Our Halloween Story 2012

Once upon a time there was a darling little spider who found his way home from school just to scare his poor Momma with those googley eyes and long wispy legs:)...

And before she could recover from that fright, she had two  Army/ Zombie guys ready to scare!

Soon after she received a very silly text picture of her boy and a couple of friends from the soccer team lookin kinda pretty:)   Her"girl" is the cheerleader on the right!  Yikes!

And last but not least her oldest son arrived home from wrestling practice and suddenly turned hauntingly pale!  Boo ha ha!!

Luckily she had a sweet Prince Charming to save her from all this craziness:)

Halloween in all it's glory!  

Oh yeah and they lived on gobs and gobs of candy happily ever after!

The END:)

Hope you had a happy Halloween!

Night night..

On Hallows Eve

Twas the Night before Halloween...

and we had LOTS of pumpkins to carve! 

We started out with some good friends on Sunday evening actually.  We cleaned them all out before eating, but we had too much fun talking over dinner and never got to the carving--oops!

Pumpkin guts--eewh!!

Let the artistry begin....

Someone brought out the fake blood from our costume box- yikes!

Bridger carving "BOO" in the back with scissors?  Hmmm

Self Portrait:)  Oh Yeah!

Some went for gruesome...

and some went for just plain CUTE!
He requested his pumpkin to look just like his night light--I was a little shocked (and oh so happy) that it actually did--phew!

Ready for the big night!

Happy Halloween Eve!

The Birthday Boy

 Today I was so happy to celebrate this man who is loved and adored beyond measure around here--and for good reason!

He loves these boys of ours fiercely--gladly sacrificing his time, energy and resources to make their lives comfortable, happy and fun.  He  teaches them hard work, strong moral values, love of God and fellowmen.  He is raising boys that will grow up to be good men, just like their Daddy.  I feel so blessed to be Mrs. Brad Christensen:)

Happy Birthday my love!

As you can see he is also teaching them to have a great sense of humor--

goofy boys!

Inspiration Board

I use this little board in our kitchen to write inspiring words.  I asked my oldest son for an idea of what I should write this week and he gave me this little phrase.

I like it!  I am going to have to ask him more often:)  

Weekend Plans and a BIRTHDAY BOY

 First of all--HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Bridger today!

I can't believe this sweet little guy is already 7!

My goodness time does fly, doesn't it?!

This boy is very soft spoken,  but he is a little talker--and I love it! He is unusually mature for his age--I sometimes think he is a much older person, stuffed inside a little person body:)  He melts my heart with that smile-- I am so grateful that he is mine. 

I loved these two shots of him from our recent trip to Orlando ( more of that coming soon:)

#1 on my to do list is to plan some parties...look at what I stumbled upon the other day...

Isn't this the most incredible looking Halloween Garden party?  I love it!  It is the work of Karen Lidbeck a stylists for magazines --like Better Home and Gardens and Southern Living.  She is pretty amazing, huh?

I wish my yard looked like that--it's Awesome--but it doesn't and my parties will probably have to be indoors--darn it!

Now for Weekend Plans:

* Plan a Halloween Party for Bridger's birthday AND

invite some families over for chili and pumpkin carving next weekend.

*Wrap gifts for the birthday boy-

*A dinner and a movie birthday date tonight with Bridger--can't wait!

*Special family breakfast party tomorrow morning (since Daddy's out of town today)

*Taking the whole crew to the TN Aquarium 

*Watching the BYU game--go Cougars!!

*Making caramel apples--YUM!

*Planting lots and lots of bulbs in my front yard

*Ironing Sunday shirts for church

*Teaching a lesson to the Young Women I work with at church:)

*Looking through lots of baby pictures with my boy--a birthday tradition we love around here.  Brings back so many wonderful memories and gives me a chance to remind them just how loved and cherished they are!

Happy Weekend!

What are you doing this weekend?

A Bright Idea

You have probably noticed that I have not really got into the swing of things in regards to my weekly menus this fall.  I think I had vacation on the mind:)  Well now my vacations are over and it is time to get organized again.

I happened to see a bit of the Food Nanny on KBYU this last week and something she said inspired me.  She suggested that you pick a theme for each day of the week.  That way you have some direction when planning your menu, plus your family will have an idea about what to look forward to for dinner each night.  My kids thought that was a great idea and it was just the spark I needed to get going again:)  

So I have picked these themes for now:

Monday~ Comfort Foods
Tuesday~ Italian
Wednesday~ Mexican
Thursday~ Asian (which includes India--yum!:)
Friday~  Pizza night
Saturday~ Leftovers or frozen foods (date night Mom &Dad)

Sunday~ Family Favorites

As you know from this post, I feel SO MUCH BETTER when I have my meals planned!  It is such a huge stress preventer for me that I really have no idea why I ever let this habit slip!  I am recommitted now though:) 

I started writing a one word description of our dinners at the top of our weekly calendar that goes on the fridge, but I still use this weekly menu planner (the grocery list is such a help!)  for our family command center.  

I have also decided to stream line my recipe binders.  Right now I think I have 5 bulging binders--too many! I bought this new one and only our very favorites are going in there.  The every-once-in-awhile types of recipes I can always look up on The Sisters Cafe: or in one of my many cookbooks.

Wish me luck--picking only my very favorites may prove to be challenging for me:)

If you have had success in this whole recipe organizing, meal planning area I would love to hear any tips you have! 

Priorities

Before dealing with this...

I started doing this...(remember the BOO banner--directions here)

I know call me crazy, but it was a few days past October 1st (my usual designated day for turning  the Christensen home into a haunted house) and I couldn't wait!!  Also it completely delights the boys!  It was so fun to welcome them home from school with all our Halloween stuff out.  They all ran around the house excitedly checking everything out.  I could tell that even my cool teenagers were loving it:)

I had a couple of new items to add to the usual decor this year:

A pretty velvet pumpkin that had its stem broken within minutes--poor guy was not meant to be a football!

And I added Mr Bones--he is waiting patiently for some dinner!  I have always wanted a life size skeleton--but could never find a good one until this year at Target!  Isn't he great?! He is pose able and made of plastic--probably good for my rough bunch!

We brought this hat with built in dreadlocks home for from the Cayman Island thinking it would make a good costume for one of my teenagers who only half dress up anymore, but the boys thought it belonged on this guy:)

We even struggled with our winning pumpkin and finally got him out on the porch before going to to our favorite donut shop to pick up our treat for traditional kick off October movie night:)

Happy Halloween my friends...and now off to unpack and repack suitcases for our annual Fall Break Beach Trip with our boys this time:)  Yipee for beaches in the South where you can still swim in October!  

Swimming with the Stingrays and other Random Stuff

 When Brad's meetings were over, we set off on a Catamaran to Sting Ray City.  

Here is protected place where the fisherman used to clean their catch at the end of the day and the Sting Rays would come to feed on the discarded heads and tails.  The fisherman no longer do that there, but it has become a major tourist attraction.  The crew brought fish and almost as soon as we were in the water Sting Ray started flocking.

 They were super gentle and seemed to love people.  The crew members were out helping us pet and hold them. They were big, soft, gentle fish and kind of reminded me of a cat.  They would rub up against the side of your leg as they swam by. 

 Brad ended up back on the boat a little early in Sting Ray City.  He liked the snorkeling that we did later in the day--but  swimming around with big slimy creatures was not his favorite!

It was quite an adventure but I could not take my eyes off this water--stunning!!

Now for some seriously random pictures that we texted our boys--

There are crazy chickens and roosters running wild all over the Island. 

 This is a shopping center pretty close to our hotel--funny huh?!  

 And one afternoon it was raining so we had come in from the beach and were sitting in some chairs up on the second floor when there was some movement outside the window.  I seriously jumped our of my chair when I saw this guy!!  Thank heavens there was a thick piece of glass between us!  YIKES!

Different Shades of the Beach:

There was some rain and dark clouds for part of the time, but I still found it beautiful.

 The rain didn't seem to last long and as soon as it was gone I was right back out there:)

It was a great blessing to be able to tag along on this trip with my sweet hubby.

The whole time I kept thinking how much my boys would LOVE it.  I think we are going to start saving for a cruise.  I would love to do that with our crew. I think the cruise line may lose money on our family though with their all- you-can-eat-when-ever-you-want policy--I swear my boys are ALWAYS hungry and let me tell you...they can eat!  I guess we would get our moneys worth:)