Halloween Part 3: Fun Fest

As you can see, Halloween was a smashing success for our little girl. She was such a trooper this past week as we prepared everything at church. She happily ran tons of errands with me and even was my helper at the church. She would run and grab me more supplies or water. She tried out all the games for me to make sure everything was working well. Of course, with all the preparations and running around making sure everybody had enough candy to hand out I did not take too many photos. Here are just a couple Shane took of the evening.

First up was getting her face painted.
Then she played some games.
Next was watching part of a pirate movie and enjoying some candy.
And finally here she is working on some crafts.
The evening was so fun and it was great to meet so many new people from the neighborhood around our church.

Halloween Part 2: Dreamworks

Sydney and I took a break from setting up for Fun Fest on Friday and spent a couple hours at Dreamworks for their family Halloween extravaganza. They had trick-or-treating for all the kids around the campus. They even had a little area for Monster vs. Aliens!! It was exciting to see some of the characters and stuff that Shane is working on every day. Sydney has already decided that she likes Bob and Ginormica the most. Here are some pictures...

Sydney's favorite part was the pink fountain!

Butterfly princess (sans wings) with Bob.

Creative frog balloons from the Shrek area.

Halloween Part 1: Pumpkin Carving

Last year we just let Sydney paint pumpkins for Halloween. This year Dreamworks was handing out free pumpkins for their pumpkin carving contest so we decided to let Sydney help carve her first pumpkin. At first she wanted nothing to do with putting her hand inside to get all the pumpkin guts out.

Then she decided it would be ok to use a scooper.


Finally Shane was able to convince her to try with her bare hands. She did not like it at all and quickly went back to the scooper even though it didn't work that well.


She was very pleased with the final pumpkin though. :)

Fun Fest 2008

As I have mentioned before, I love fall. One of the fun things about fall is Halloween and all the excitement I remember as a child. Now that Syd is three she is starting to get that excitement too. However, as a parent the world is a little scary on Halloween. Some of the decorations and costumes frighten me and I can't imagine how many sleepless night I may have on my hands since Syd is going through a scared-faze. (Please tell me this is just a faze.)

To my delight our church is having a fun-filled evening for families on Halloween this year. We have been planning for months and this week all the final details are coming together. It is a pirate themed events and will include carnival-type games, food, cotton candy, crafts, a magic show, a pirate skit, tons of candy, and more. There is games and prizes for kids ages 2 through 5th grade. I have been helping with the plans for the 2-5 year olds. The image above is the treasure map for the kids to follow as they go through the games in search of their treasure. If any of you live in the area please join us for a great family time! Just between us...I think the kids will have more fun than just trick-o-treating. ;) The event will be from 6:30pm-9:30pm at Calvary Chapel Burbank.

Family Weekend

I had a fun-filled weekend with my two favorite people: Shane and Sydney. On Saturday we went to a screening of Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa. It was super funny and Sydney laughed frequently and only needed one potty break. In our book that means it was a very successful movie. Later in the evening we went to a birthday party at Chucke Cheese. Shane nor I had been there since we were young and we now have a new appreciation for our parents taking us there. It was exhausting and over-stimulating to say the least. It was fun to get to know some of Shane's co-workers a little more though and of course Sydney loved it.

On Sunday we woke up early and headed over for the AIDS WALK. We met our fundraising goal thanks to awesome family and friends. We were part of the DreamWorks team so we rode a bus over to the walk and were treated to breakfast. We also were able to start at the front of the walk which was nice because there wasn't a huge pushing crowd of people. Walking with the DreamWorks team was super fun too and people along the route kept yelling about how much they love DreamWorks. Thanks to all of you who donated money and who were praying and thinking of us yesterday.

Us at the finish line.

On another note, yesterday was our dating anniversary!! Shane and I have been together for 12 YEARS! I still can't believe it. It seems like yesterday that we were marching in the band together at football games and asking our parents to drive us to the movies. ;) I love you Shanie!

AIDS WALK LA 2008

This coming Sunday we will be participating in the LA AIDS WALK. Please pray for people around the world who are affected by HIV/AIDS. Here is an email we sent out to some family and friends with more info:

Dear Friends and Family,

Annie and I decided to participate in the AIDS Walk Los Angeles this year. We are excited about getting involved and contributing to our community in addition to teaching Syd about the importance of caring for and helping others. We have set a modest goal of raising $500 between the two of us and we'd love to meet or exceed it it with your help! You can contribute to our fundraising goal safely and securely online at our Donation Homepage. (We will never personally see your credit card info and the whole process is VeriSign Secured)

http://aidswalklosangeles2008.kintera.org/shane

Some of you may ask where the money is going and we completely understand as we had the same question ourselves before we signed on to participate. The money raised by AIDS Walk Los Angeles supports the services provided by AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) and other local AIDS Service Organizations throughout Los Angeles County. APLA is dedicated to: improving the lives of people affected by HIV disease; reducing the incidence of HIV infection; and advocating for fair and effective HIV- related public policy. You can find more info here: www.apla.org

Thank you for your time,
Shane, Andrea, & Sydney Mulholland

Fall Baking with the Kiddo

We had a busy weekend that was finished off with a Dodger playoff party at our place. Go Dodgers!! In preparation, Sydney and I did some baking on Saturday. We made up a batch of my favorite pumpkin bread which is my altered version from this cookbook. We also baked some ghost-shaped sugar cookies and Sydney decorated them. She had all the sprinkles in a bowl and was lavishing them on each cookie with complete attention. When I pointed out how many cookies we still had to frost and decorate she became worried and started using them sparingly. We ended up with some cookies completely covered in spider sprinkles and some with only about five sprinkles total. There were delicious though.

P.S. Dad that outfit is in your honor. ;)