Mermaids, Fairies and Halloween!

When I asked Teya what she wanted to be for Halloween this year she said a Mermaid (of course!) I tried to talk her into something different since she was a mermaid last year but her heart was set on it. Luckily she consented to be the Barbie Mermaid instead of Ariel so we could at least have pictures of her in two different mermaid costumes.

My other girly girl wanted to be a Fairy. And a very cute fairy at that : )

They were excited to pose in front of our party backdrop. My pretty little princesses.

And one more from Taber's phone. I love that Brinley still does the scrunchie cheese face!

We took them to the ward Halloween party on Saturday. They had a chili cook off, dancing, and cake decorating. Every table had 5 minutes to decorate a cake. Teya really got into it and was beaming when our table one "Most Artistic."

Then we headed off to decorate our rooms for the trick or treaters. Someone snapped this shot of me on my way to decorate and it's the only picture I made it into that night, so here's the proof that I was there too ; )

Taber took the girls on the trick or treating rounds. It's so fun now that they both know the drill and can cruise from door to door without any help. (well, besides a few suggestions on what candies to pick. I mean come on! Brinley kept trying to grab Whoppers when there were Reese's peanut butter cups in there! Someone had to guide her towards the light)

Love this shot of Brinley and her preschool buddy William. So cute!

After all the fun Teya fell asleep in the car with a sucker in her mouth! How do you fall asleep with candy in your mouth?!

Brinley saw us laughing and taking pictures of Teya so she said, 'Take a picture of me!" Then she pretended to sleep with a sucker in her mouth too. What a ham!

When we got home Teya woke up and the girls started counting and sorting their loot.
This year they looked over each other's goodies and started the bartering process. Somehow I have a feeling Teya's getting the better end of the trades.

It was an awesome Halloween, but all good things must come to an end. Finally Taber said no more candy for the night and this was Brinley's face after the announcement.

Minute to Win it Videos

First Video has Junk in your trunk, Dizzy Mummy, Elephant March, Hanky Panky, and Suck it up

Halloween Party Games Part 1 from Rigg Family on Vimeo.

Second Video with Nose Dive, Bite Me, Stack Attack, Don't blow it, and Face the Cookie

Halloween Party Games part 2 from Rigg Family on Vimeo.

Our 1st Annual Halloween Costume Party

Last weekend we threw our 1st annual costume party for adults. It turned out to be a huge success and I owe a lot of that to my awesome friend Mandy Pinneo, who is the queen of Halloween and coached me (through emails since she lives in California) on how to throw an awesome costume party. So thank you Mandy and thank you to everyone who came and made it so much fun!! Here are some pictures of the great costumes. We made it a contest so I saved the winners for the end!

Taber and I hosted the party as a pirate and his booty

Gangsters, Scooby doo,

Mike and Boo's Door from Monster's Inc., (excellent use of Mel's pregnant belly) and more pirates.

Facebook page, Joseph Smith and Emma,

Loofa sponge and Angel Moroni, Little Red riding hood and the wolf (after the attack)

Paul Bunyan and Babe, Fairy and Dilbert,

Legend of Zelda, and witch couple.

Skunks, Stairway to heaven and highway to hell,

Trinity and Neo from the Matrix, Magician and Rabbit in the hat.

The elders (as themselves) Marcie's 9 month prego belly trying to "jailbreak" and the warden, Flower and bee, psycho surgeon and "costumetic surgery" gone bad.

And now for the winners! The 3rd place prize went to Brandon and Laura with their awesome cotton candy and popcorn costumes.

2nd place went to Kendall and Kenta Hood, who played on their names and her very pregnant condition to be MotherHOOD Barbie (pregnant and barefoot edition) and her Ken-ta doll : )

And the grand prize went to Jenn and Casey with their amazing Grinch and Cindy Lou Hoo costumes. She seriously looks like she just walked off the Grinch movie set!! Perfection!

It was an awesome night and I was so happy to see how everyone really got dressed up. We ate lots of good food and played some great games (which can be seen in the post below) It was just a lot of fun and we can't wait to do it again next year!

Minute to Win it Party Games

The main game we played at our Halloween party was a home version of Minute to Win It. If you've never seen the show you should check it out on Youtube, pretty hilarious! Anyway, We had 4 teams and each team would send a person up to compete in physical challenges. If they could complete the challenge in less than a minute they scored a point for their team. I'm going to make a video of it to post later but here are some pictures to give you an idea.

Hanky Panky: Contestants had to empty an entire box of Kleenex, one tissue at a time using only one hand, in less than a minute.

Don't Blow It: Contestants had to blow up a balloon then use the air from deflating it to push 15 cups of the table.

Dizzy Mummy: Contestant had to unravel an entire roll of toilet paper using only their body without tearing the paper.

Suck it up: Contestants had to use a straw to suck up M&M's and place them on top of 4 straws. This one was super hard and one of my favorites to watch! Amazingly everyone pulled it off, some with just 1 second to spare!

Stack Attack: Contestants had to build a cup tower with 28 cups then collapse it and re-stack the cups in less than a minute.

Bite Me: Contestants had to use their mouths to transfer 5 bags (cut to increasingly lower heights ) to a table without touching any body part to the ground but their feet.

Elephant March: Contestants had to wear a pantyhose on their heads with a ball at the end and use it to knock over 8 bottles of water.

Junk in your Trunk: Contestant had to shake, jump, wiggle and contort to get 8 ping pong balls out of a Kleenex box that was tied to their waist.

Nose Dive: Contestants had to transfer 5 cotton balls from one end of the table to the other using petroleum jelly and their noses.

Face the Cookie: Contestants had to use the muscles in their face to slide a cookie from their forehead into their mouth without using their hands.

I think the pictures speak for themselves on how much fun this game was! Hopefully I can get the video up soon so you can see it in all it's live hilarious action! Good good times ; )

Fall in New England

Fall is at it's height in New England and I still can't get used to how amazingly beautiful it is. EVERYWHERE you go there are big, bright trees bursting with color. In Utah we had pretty colors but you had to drive up to the mountains to really see them. Out here we have them right in our backyard. Here's a few pics I took, they don't do it justice but you get the idea.

Here's a shot of our backyard

Another backyard view

This is right at the entrance of our neighborhood

This is as you're leaving our neighborhood.

The coolest thing is that there are so many trees here that no matter where you go you are spoiled by the incredible view. I wish I could take pictures of the freeways and the streets, so so pretty!

Annual pumpkin carving night

Last night was our annual pumpkin carving night. The girls are still too young to carve themselves but that didn't stop them from being front and center for all the carving action.

This shot was taken after Taber got the first lid off. I'm cracking up over Teya's new picture pose, cheek to shoulder with a head tilt. You'll see it again at the end of the post. She thinks it's like the ultimate way to look beautiful for picture taking.

And yes, Brinley is wearing wings and Teya is sporting a crown. They are as girly as it gets. I hope baby brother can survive the princess/fairy overload around here!

Teya grabbed the camera and took one of me. I'm glad there is proof that I was there for the carving too. ; ) I carved the kitty pumpkin and Taber did "Big Bertha" (the name Teya bestowed on our big pumpkin)

The girly girls thought the pumpkin guts were super disgusting. Teya was squealing and plugging her nose.

Finally I got them some kitchen gloves and they got brave enough to stick their hands in and dig out some seeds.

Geting the seeds ready for cooking. YUM!

And ta-da! Here are the finished pumpkins. (complete with Teya's "beautiful" head tilt pose ; )

I think they'll make a nice addition to our porch decorations this year.

Random Recaps

I wanted to put up a quick post of some of the fun things we did last week while Taber was out of town. On Friday I got to chaperone Teya's first preschool field trip. They went to the apple farm and it was fun seeing Teya with all her little friends.

The little girl on her right in the polka dots is her bestest best friend. We've already had to set up a few playdates because they cry every time they have to say goodbye.

Several cameras were going off at once so none of them knew where to look. Still cute to see Teya with all her little buddies.

I also got to go on a special Mommy/daughter date with the girls while Taber was out of town. We went to the Olive Garden to reward all of us, (mostly myself ; ) for holding up so well without Daddy around.

The girls did great which was nice because a restaurant with kids can be pretty scary sometimes.

When Taber came back to town we had a special night out to see Wicked down in Boston with some of our friends. We bought the tickets like 4 months ago so it was SO awesome to finally get to see it.

Me, my friend Becca and her daughter Emily by the Wicked sign. We actually had about 10 people in the group but it was hard to get everyone together for a pic.

And here's a shot of the stage I took before they announced that you can't take pictures in there. Oops!

The show definitely lived up to all the hype and I had chills listening to the amazing actresses belt there hearts out up there. There was definitely a time in my life that I imagined myself touring with a Broadway production. Even just to be in the chorus would be amazing. Now though I'm happy to just sit in the audience and enjoy.