Oh Yes....Love the Costumes!

After the trick or treat tour we thought it would be a good idea to get some costume pictures. Adelle loved being Arwen. Don't you love the shoes? According to her they are her "dream shoes". They light up and everything. She figured they would be great on Halloween and could light our way.

My demure Lydia. She may be outgrowing the dress. She is growing up way to fast! She looked stunning as usual.

We had to get several shots of the Steampunk dress since it is a new piece in the Oates costume closet.

I LOVE this costume!

I put together a pin with dangley keys to go with the chains.

The dress has several pieces. A skirt, a long jacket, and a corset.

The chain is attached to a Mickey Mouse pocket watch. Though it doesn't entirely match steampunk, it was fun to carry it around. It belonged to my dad.

I love all the pleating at the bottom.

And can you beat the colors! I got a lot of comments on this costume. I'm sure I will be wearing it again.

Trick or Treat Visits

The Saturday before Halloween we decided it would be fun to take the girls out in costume and do some early trick or treating. We weren't looking for extra candy, but rather a chance to visit. We stopped first at Grandma Julie's house. I should have remembered to take pictures. I just adore Grandma Julie! We visited for a bit and gave her a late birthday present. She gave us a yummy mummy cake from Schmidt's Bakery.

After Grandma Julie's we stopped at Great Grandma Walter's. She was really looking forward to the girls coming. I remembered to get pictures there. Adelle was Arwen this year. Wes made this dress for Lydia several years ago and Adelle really wanted to wear it. She even had the butterfly crown that I made years ago.
Violet was little Elmo. It was actually Adelle's costume years ago. She ran all around Grandma's apartment and it was hard to snap a picture of her.

Wes put all the energy this Halloween into my costume. It is a steampunk dress. Never heard of it? Steampunk is a fictional era or style combining the Victorian era with more technological advances. Most of the machines would have been steam operated since that is the technology that would have existed, but everything is taken to the next level. So the clothing style is Victorian slightly morphed. It is my favorite costume that Wes has made for me so far!

Lydia really enjoyed wearing her medieval dress. It was much more comfortable to wear in colder weather with all of the layers.

Wes didn't dress up this year. Honestly it has been a few years since I've been able to get him to dress up. He always runs out of time to make something for himself. I'm trying to convince him to make a steampunk outfit for next year.

We all had to get a picture with Grandma Walter. She was so happy to see us. So happy in fact that she even took us to a few of her neighbors.

Our last stop on the trick or treat tour was Grandma and Grandpa Oates. Grandpa always gets out the camera when the girls stop by. Ellen had been sick and I know it was great for her to see my munchkins.

Violet went straight for the piano. Lydia and Adelle joined in too. While it wasn't exactly music they still had fun.

Grandpa even took a moment to read to Violet.

From there it was nap time for our little red monster. We headed home and were surprised with Halloween cards in the mail. Thanks Grandma Julie. We ate lunch and even munched on the mummy!

Meet me at the State Fair!

The State Fair is becoming a fun family tradition. Every year we think of something to enter. Wes entered Lydia's Medieval dress this year. He won a blue ribbon!!! It was pretty exciting.

I am so spoiled to have a husband who can sew and make us all costumes. After looking at Wes' blue ribbon we decided to walk around the fair and find other fun things. Our first stop was the animals.

Violet was absolutely mesmerized by all the different animals. She had fun making all the different animal noises.

Lydia liked this "English" rooster.

Violet was especially excited with the goats.

Wes got Violet out of her stroller so she could pet the animals as well.

Lydia and Adelle liked looking at the animals as well. Poor Adelle met a cranky sheep though. She tried to pet him and he headbutted her hand into the railing. She was brave though and didn't cry.

We were all quite surprised by Father Goose. His geese were trained and he was able to get them to walk wherever he wanted.

Lydia's favorite animals are the pigs. These baby pigs were quite adorable.

We next headed to the produce building. They had a see through beehive. We also bought some fresh, local honey. It is SO good!

There were some HUGE pumpkins this year. I can't imagine all the work that this would take.

Adelle and I headed over to a building where you could fish outside in a pond, but the fishing had closed. Instead she looked at antlers and stuffed animals.

We met up with Wes and Lydia at the Art building and then we went to the craft building for our last stop.

Lydia and Adelle had a great time filling out a paper about the exhibits so they could get their own Rainbow Ribbons.

A few days later Lydia and I decided to enter the C & H Cookie Contest. You had to enter an original recipe so I came up with Root Beer Float Cookies! Lydia and Adelle were great tasters.

Lydia, Adelle and I had fun going to the fair together. It is an entirely different experience to enter a cook off instead of a regular entry. The prize money is bigger too.

You get to watch as the judges taste the cookies and scribble on their clipboards. There were about 10 different entries.

I didn't think we would win anything since it was our first year entering, and surely other people make better cookies.

We were absolutely astonished when we one First Place!! They really liked the originality of the recipe! We won a snazzy apron, a big blue ribbon and $75!

We had to get a picture of Lydia in front of the blue ribbon dress Wes made.

While Wes was very excited for us, I think part of him was a little miffed. He spent months working on the dress and got a smaller ribbon and a $4 prize. We had just made up a recipe the morning off and taken an hour to make the cookies and we were rewarded handsomely! I guess that is what happens when you have a big company sponsoring the contest. We did have to agree to sign over our recipe. Perhaps some day we will see it on a C&H Sugar bag :)

Blink 182...or what was I thinking?

Remember how I mentioned that I have been winning a lot of things through the radio recently? Well one day I thought it might be fun to win a some concert tickets. I had vaguely heard of Blink 182 so I tried and won.

The concert was held at the USANA ampitheatre. We met up with Tysen who is the DJ at 101.9 The End and the other winners. The first thing we did was wait in line to meet the band. Oh...did I mention I won backstage passes as well. Security was quite tight. We couldn't take pictures, but they did give us a photo for the band members to sign. It felt pretty formal and I had no idea what to say to the band members.

After the meet and greet we found our seats and started listening to the opening bands. There were a lot!

Maybe some of the band names should have tipped us off that it might be an interesting evening for us. There was Rancid, and My Chemical Romance, and Blink 182. The music wasn't bad. It was some of the crudeness and language.

Blink 182 would have been SO much better if they would have avoided talking in between songs. The stuff they were saying was beyond inappropriate.

We stuck it out to the end and didn't wait for the encore performance. It was a good lesson in "Just because you can win it doesn't mean you should".

Magna Arts Festival

On August 27 our little family headed to the Magna Arts Festival. Lydia was out of town with her dad so we missed having her with us. This is the second year Magna has held their arts festival. It was a little bigger this year. We enjoyed stopping into the UMFA truck and looking at this marvel! Isn't it amazing!

It was a VERY warm day so the walk to and from the festival was hot, but we managed. At least Violet had her water and cereal. Adelle picked a flower on the way and shared it with her little sister.

The folks at the festival set up a table where the kids could color.
Violet and Wes hung out in the shade.

Adelle decided to draw herself as a beautiful princess!

We had a fun time at the festival. Adelle even bought some different rocks and minerals. We even put a bit of money in the jar at the Magna Museum so it will hopefully grow.