I'm Baaaaack!!

WOW I had an AMAZING time in Texas with Karyn!!! I had a hard time leaving her! Although, I missed Ben & the kids a bunch! Ben even greeted me at the airport with these gorgeous flowers!!! Thanks Honey!! He also worked on some *top secret* projects while I was gone, which turned out to be fabulous {more on that later}!

Back to my trip with Karyn! Thanks a million for letting me come stay with you & hang out & do fun Halloween projects & stay up til super late! I LOVED every minute while I was there with ya!! You MUST come visit me in Arizona!!!

Ok, so Karyn's hosting an awesome Halloween party for a lot of the kids in the neighborhood {and parents}! She's transforming her garage into the scary party place! Well, I tried to help her with some of her fun projects!

While we were at the grocery store, we saw some men trimming the bushes out front. Well, there was a big huge branch that was all dried up and we asked to have it to take home with us. Why you ask? We wanted to make witch's brooms, of course! They were the cheapest decorations we made! All the ones we saw at the store were like $10-20 each.

I think they turned out GREAT!
Her neighborhood was having a night out party with tons of BBQ chicken & brisket, plus a big bounce house & a fun neighbor who painted faces & made balloon animals!

Here's my little buddy, Natalie, with her arm painted & her kitty & dolphin balloons!
Aleksis with her beautiful face & arm painted with her laser blaster balloon!

Trever didn't want any paint near him, but he did enjoy his laser blaster balloon :)
Me & my little friend, Natalie! Isn't she a cutie pie?
We spent some time at one of Karyn's friends' house (Teri). Her kids have a pet snake, so Aleksis & Trever wanted to hold it.

They did a great job with the snake & weren't scared at all. I am not a huge fan of snakes, so I only looked but didn't touch!

Here's what we were doing while the kids played with the snake. Teri is an incredible artist with stained glass & soldering! So, she let us play with some of her scraps.

Here's what we made! Little stained glass spiders! These are mine! Aren't they AWESOME?! Karyn & Teri both helped me with those stinkin' legs! They didn't want to attach properly. But I learned to solder by myself too. It was so much FUN!! Very time consuming but FUN! Thanks Teri for helping us!! You're so NICE!!
Now I just need to figure out where I'm going to hang them!

While Karyn had a cub scout den meeting at church, I played with the kiddos in one of the nurseries!
Here's some treats that we made! Cool pretzel witch's fingers, mummies, spider webs, ghosts, jack-o-lanterns, etc!
One of the biggest projects we started was making tombstones for her front yard graveyard! Karyn went to a stucco place & got a bunch of 2-inch thick polystyrene insulation. We also got a styrofoam cutter from Michaels. I cut out 22 tombstones, Teri used her solder gun to engrave words & pictures and we all helped paint them! We didn't have time to finish them while I was there, but here's our favorite! Funny, huh? All the rest are scary/creepy ones! I can't wait to see how the other ones turned out!

One of the last days I was there, we actually had time to spend just the two of us! We went shopping & to lunch at Chili's! That was a great day! We've never gone out just the two of us!
This was on Sunday, we were all gussied up for church. That was fun because I got to see many familiar faces at church.
Awww, Karyn & her oldest, Aleksis! She is such a sweetie!
Mmmm we made caramel apples too! They look a little droopy cuz the caramel was melting off quickly with all the treats, but they were still delicious! I had a few bites of one so the rest was for her & her family!
The last night I was there we stayed up until 4:30am and had to get up at 6:30am to get the kids to school then me to the airport. I was so tired when I got home! haha. I wish I could've stayed even longer, one week just wasn't enough time! But I do appreciate all that Ben did to take care of the kids and house while I was away! Thanks BEN!! Thanks again Karyn I had a BLAST!! And Good Luck with your Halloween party next week!!