I had to laugh...

Ok, so I know I already posted today but I had to laugh to see how my parents were handling their trick-or-treaters this year. My parents only receive 2-10 trick-or-treaters a year, this year only 3. Unfortunately my parents don't live in a lively, high traffic, trick-or-treating neighborhood. There aren't sidewalks, no street lamps, lots of hills, steep driveways, and STAIRS, LOTS of stairs! Usually my mom likes to make it worth wild for the few kids that they get. When we moved here it started out as big hand fulls of candy, then she went on to buy full size candy bars, this year she decided to give out entire packages of candy to EACH child! Normally a child gets one maybe two pieces per house but not when they come to the Hyde household, you really get hooked up there! Keep that in mind my local friends ;-D

These are the packages she handed out. The kids got to pick their favorite and were shocked when she put the whole package in their sacks.

My dad opened the balcony and put spooky Halloween music blaring out the door. That with the Giants game in the background I'm shocked he even heard the door bell!

Halloween 2010

Phew. Today is Halloween and we are finally winding down from all the spooktacular festivities. My sister Cynthia flew in from Wyoming with her kids so they could spend the weekend with their cousins, ever since Friday afternoon we have been non stop with activities! Tyler had a class party Friday afternoon, boys and girls club party after school, school fall festival Friday evening, then trunk-or-treat, and then a haunted house! Ok that was day 1. Saturday we made puff pancakes, played with the kids, then went to Tyler's soccer game (in the rain). After that we ran a few small errands and went home to continue the fun. We decorated sugar cookies, made suckers, watched Hocus Pocus, and then went to ANOTHER trunk-or-treat. We then came home to have homemade pizza and celebrate my brother David's 25th birthday. The kids bobbed for apples, played Halloween bingo, Halloween matching game, and ate tons of candy. Bedtime came WAY too late so needless to say we were exhausted this morning. Good thing it was Stake Conference so we got to sleep in a little! Cynthia and the kids flew back this morning, it was a short trip but we were glad they could come! We had a good time!

Hagrid, Harry Potter, and Darth Vader at the schools fall festival

Dekeypoo and Jenna-bow-benna

Princess Leia and Harry Potter

Hagrid, Harry Potter, and Luna Lovegood

The cousins! Next Halloween we will have one more added to this bunch!

Queen Amidala, Darth Vader, and Princess Leia (Cynthia and her kids)

The whole gang!

Deke doing the "Napoleon Dynamite" dance in his moon boots.

Decorating sugar cookies!

One of the trunk or treats - and grandma helping Tyler cheat.

Bobbing for apples, who wants to go first?!

Jenna just drank the water lol

The girls.

THE MAN BLOG

Did you know that my cute husband has a cute blog too? He started it when we started dating but didn't do much with it...until now! He's becoming quite the little blogger! Late last night I asked if he was coming to bed, his response: "Yeah in a minute, I wanna blog first". Ok, I think its really cute. He calls it his "MAN BLOG". He wants it to be about man projects, parenting lessons, and well... just MAN stuff. Are you intrigued yet? Check it out HERE and become a follower!

Things I made at our recent ward craft night

First, I made this CUTE chalk board menu board. Sometimes I look at things like this and wonder if I'll even use them? But ya know what, even if I don't its still CUTE!

Second we have "reverence cards". They're great little laminated cards to help keep children occupied during church. The first one has a card of all the modern prophets and lots of fun facts about them. The second one has the 13 articles of faith, and the third has beautiful pictures by Greg Olsen with spiritual quotes on the back. Tyler loved them!
Third, I made a family home evening binder. It includes 10 lessons on neglected virtues.
Last but not least, cute little girl flower hair clips! I've always wanted to learn how to make these, even though I don't have girls. I've already started buying supplies so I can make more as gifts.

Halloween Candy Corn Bark

This recipe welcomes little hands! This is a great recipe to involve the little ones with, its so fun and super easy! I snagged the recipe from this site. I however made a few changes....

Here are all the ingredients I used.

It called for Oreo cookies with the orange filling; I check 3 grocery stores and could not find them. Disappointed? VERY!!! I used the green ones instead and I think they worked just fine. Tyler here is demonstrating the first step: Using a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper break up Oreo's and lay flat.

Second we broke up pretzels and laid them along with peanut M&M's on the Oreo's. The recipe called for raisins but I hate raisins. Plus in the reviews several people suggested using either peanuts or M&M's instead of raisins. So I used both :)

Third we melted the white chocolate. I used our pampered chef double broiler, its amazing for melting chocolate!

You'll want to remove the chocolate from the heat when it looks like this (still with small chunks). White chocolate burns easy and we don't want that!

Then you evenly spread it over all the goodies laid in the cookie sheet.

Lastly you scatter candy corn and sprinkles on top of the white chocolate.

Place in the fridge until firm...

Then enjoy this beautiful treat!

And then go for a run in the morning because this is FULL of calories! :)

Family Home Evening

As I have mentioned in the past we don't always do FHE on Monday's. Well... I shouldn't say that because we almost always have a lesson on Monday night but Deke is never home. Unfortunately every semester he ends up with a class on Monday night. So aside from our lessons on Monday's we occasionally have a mid week family activity, its another FHE for the Madsen's. Lately I have become obsessed with craft blogs and I've found tons of projects I would love to attempt someday. Today we are attempting a project from a great new blog I found, see here for the original tutorial.

For materials I bought one t-shirt (the other we already had), 2 cans of spray paint, and painters tape. All together I spent about $17

Tyler created this design all by himself. He was quite proud!

And we paint!

Tyler stuck a piece of tape to Deke's booty when he was bent over. I was able to snap a pic before he removed it lol

Tyler "helping" Deke with his shirt

Taking funny pictures of Tyler while we waited for Deke to finish up.

TA-DA!!!! This was our first time ever doing this and I think that Tyler's turned out

AH-MAZING!!!

He can't wait to wear his "new" shirt to school tomorrow!

If you can't already tell by Deke's face, he was not satisfied with his end results. I think it turned out just fine!

This is a FUN and inexpensive (especially if you already have the shirts!) project that all ages can enjoy. We will definitely do this again!

Our October so far...

This is Tyler's second year in soccer. He BEGGED me to sign him up for months, on the first day of his practice he said "why did you sign me up, I hate soccer!". Really Tyler? Well its too late now, I drag him to practice every Wednesday and to his game every Saturday. He doesn't seem to mind his games so much but he hates practice. Next year I want to get him on a team with some friends in hopes that it was change his tune about the sport. We'll see....

After his game last Saturday we went to Apple Hill to get out harvest fix. As always we went to High Hill Ranch and it was beyond crowded! I still can't believe how many people congregate to Camino during the month of October. It was so bad that they closed the 3 exits to get into Apple Hill and requested people to take a transit in. We went didn't like that idea so we found our own way in.

Tyler on top a 300 pound pumpkin!

Kids just love this dirt slop in High Hill Ranch

I have a tradition that every year I get one craft from a booth in Apple Hill. This year I bought a snow globe and peacock feathers. The feathers were a small purchase so it didn't count as my craft. ;-)

I don't know why peacock feathers always grab my attention. I just love the vibrant colors and have always wanted to get some. They were pretty affordable so I thought I'd give them a shot, even though I don't know what to do with them!

My new Christmas decoration: A lantern musical snow globe :)

Us relaxing on the grass slop watching Tyler run around the pond.

A couple of weeks ago Tyler found a bag of flower seeds and told me he was going to plant them. I never gave it much thought until I found these beauties next to our lemon tree! He planted them, watered them, and even put a rock border around them! Nice job Tyler!