Birthday & Halloween Bash!

What a weekend!! First of all, yesterday was my 23rd birthday, woohoo!! Friday night my parents babysat while Justin and I went to Outback Steakhouse and to the movies. We got to use gift cards (for both) that Justin had gotten for his birthday last month. It was fun to have a date night!

On my actual birthday, we started the day with Justin making delicious omeletes. I then got to shower and get ready in peace while he played with Carrie. Amazing how much faster I can get ready when she's not wanting to try out all my makeup, brush etc. :)

We went "into town" (to Chandler) and first, got my birthday present from me. We went to Lowes and picked out paint to do our Master bedroom! I got some fabric at a clearance sale last week to make us a new bedspread. So although it be a process over the next several weeks, we'll get our bedroom decorated finally!

Justin was very good about keeping his present to me a surprise. We went to the Arizona Mills Mall and went to Bath and Body Works. I got to choose some bubble bath and lotion. He also wanted to get me a bath pillow (the little inflatable kind to put behind your back in the tub). I've been saying I want one for quite a while. So far we've had a hard time finding one, but I'm excited to have it whenever we actually find one.

On the way to the mall Carrie enjoyed a purple sucker and got quite a sticky face!

We ate lunch at Subway (my pick) at the mall. Carrie was amazingly well behaved all day even though it was past naptime. After all the day's excitement though, she zonked in the car on the way home.

She got to "help" make cupcakes for the ward party later that night, and had a great time licking the beaters!

Tah-dah! My witch's cauldron cupcakes. Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter, gummy worm, and sprinkles "brew" spilling out. They were for a dessert contest at the party, but we didn't win. Oh well, they were still yummy!

Our cute little angel. Oh yeah, and she was dressed up as an angel too :)

Coloring at the ward carnival (Because ward Halloween parties are usually the day before, I always joke that the ward throws me a birthday party every year!)

An attempt at a view of the back. The angel costume came with cheapy ultra-glittery butterfly wings instead of angel wings, so I made some. By this point in the evening they'd gotten a little crunched, but you get the idea. (I love her pigtails too!)

And who else could be the parents of an angel, but a Priest and a Nun?.... A pregnant Nun, that is.... (hahaha, we're so funny)

Carrie's friend Jake was dressed as a cop. He's handcuffing Justin (the Priest) for getting me (the Nun) pregnant ;)

I bailed him out though and instead of a mugshot, we got a super cute family picture!

The Paynes. Convicts and their Cop son. What makes this even funnier is Cameron (the dad) is a cop in real life. :)

Jake and Carrie! What good friends!

All ready to go trick-or-treating in the cultural hall.

We made a few friends along the way. The most interesting? A little girl just Carrie's size dressed as a devil! They just stood there and stared at each other, it was funny!

Some other great costumes in the ward were:

The old man from Disney Pixar's "UP"

Bishop Moss, the clown

Woody, Bo Peep, Jessie and Buzz (aka the Carpenters)

The Black Eyed P's (aka the Picketts)

Justin trying to see if he could get out of the handcuffs. He started with his hands behind his back, finally got them underneath him and pulled his legs through. He ended up being able to get his hands in front of him, but not out of the cuffs. It was very entertaining to watch him try though!

Carrie plopped down in the middle of the cultural hall and dumped out her pumpkin to inspect her treats

We didn't get to bed until about 9:30 (which at least for Carrie, is extremely late!)

This morning, we started celebrating Halloween with Jack-o-lantern pancakes. I wished I'd had some pumpkin pie filling or something, but we made it work. I made apple cinnamon spice pancakes, food coloring to make them orange, and a chocolate chip face. (Easy to make: add about 1/2 cup applesauce, a few shakes of cinnamon and a few shakes of allspice to the batter. Yummy!)


We also needed a candy corn dress photo shoot. Isn't it amazing how so much cuteness can be packed into one tiny girl?!
While Justin was snapping pictures, Carrie was copying however I was standing. So I started to do some silly things. It worked, she copied me!



Tonight we sat out on our driveway with the Paynes (I love Halloween in Arizona!) and handed out candy to the very very few trick-or-treaters we had. We have TONS of candy left over, but all in all, it was a great weekend! Here's hoping everyone else had a fun, safe Halloween!