Halloween Trunk or Treat

We had trunk or treat tonight at the church. It was the first one that I've ever been to!

Aaron dressed up as a sexy professor.

Oh wait...no. He always looks like that.
I was an Indian princess...or maybe just a plain Indian. I wasn't TOO dressed up. Don't ask me what I was doing with my arms in this picture...I have no idea.
It was a pretty fun night and a great way to give all of our candy to our favorite little ones (of the children that came). I was a little irritated by the number of adults who brought their kids but didn't pass out candy. I mean, I have ZERO kids and I passed out candy....which is probably why we were the only people without kids there...it is all starting to make sense. This activity wasn't for us.

Oh well. We went and had a good time anyway. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Stake Conference October

This was our second Stake Conference in the passed three months. Last time we got to see Elder Ballard. This time, we got to see President Monson!

Clarise and Geoff came with us because we had them over for the Halloween party. Everyone else stayed home because they were too tired. Which is WEAK because I stayed up till 4 and I went...and Clarise was sick and she did it.

Aaron and I looking happy with our blue eyes. (Do you like the baby in the back photobombing us?)
It was a super amazing meeting! I loved seeing the prophet and especially hearing what he had to say!

He talked about reaching out to people in our community and bringing them back to Christ. I will have to work on that.

Halloween Party Set Up Committee

I took ZERO pictures the whole party. How lame is that? I was too busy having fun and being in the host of the party, so I didn't really have the time. Only the people came dressed up: Leo (who was the cutest baby candy corn), Dee (sexy pirate) and me (Indian). So yeah...you are missing out on that.

I did take pictures of setting up for the party and...Halloween in general.

Kaitlyn and Geoff got to work on making chocolate covered pretzels. I was so surprised that they liked doing it so much. I would walk into the kitchen and if they saw me go in there, they would ask, "Can we make the pretzels?!?!" They did a really great job.

We all finished up the cardboard graves that I had started at the beginning of the month and never had the time to complete the project. They turned out looking amazing!
This is Aaron setting up our tombstone. Clarise wrote it for us and isn't it the sweetest thing ever? I really want to put that on our real tombstones in 70+ years. Oh and that is an actually quote from Aaron when he and I started dating. He is such a weirdo.

Clarise is putting up cobwebs on the side of the house. You know...for my cute spiders to live in!

The house looks awesome and I'm so glad that I had the help of my friends. The party was so much fun and I loved the games we played and the laughs we had. Maybe if you are lucky, in a couple days, I will show you the pictures that the guests drew for a game.

Katrina's 23rd Birthday

Surprisingly...I had a pretty good birthday. It didn't start out wonderful though.

I woke up in the morning in pain...which was awful. I couldn't breathe it was so bad.
(Dramatic Reenactment)

I called Aaron in a panic and I tried to explain that I was clearly DYING! But he told me to calm down and to take some pain meds and go back to sleep. I was SURE that I was dying of appendicitis (since it was on the right side) and that his uncompassionate nature was going to be the end of me. I didn't take pain meds but I laid down and did some deep breathing and the pain started to ease.

So I got dressed and headed to school! After class, I went to work! AND I brought cookies for the kids in the class to celebrate my birthday! All of the preschoolers sang me Happy Birthday and it really was the sweetest thing in the world. Then I got to play with DOMINOES!!

About this time I started "dying" again. My boss told me to go to the hospital because she didn't want me to die there. I thought that I could muscle through. But pretty soon, I was on the floor during nap time silently screaming while rubbing a child's back and I figured that I should go to the hospital.

I called Aaron and he came to get me. By the time he got there, I was feeling better but still really sore. We headed to the ER and after about three hours and a urine test, blood test, and CT scan later, we found out that I passed a kidney stone AND that I have another one sitting at the ready to start its trip out of my body either tomorrow or never.

Plus, since Aaron took me to the emergency room, we got to spend more time together that day than we thought we would be able too. That was a fun treat. We were probably laughing to much in our "room" for people to think that I was too sick. Like when I "stopped breathing". Hospital inside joke!! Quick Version: Apparently when the nurse walked in to look at my vitals I stopped breathing without thinking about it. I held my breath for some reason. And....she became concerned. She was like, "Are you holding your breathe right now?" "No...well...not that I know of." "You look to good to not be breathing." "Thank you?" "Oh, there you go. You are breathing again." (My mom might find that funny since I would stop breathing while taking spelling tests at school in the 3rd grade)

I went home feeling tired but SUPER relieved that I didn't have to have surgery to get my appendix taken out. I had WAY too much stuff to do during the weekend and the coming week to be cut up and not feeling well. So in this case, a kidney stone was MUCH BETTER than what it could have been.

Friends came over for a little jewelry party and for my birthday Halloween party the next day, so I got to spend the night talking with friends and laughing and enjoying each other's company. I got to buy myself some next hair clips to enjoy from my friend who does Paparazzi Jewelry and talk with my friends. The day ended on such a high note.

Not to mention ALL of the wonderful people on Facebook, the phone, and to my face, who wished me Happy Birthday! I have the greatest people in my world to help me celebrate life and I'm so blessed to be able to stay in contact with them.

Primary Halloween Carnival

I wish that I had been able to walk around and take pictures of everything that was going on and all the games that the children played. But I was inside of my own room working the PHOTO booth! It was a lot of fun, I've got to say.

I was in charge of setting up a simple spooky background and this is what I came up with. I actually wish that I could have gotten more pictures of me!

Aaron and I had a lot of fun tonight. Most of the time, Aaron was gone talking to some friends but I had a lot of good company.

I'm so happy that people in the ward know enough about me to ask me to take pictures. It is so great feeling like I'm really part of this community and that I can add something.

We got to hang out with friends (big and little) and we got some free dinner. After being at the church all evening, we were totally ready for bed when we got home. But I must say that I LOVE Halloween season.

Primary Program 2011

We are done with the Primary Program!! YEAH!!!

As always with the 4-5 year olds, it was really fun and also really...stressful, all at the same time.

Some highlights:

* One girl in our class is TERRIFIED of speaking in public. I told her a story of one time, I had to sing in front of people in church and I was really scared and started balling my eyes out. My dad got up and carried me out (THANKS DAD!). I told her that I understood and that if she didn't want to talk, I wasn't going to make her. But if she could be brave (and I explained what brave was), I would go up with her and stand beside her.

Today at the first run through, she was too scared. The second run through, I was really surprised when she got up to give it a try. And I was SUPER surprised when she got up during sacrament meeting and started walking to the pulpit. As she passed by me she said, "Can you stand with me again?" For you, my dear, anything. I was so impressed with her!

* This was during the sacrament. One boy passed the bread tray to the girl sitting next to him. By that I mean, he put it on her lap and she wasn't ready to hold something so it started slipping. Some people in the congregation were probably wondering why I suddenly DOVE/lugged toward this girl. I probably looked like I was going to attack her or something. I saved it, right as it was about it go off. We only lost one piece of bread.

*This same boy who failed at passing the bread also reached forward to touch the strings inside of the piano. NOOOO!!! That could have messed up the whole program.

Other than that, the kids did a really great job doing their parts. I was actually pretty impressed with how well they were able to sit so reverently for 2 hours in the same seats and working on the program for 3 hours. Even I didn't feel reverent by the time the program started. I'm starting to look at the kids that we will be getting in a couple months and I'm excited to start working with them. We have the best calling in the world.

Starting Halloween Inside

Aaron and I started working on decorations inside of the house today! We are having two parties at our place this week and so we wanted to make sure that we had the right ambiance to party for Halloween. Even rooms need a costume.

My favorite thing to do is to take a normal area and changing enough to only be spooky if you really look.

For example:

This shelf goes from this fan and Russian nesting dolls, to a shelf like this:

It is so fun to change it up like that.
Even the guest room is getting changed up.

Did you notice on the shelf? We got the ginger bread haunted house from the family that "Boo"ed up in that shelf! We think that it is too cute to eat and we wanted to share it in a safe place.
I will keep you posted on what we do to decorate for the party.
I've also started working on yummy treats.

Don't you love these chocolate graves? I love that they go with the cemetery theme that we have going on.

I'm planning on getting some prints like this made for our wall. Isn't it great?

It is getting so Halloween-y in our house! I love that I married someone who loves this holiday as much as I do.

New Roof For Our Ghetto Shed

When we first moved into our house, Aaron built a shed in the side yard to keep our lawn mower and other outdoor tools out of the elements. It was pretty ingenious really. A perfect example of using what you have.

So, when we ended up with extra shingles from the roof project (that finally was 100% finished), Aaron decided that he would use it to cover the shed so that we could get the most out of our money.

He decided that he would work on that today before the snow starts (probably in a couple weeks) and while we had nice weather.

We now have a super awesome roof for our make shift shed. The wood won't rot out now! Keeping all of our stuff safe. It is an awesome example of how handy Aaron is to have around. We are making improvements all over the place!

Nothing Sucks...

...Like a Dyson.

Aaron and I have been talking about getting a new vacuum for awhile, that could handle our doggie pet hair. The other day we found a REALLY great deal on a Dyson vacuum and so we hopped right on that. Today it came into the mail!!!

I am SO EXCITED! If you know anything about me, than you know that I LOVE vacuuming. I've been going room by room cleaning up, just so that I can vacuum the floor. It works great and I'm so glad that we got it. This Dyson is tons better than the vacuum that we had first.

Halloween Graveyard

Aaron and I decided that this year, we would be doing something a little cheaper and less work than the other two years. That is when we came up with a graveyard. We only have the decorations outside that won't be ruined by rain.
I painted some spiders in the window to go with our creepy graveyard.

This is my favorite decoration! I love how this skeleton is waving at children as they walk around the neighborhood.
And of course, we put the spiders out! It is their third year and I must say that they have been the best Halloween decoration, money wise.
This little guy is on his third year too. He didn't have a tree branch to hang on this year because the city came by and trimmed our trees. He got an honored spot on the door.


I'm painting some other graves to go out on Halloween day. They are made of cardboard so if it rains...they will fall apart so we are holding off on putting them out.

Update: Remember the adorable skeleton flamingos? Yeah...some kids totally stole them this afternoon The thing that bugs me the most, is that they left the metal sticks to put them in the ground. So...they are probably going to go into the trash can and that is wasteful.

Shutterfly Photobook: Mexico

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How Our Garden Did

I usually blog a couple times in the spring about what we are planting and how it is all going...but I never really give you a harvest post about how it all went.

In 2010, we had raspberries and zucchini and that was the extent of our garden. Sort of a sad turn out. I wish that I could say this year has been better, but alas, our garden is lame. (Also, some pictures are really weird looking because I didn't really give them the time and energy that they deserved since they were just off the point and shoot...sorry)
You might remember that we had a really good amount of raspberries again this year.

Also, my transplanted raspberry bush that at the beginning of the spring, I realized that I didn't kill last fall, got some raspberries on it. I'm letting that plant get a little over grown so that next year, it will come in big and strong.

I got my sexiest model to show you the awesome tomato plants (Don't ask me why he is making such a crazy face).


we have been getting a constant supply of cherry tomatoes for the past couple months. We go out and grab a handful and through it into our salads. We've loved it. We also planted bigger tomatoes but they would all rot on the vine. My grandmother told me to water the plant less but with all the rain we have been getting, I had no way of following that advice. I mean, I didn't water it ALL summer. How could I water it less?

And that was pretty much the end of our garden. We had planted, sun flowers, cucumber, zucchini and beans but when we went to California, they cooked in the sun and that was the end of that. It might have been my fault since I planted them so late in the season.

We had some other interesting things happen in our garden this year. We let some weeds take over. This one weed ended up having BEAUTIFUL flowers. Absolutely beautiful.

The weird part is, they turned into...

WILD BEANS!!! And yes, I did eat them. There were a couple times that Aaron freaked out when he walked outside and I was eating stuff. He thinks that they might be dangerous. We will have to agree to disagree. This one that I took pictures of is lame. I think that next year, I will help these beans along because there is nothing that I like more than food that I get for free, that I don't work for.

Also, while I was out taking pictures of these wild beans, I found something else that was slightly misplaces.

Stray tomatoes? Where are you coming from?!?!

There you have it. God wants us to have a garden, and so He worked really hard this year to give us a free garden. Next year, our garden should be pretty awesome...or at least better. Because we are all trying to inch closer to perfection.

Fall Hike (Waterfall Canyon)

I know that in August, I wrote about our "Last Summer Hike" and I guess that it was. Today we went on another hike and I guess that it is the first fall hike. Aaron had half of the day off and I had the whole day off of work as well, so we decided to go on a hike.

It was the longest trail that we did so far together and so it was kind of like the hike we were building up to the whole summer!

We chose a trail that we almost took the cub scouts. We figured that we would try it out first and maybe take them on it next summer. It is called Waterfall Canyon.

The first half of the trail, there was no water and no shade so we had two very thirsty dogs.

It was so amazing to see the changing colors. I know that I talk about hating winter but it is incredible to see all of the seasons.
Pippen was so excited when we finally made it to the waterfall. Look at his super model poses!

Even Aaron is looking epic next to that waterfall.
Family picture time! I'm so glad that there were other people up there so that we could get a picture.
Isn't Utah beautiful? We are so lucky to be able to live here. Every time we go on a hike, I feel such overwhelming love for this beautiful state.

We Got "Boo"ed!

Aaron and I decided that this year, we were going to get our neighborhood in the Halloween spirit by starting a neighborhood "Boo". I'm pretty sure that the people who we "boo"ed don't read my blog so I feel pretty comfortable talking about it.

We were really surprised that Tuesday night, we came home and found this beautiful creation on our door step with the proper ghost attached.

We knew instantly who it was and it warms my heart to know that this family thought of us to give stuff to. I love all of the wonderful finishing touches that the boys put on it!


Best house ever! But that means this Thursday, we are going to need to make some more boxes of goodies to pass out.

General Conference

Aaron and I were very blessed to get the chance to go to the Sunday Morning session at the Conference Center! My dad was able to get tickets to go and asked if we would be interested in going. Ummmm....YES!

We had to wake up at 6:00am to go...which is a bit earlier than I'm use to getting up for conference now that I live in Utah. It was definitely worth the sacrifice though!

We got to be there for Music and the Spoken Word at 9:30am. It is amazing that we got to listen to one of the greatest choirs in THE WORLD. The music is so much better in person. So much better.

And we got to sit so close! Not super close...but, closer than I thought we were going to be.

The speakers in conference were all so good. I mean, this was an awesome two days of conference but Sunday Morning was the best session, if I do say so myself. I'm so glad that I got to have my two favorite men with me. It was especially wonderful to be sitting next to my dad during Sister Dalton's talk. I could look at this man who was such a great example to me and look at Aaron who is going to be that same great example to our children.

After the session, I got to walk around temple square with these great men. It is so amazing to me that my parents were sealed in this temple and now I'm sealed to my wonderful husband in this beautiful building. A temple marriage is a wonderful goal for people to aim for. I love it when I get a chance to go back with Aaron, even if it is just to walk around outside and think about the day we got to start forever.

This weekend was a spiritual feast and I'm so glad that I got the chance to see my dad again and to enjoy conference together.

The whole time, I was thinking that Aaron and I get to do the coolest things.