super mario rescues the princess.....

We have almost recovered from a fabulous weekend and crazy week last week. How was everyone's Halloween?? We had a huge and FUN night. A friend and I were in charge of the Halloween Carnival at our church on Friday night. We did it up right; dinner, carnival games, popcorn machine (thanks Jen!!), cotton candy, bounce houses, pinata, face painting and crafts, etc. A big thanks to all who helped set-up and take down and with the food. My Mom and Dad, Dan & Lauren, and Tom & Kristy came too. They all dressed up, if you call Dad's Hawaiian shirt a costume ;), and bailed us out big time by helping with the games and cotton candy that we didn't have helpers for. Thanks so much guys! I received so many compliments that everyone had a great time and we had a lot of visitors.
I thought making 3 of our 6 costumes this year would be no problem and that I could get them done with time to spare. I love making costumes that no one else has. Halloween has become a big holiday in our family because Dave and I and the kids love dressing up as themes every year. I figure we will do it up right until the year the kids are too big and too cool to do so. As usual, the weeks in October flew by and I was just finishing up Syd's turtle on Halloween morning before racing off to the school kids' classrooms. My Mom seriously saved the day by hemming my Daisy dress and finishing Syd's Koopa while I packed up to get us to the church early. We decorated as much as we could the night before, but some of the help that promised to be there didn't show so we were a little slower than planned. As soon as school was out I packed the kids and costumes in the car and we met Sami and Jen at the church to finish setting up. All the work was worth it because we had a great night and so did everyone else.

Introducing the Super Mario Bros. clan. The kids were introduced to the next gen of Super Mario on Wii and that's where the idea started. I remember wanting to go to my friend Ali's house in 5th and 6th grade so I could play Super Mario 3. I would walk in and ask if her big brother was home because that meant the Nintendo was free and we could play. Dave downloaded that same game on the Wii a couple months ago, and I sat down and played a video game for the first time in a very LONG time. It didn't take long to get frustrated and guilty about wasting time so the nostalgia didn't last long.
Denise rolled in 9 months pregnant and I was rolling with laughter. Her belly looked so real! She even had the walk down and that strained roll-up-from-a-chair-belly-first thing going on. NO, she is not at all pregnant! It was a great costume and she fooled several people that didn't know her. You can't tell, but Arnold is sporting some serious black eyeliner. He had fun pretending 'Nise was pregnant. Lauren is a teacher and walked around school as the Name Police. She had a huge pencil in her back pocket and the kids loved playing with her handcuffs. Dan decided to go low-key with a Wicked t-shirt. *side note* I want to go see Wicked so bad! It's coming this way in January. I have to figure out a way to get tickets and talk hubby into going or letting me go without him!Tom and Kristy look awesome! Little Sydney loved snuggling on Kristy's shoulder and even fell asleep. We wrapped up the night with showers and sorting candy for the Great Pumpkin. The chillies all got to keep 10-20 pieces of candy and put the rest in the pot for the Great Pumpkin to take while they were sleeping. He left them a small toy in their pumpkins and we have a lot less candy in the house. Yeah!!