I'm Back and I'm starting with October

What?  I'm blogging???  Why yes, yes I am.  I know you missed me, but its been hard to want to sit down and blog for some reason.  But, here I am and I'll try to get caught up.

It's too overwhelming to start where I left off, so I'm going to go ahead and skip to October.

First up, my birthday.  Luis didn't want to leave everything to the last minute, so he got everything while we were in Utah.  I LOVE that he was thinking about it that far in advance.  I felt very loved by all my family and friends who sent me cards, left me messages, called me, and dropped by gifts.

To celebrate, we headed to our favorite pumpkin patch.  Unfortunately, it was a bit of a let-down this year.  I like the good old fashion, feels like you're in the country type of pumpkin patches.  That's what this one has felt like every year.  This year though, it felt more like a carnival, with booths set up selling all sorts of junk and tons of bounce houses and other money-making attractions.  They did have a tractor ride included with the admission (which we've also never had to pay before).  As you can see, Raquel was delighted.

 

We ended up being suckers and paying the $6 fee for Raquel to ride a pony.  She wanted nothing to do with it at first, but once it got going, she loved it.

We ended the celebrations with pizza and a cake made by Luis.  Nothing says "happy birthday" like pizza and cake, in my book.

This year for Halloween, we went country and became cowgirls and a cowboy.  I found Luis's awesome jacket at DI.  When I first showed it to him he refused to wear it.  However, after trying it on and seeing how completely incredible it looked, he changed his mind.  We celebrated Halloween all month long with our ward Halloween party, Bass Pro Shop's fun Halloween festivities, and an all day Halloween party with Raquel and me since Luis had to work from 8am - 11pm.

Ward Party

(Luis and Raquel are in the back of the costume parade.  He said she kept yelling "yee-haw" the whole time they were up there.)

 Bass Pro Shops Festivities

The all-day party for Raquel and me

Spooky Ooky

What to wear, what to wear...for Halloween!  When my sister-in-law, Jennie, sent us this cute skirt, I decided instantly that Raquel would be Minnie Mouse for Halloween.  Not very original, but easy to put together and best of all, CHEAP!  It probably cost a total of

$5.  All I had to do is bake the ears, bow, and tail.  Everything else we had.  Nice!!!

Her face paint lasted 27.3 minutes, which was just long enough for us to take pictures, drive to the church, and say a few hello's.  After that, I was in the bathroom scrubbing it off since she had commenced crying and rubbing.  It was a smeary mess. 

My costume?  I was a boring cat, but CHEAP and EASY made me do it.

From now on I think I'm going to force Luis come up with ALL our costumes.  He is outrageously creative and always looks better than me.  Can you guess what he is?  I'll give you a hint...doesn't he look grrr-r-r-r-r-r-r-eat?  He did his whole costume INCLUDING the makeup.  (I think he secretly puts on my make-up when I'm away and that's why he's so good.)

 

On to the party.

 

I don't know what people were thinking, but someone put me in charge of the ward's Halloween decorations.  ME???  Oh yikes. Talk about a s-t-r-e-t-c-h for me!  Thankfully, I have some absolutely fabulous friends who pitched in and pretty much did everything for me:)  Thank goodness.  So here's a few pics of how it turned out.

 

The tables were supposed to be decorated with pumpkins that people carved for the annual pumpkin carving contest.  Yeah, a total of 3 people signed up to bring a pumpkin. 

 

Knowing the party would be pumpkin-lacking, Luis and I decided to copy our friend Jen by having a "pumpkin off," which meant we both carved a pumpkin and had a few siblings vote via phone.  Mine is the mickey pumpkin.  Lu made "chip."  After the votes came in, I decided it was a mistake to ask siblings to vote.  They have no taste.

 

 

Since we took them to the party, they were automatically put into the ward pumpkin carving contest.  Luis and I both won!  (I think I'll leave out the detail about there being 4 pumkins at the event and each of the 4 pumpkins winning a prize.)  In addition to our prize winning pumpkins, my man took home a prize for his hot and spicy chili. The Morenos pretty much stole the night:)



Getting Lost on Purpose

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel stressed about starting family traditions?  Maybe I'm overthinking it all, but with all the traditions we had as children, plus all the cool traditions we hear about, PLUS all the traditions we think up on our own, I feel overwhelmed with deciding which to keep and which to kick!  I think I need to just calm down, actually, but anways...

 

One tradition we do love, is trippin' to the local pumpkin patch.  Luis took me there for my first birthday here in California to make it extra special since I was missing my family so much.  It was one of my favorite birthday memories (other than standing in line at my sisters wedding greeting all sorts of people I didn't know...hee haw, just kidding Charisee!) and we've gone back every year.

 

It has been 147 degrees here for the past 99 days but finally, FINALLY we got a bit of a break and saw some cooler temps and rainshowers.  We went to the pumpkin patch the next day, so it was a bit soggy, very fall-ish, and purely wonderful!  We had the best time ever!  I mean ever!!!  In fact, think about all of your best times, and then multiply that by 17 1/2.  Yeah, we pretty much blew your best times out the front door.

 

Okay, so maybe it wasn't that good, but it was still pretty spectacular.

 

We started out with a picnic and photo op.

Then this year for the first time, we tried their corn maze.  It was different than any corn maze I've tried before.  First, you wander around getting lost...

 

...then you have to find these four posts with numbers on them to get a code...

...the code is your key to get out of maze part 1...

...and then you repeat the process until you complete part 2 and end the maze.  We found out from the corn maze staff that the record time was 22 min.  Our time was better than that by 12 minutes (plus or minus one hour).

 

After the corn maze, we picked this cute little pink pumpkin found in the patch.  Have you ever seen such a cute pumpkin?  Not I.

 

Finally, on our way out the door, we noticed our new-only-been-used-once picnic tablecloth spread out on our previously used picnic table.  I had to sheepishly pull it out from behind a nursing mother and her three wee ones, but at least we got it back.

 

(Have I mentioned that every year Luis and I accidentally throw away our car registration after putting the stickers on the car?  Sometimes we're not very "mart.")

 

After this experience, I realized that my missy needs a winter hat.  Mother dear guilted me into making one so I produced the following cap.  She laughs at herself in the mirror everytime I put it on her head.  So either she likes it or she doesn't like it.  One of the two.

 

 

((Just in case you're wondering, YES, my older sister really did get married on my birthday and YES I really did have to stand in line all night and YES I did grumble and complain about it and YES I cried when my mom brought in our store-bought birthday cake instead of the usual home-made one and YES I should've been more happy to spend my birthday on temple grounds and YES I've given Charisse a hard time about getting hitched on my birthday for years now and YES I probably always will.  I love you Charisse))

Pumpkins, Needles, and Mexicans

OcToBeR FuN

First, 

Luis and I went to a pumpkin patch.

Despite careful planning, we got there too late at night and weren't able to pick our own pumpkin...lame.  So we had to content ourselves by pretending to pick our own pumpkin instead.  Yes, there were people walking by wondering what we were doing squatting in the middle of the picnic area.

Later, we carved our dear pumpkin.  Have you noticed Luis often gets this manic look in his eyes?  I have.  It's creepy!

Second,

Question:  What do you do when your final is over and you have an entire day off school?

Answer:  Go to your wife's 2 hour pregnancy glucose testing for moral support!

Yes, this appointment was scheduled to last 2 hours, and yes, I did convince Luis to come with me.  We actually had a TON of fun thanks to some smart planning by yours truly.  We started off with several rounds of Battleship (which we brought from home), much to the curious glances of the entire waiting room.  Next, we raced each other with some Halloween word searches and crosswords.

Then, we tried our hands at creating mazes for each other.  The difference between our creations was quite comical   Surprisingly, mine is the one on the right.  Luis's attempts are on the left.  I had to remind him that I'm not 3.

2 1/2 hours + 4 needles later we finally got to go.  

We ended our "date" with a trip to the not-so-local Cafe Rio.  It was yum yum YUM!

Third,

Speaking of food, check out my random Halloween-themed grub.  Next year, I plan to try even more throughout the month.

Spiderweb Pizza

Candy Corn Cookies

Witch Finger Pizza Sticks

Finally,

this month we had some Halloween parties to attend.

We've been thinking for months now about the perfect Halloween costumes, but since we couldn't think of anything, we just decided to be ourselves.

Despite my Hispanic roots, I've never had black hair.  For a more authentic look, we used black hair spray to get me some black hair.  WARNING:  BLACK HAIR SPRAY IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!  I like long, hot showers, but 45 minutes spent in black water is not my idea of a relaxing evening...not to mention having to spend another 15 minutes bleaching our stained tub.