I don't know"?" I mean we had 5 kids and 6 adults! I started frantically turning and looking calling his name, trying not to start crying. We couldn't see him anywhere. I look at Bryan and he and Eric were laughing-they were laughing-not excatly good timing on their part. I mean really is my son being kidnapped a funny thing?! Then I hear my sister say "there he is". I almost sat down and cried. I know that might sound a little melodramtic but that mall was completly packed and he could have been anywhere because obviously noone was watching and knew when he took off! Anyway he was down the hall looking around, not the slightest bit worried and when my sister brought him back over he looked like "hey whats up" . Two-year olds.

We also had a trunk-or-treat at our church, which Bryan managed to lose Dylan after each trunk they went to! Dylan would come back to me after each trunk and try to get more candy and looking over his head you could see Bryan holding Lacey turning in a circle trying to figure out where he had gone! Good thing we were just in the parking lot!

So between planning for the Primary Program and party (forgot the camera), Bryan's party (camera died), cleaning for family to come, family coming, family bringing a flu bug that ran through 4 of the 5 kids and me (only adult to get it-what does that mean?!), cleaning up from the flu and all the Halloween fun around it has been limited down time! But it is good like that!