Spiderman Birthday Party

Spiderman Dylan had his 5th birthday party the week before Thanksgiving.  

The invitations (redacted, for my safety):

The "web blasters" silly string for the kids and the cake.  (Well, one of the cakes.  The night before I worried one wouldn't be enough for over 30 people, so I made two identical cakes.)  I bought a fun Spiderman cake pan that made it easier to decorate.

 I made these for Dylan's friends as favors.  Took about 2-3 days to complete this project:

 The day before and the day after the party we had awesome weather.  The day of?  Not so much.  A loud thunder storm with rain starting at 3 am.  So the party was begrudgingly moved indoors.  Holy moly.  Instead of using Nerf guns to shoot the villains on the backyard fence, they shot them on my wall:

 The food:

 Getting the bad guys:

 Taking a breather to watch part of the Spiderman cartoon playing in the background with Tommy:

 Max won the Pin the Spiderman on the Web game:

 Coloring Spiderman scenes and solving the maze puzzle:

 Cake time:

 

  All the Spidermans saving us from evil Dr. Octopus (also an outside activity):

 Yesssssssss!  Nailed it:

The upside down kiss picture didn't work so well for many reasons, but I still got a kiss from the birthday boy:

Dylan had so much fun and was beyond excited to get so many Legos and a few tough 50-100 piece puzzles as gifts, two of his favorite things.  Autrey built a new Lego/puzzle table for him so he would have a place to keep them all (read: I didn't have to find them scattered all over the house).  If you ever want to know where Dylan is, check there first.  He has already logged many hours playing at the table with Colton and his friends that come over.  Love this sweet 5 year old!

Botanical Gardens Family Pictures

The morning after Halloween, Julie VanAuker (friend from church), braved the cold with us and took our pictures at the Grapevine Botanical Gardens.  I waited to post these until now because I wanted to get our Christmas cards out first.  So, here they are:

 My absolute favorite....partially because I remember to get those smiles I was jumping and dancing around singing, "Bye, bye, birdy.  I'll see you in a while! *big raspberry/fart sound*"  What can I say? Boys respond to potty humor:

 

This one was taken at the park after the session as Dylan was crawling through a tunnel.  

Love his eyes: 

I didn't order these on the CD, but she posted them on her blog.  Fair game:

Playing at the park after we were done.  I love Colton's cuddles and kisses:

Happy Halloween!

Headed out to Boo at the Zoo:

 Love to feed the birds:

SUGAR!!!

Ready to get on the zoo train.  Nana had been sick and went into the hospital in Albuquerque that day, so Doug and Mona left right after the zoo to be with her.  She is home now though and doing much better:

 

 So strong!

Halloween party at Ms. Tiffany's preschool:

Sweetest witch ever! 

 Traditional pumpkin shaped pepperoni and pineapple pizzas:

 Eating scary ghosts (bananas with chocolate chip eyes and mouth):

 At the Trunk or Treat with the rest of the Primary Presidency.  Whew, we pulled it off and everyone had fun:

 We won 2nd place for our family costumes:

 With the Peter Pan crew:

 Before Trick or Treating Halloween night:

MJ had TWO Spider-mans to save her from Dr. Octopus.  (Autrey really did a great job on his costume.  And Dylan loved my 'Alison hair', referring to my red headed bestie, Alison Merritt):

 Carra is 34 weeks pregnant and walked around with us like a trooper:

 The trick or treat train in our neighborhood:

 The morning after Halloween we had our family pictures taken by a park.  I know.  It was the soonest and only open Saturday our family was available for quite a while, a scheduling gamble that paid off.  I made sure the boys didn't eat too much candy and didn't stay up super late.  Some fun pictures after the photo shoot:

 I remembered I didn't take a picture of the pumpkins.  It's been crazy around here lately...and probably will be until the end of the year.  I ended up finally carving them by myself as the boys played and occasionally watched on the afternoon of Halloween before Aut got home.  Sheesh.  Colton's 'Franken-style', as he called it:  

 Dylan's Spiderman symbol.  Delicate and tricky, by the way:

Happy Halloween!