Trick or Treat

We had our annual Halloween party the weekend before Halloween. We always have such a fun time, but I am always sad we are so limited by space! I wish we could've invited so many more people, but we were PACKED as it was. We got all ready and I had to feed the judges before everyone got there. I love this picture. We have made a point to add the boys to our family. Yes, our lives have changed a lot since their arrival, but we don't use them as an excuse to be lame. Which I like. In fact, we do MORE fun things because of them. 

Luna and Neville made an appearance. For those of you who were wondering, yes, they do get married.

A quarter and a gumball machine. SO CUTE. Tori drew that quarter on the drive over. Luckily they had pretty bad traffic on the way over so she had time to finish it. Not so luckily, they were stopped on the freeway for a couple hours on the way home too. :(

Joey, Natalie and their adorable Bumble Bee

Charlie Brown and Lucy made an appearance as well.

The witch and her ninja.

The Hulk and his buddy the Ninja

This is what happened when I asked them for another pose. I blame Todd. Too hot to handle, gentlemen. lol

The boys sat in their high chairs and judged the competition for a bit and then got a little rowdy and joined the games. Meaning they needed to be held and played with.

We play the same game every year. Trick or Treat. There is a bowl full of strips of paper that either say Treat or have a trick you have to do. Luna performing the scarecrow.

Doug with his poisoned bottle.

Death by Chocolate

The Mad Dog

Smashing Pumpkins. Tori seriously owned this game. Hilarious

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.

Loser had to cackle like a witch. :) Well done Lincoln!

The Grim Reaper. Whipped Cream and Butter Knife shaving. We LOVED having so many kids over for these games! They were such good sports about everything!

Ghost Buster

The Mummy

Smashing Pumpkins take 2. Lori has the worst gag reflex ever. That would be ONE marshmallow in her mouth. To her credit, they were HUGE pumpkin shaped mallows. lol

Cam as the scarecrow.

Ogre painting. Pistachio pudding in your toes. Yum. :)

The fastest ding dong the witch is dead, EVER.

And I actually don't remember who won.

Beautiful miss Jenna getting in on the action.

OK this was hilarious. Nate and Ashlee bobbed for apples first [not sure where all those pictures went. :(] and Matt sat on the couch the whole time talking about how he was so glad it wasn't him doing it and making fun of them. Guess what he drew next? Bobbing for Apples. Ah, karma! The deal was you had to find the apple that had a quarter in it. [Secret: the quarter weighs down one side and keeps the apple from turning upright so you can't grab it by the stem] Matt cheated and put a quarter from Todd's costume in an apple and grabbed it with his mouth.

So the next time he went down, we doused him with water bottles. lol.

Lori was so great. As soon as she figured out the quarter was still int he bucket, she made sure she got it. Better luck next time Matt!

Joey and Jenna with the Ghost Buster. Oh she was so cute! I love seeing a dad with his little girl.

And then things got a little crazy. oh my gosh these pictures crack me up. Cam [Adam Levine] took his tattoos off and put them over his face.

I haven't laughed this hard in a long time.

We had SO much fun. I can't thank everyone enough for coming and being up for playing with us crazy Calls! I'm so grateful to have such good friends here in Texas.

Baby Shower!

This post has been needing to happen for a while. Two weeks ago, 4 fantastic ladies pulled together to throw me the most adorable baby shower ever! (Major shout out to Whitney who actually drove all the way from Idaho to make things look gorgeous and to Jessica who stayed up til all hours of the night finishing this and making the cake!). I seriously couldn't have asked for more. What fun it was to see everyone who came out and showed their support. It means so much to me. I ran out of thank you cards, but should be able to pick some up tomorrow, so yeah. I'm happy that's something I can do from the couch as my ankles have swollen up in the past 2 days. :)

But seriously, check these pictures out!

How gorgeous is that spread? Whitney sure is good at what she does, and Jessica, that cake is TOO dang cute!

I am totally stunned at how many people stopped by to say hello and stayed to chat and give much needed advice about these babies. It was so fun to see everybody! Somehow I managed to not get a single picture of me with Whitney, but here are some of the party. :)

Whitney was the photographer, so I suppose it makes sense that she's not in any of these, but it still bums me out. She cracks me up. Halfway through the party she told me to stop eating because all the pictures she had of me, I had something in my mouth. The food was GOOD. Jessica made a tortellini soup and homemade bread that was to. die. for. YUM. I think the recipe's on her blog.

These boys are SPOILED.

I can't thank everyone enough for making such a fuss over me. It sure made the last little while fun and gave me something to look forward to toward the end of this pregnancy. I can't wait to see their little bodies in all the clothes we got.

Only 6 more weeks! (tops!)

Christmas!

This year we spent Christmas at the McGuire house. (my family). It was a total blast. I loved it. Not a lick of snow on the drive down, either, which made for a nice, easy, and quick drive (relatively speaking...I was pretty uncomfortable due to the sudden growth of these two boys.)

Christmas Eve is my dad's birthday, so we had a big breakfast and did presents for him. Then, we all went out to my Grandma's house (that they're selling this year) to take family pictures.



The photographer was nice enough to snap a couple maternity photos for us. This one is my absolute favorite. :)



Christmas Eve we went caroling. Normally, I hate caroling. I have always said my family just isn't good at it. We have caroled to a dog, through a glass door because the family wasn't home (all 3 verses). We have caroled to the wrong house, which turned into the right house about halfway through the second verse (the family had just moved to a new house and the cousin answered the door...a cousin we had never met before.) We have also caroled to a house where the inhabitants did not hear us knock and the daughter opened the door to take out the trash, saw a bunch of large hooded figures, screamed and slammed the door. However, in the years I have been out of the house apparently we have improved at it.

This year, my brother brought his guitar and my other brother brought his cahone [sp?]. (It's a drum that makes all sorts of different sounds. Pretty rad.) We were a hit wherever we went! Such a different experience than years past. We only went out for an hour and sang to our good friends, and neighbors we hoped to meet, etc. I was actually sad to be done when we were out of treat plates.

Because Christmas fell on a Sunday this year, my parents wrapped up the living room and we all got ready for church at 9am. It was pretty bizarre to not be awake before the sun on Christmas Day. (My super mature 26 year old sister is still the first one awake every Christmas...at like 4:30-5 am. It's a riot. I was definitely not complaining about the extra hours of sleep, though!



I really enjoyed having church on Christmas Day. It was a beautiful musical program. Cam sang with the choir to help out the tenor section and the boys kicked and rolled through the entire thing. That was probably the best gift I could've received because I was nervous about making the drive. The reassurance that they're both OK is the most important thing to me.

We came home and got back into pajamas.

And tore down the wrapping paper. :)

Please note Jessica's pajamas. That girl is so absolutely my favorite. lol.

Lillie got a dollhouse full of a variety of characters. Disney princesses, dinosaurs, trucks, Woody, Buzz and Jessie (who are favorites), and woodland creatures all live in harmony there. We try to embrace diversity. :) She was so fun to watch! Having a kid around really brings a whole new level of Christmas magic. It made me terribly excited for next year when we will have two rambunctious, probably crawling boys to keep track of.

JT getting "conservative ties for his mission." :) This was the last year we would all be together. Mackay and Lindsay won't be coming out for Christmas morning again and JT will be on a mission for the next two Christmases, so it was nice to have everyone together this time.

Hair done and make-up on for Christmas morning is a definite first. There were onesies in our stockings and cute little socks for the boys. What a fun Christmas!

Also, major husband points right here: Cam got on my pinterest account, found my board of books I'd like to read eventually and ordered two of them. WHOA. I had no idea he even KNEW about that board, let alone how to get on my pinterest account. Total win right there.

There was one bag for the in-laws, which we found a little weird considering Cam lives in Utah and Mackay lives in Colorado, and my parents made them wait to open it through the rest of the Christmas presents. They gave a bag to us McGuire kids after all the presents were unwrapped. Inside were 3 DVDs of our family photos, set to music, with video clips of major highlights. We got to see pictures of my parents growing up, the night of their first kiss, mission pictures from my dad I had never seen before, all the way through the growing up years of our family and into the marriages of me and Cam and Lindsay and Mackay, the birth of Lillie, the glory days of all of us in high school sports. It was 2.5 hours long! Such a blast! In the "in-law bag" was a pack of oreos for Cam and a pack of oreos for Mackay along with a magazine (something financial for Mackay, and one on woodworking/projects for Cam). It was their "we're sorry you have to sit through 3 DVDs of our family" present. :)

We ended up watching the DVDs on Christmas day and the day after. So awesome.

The days after were spent on a cloth diaper making blitz and playing a new game called Pandemic.

Lots of laughing til you cry, kicks from the boys, and pajama days. Tons of amazing food, including a beautiful Christmas dinner of prime rib served on my mom's gorgeous china...that we all ate in our pajamas after waking up from naps. Sometimes Christmas is just meant to "be". No expectations. I think that's what I love most.