Our super-amazing 80s Murder Mystery Party

If you know me, you know I'm not much of a crafty or cutesy person. I'm not a great decorator and I don't do great at making things look great. And generally, I'm not a great party planner or anything. But I had a big idea for my 30th birthday--I wanted to have a big party at our house doing something fun with lots of people. So a few weeks ago we decided to go big: we ordered a Murder Mystery game from a website online and invited 8 other couples (!) to come over and play it with us. (We figured that some people wouldn't be able to come, but everyone did! It was a ton of people but it was so fun.) The best part about the murder mystery game was that it was 80s themed, which meant that everyone had a great time dressing up and I had such a great time decorating for it. 

Everyone is assigned a character and has to dress up like that character. I was so impressed by our friends--they really went all out for their costumes. And everyone's acting skills were so fantastic!

We spent hours putting up all the decorations. We probably didn't need to go so big, but I had a vision of what I wanted and I thought it would make the night so much more fun. And it worked out great. We had a PacMan wall:

Giant Rubix cubes, slinkies hanging from the ceiling, and records decorating the wall (records from the thrift store, haha!), 

And 80s quotes, from 80s movies, commercials, songs, etc. decorating all the other walls.

We also spent a long time putting together this photo backdrop for the pictures of people when they came in. I didn't plan it this way, but Tommy's costume was one of my favorites of the whole night. He looked SO spot on like Ozzy Osbourne, and he really got into it. I just couldn't stop laughing at him. He even colored his nails black and wrote OZZY on his knuckles. IT WAS THE BEST. I was Punky Brewster, although I've never seen the TV show and don't know much about it. But I think we both got our costumes pretty well. 

Here was everyone else! An 80s cheerleader, El Vampira, Paula Abdul, an 80s preppie girl, Madonna, Jessica Bunny, Punky Brewster, Debbie Gibson, and Cindy Lauper. 

An 80s nerd, Ozzy Osbourne, David Bowie, the karate kid, Crocodile Dundee, Teenage Werewolf, Scarface, Mork from Ork, and an 80s prep. 

The best group shot we could get with the self timer, haha. 

Everyone had to get into their characters and spread the clues that they learned from their clue cards they were given each round. There was a lot of mingling and chatting and spreading rumors, and everyone did a great job. 

I loved how everyone got into character!

After we solved the mystery, we gave out prizes for the best costume, best actor, and super sleuth (whoever figured it out first), and Tommy got out a twinkie (in true 80s fashion) with candles to sing a belated happy birthday to me. 

So anyways, like I said at the beginning of this post--I am not a natural party planner, but I had a great time planning this party and getting everything put together. It wasn't very stressful at all--it was just purely fun. I guess if I need to plan a party, I'd better just make sure it's 80s themed so the decorations are easy and fun to do. I'd even consider making this a once-a-year thing, because I want to be better about having people over. This is the first time we have ever done anything like this, and it went so well.

Tommy's (Insanely Fast) Half-Marathon

For the last few months, Tommy has been training hard for a half-marathon that he decided to run with a few friends from our ward. They've been getting up super early and running before work, and doing long runs on Saturday together. And we were able to come watch the race and cheer for Tommy as he ran. 

Here's the cheering section!

We found a spot halfway through and waited for him there and saw him loop back around as well. 

They were so excited. It was so fun for them to cheer for all the racers and especially for their dad. I love going to races--everyone is so excited for everyone else and so supportive. 

I was SO bummed. We got stuck in race traffic trying to get back to the finish, and we missed Tommy's finish by just a few minutes. But he said it was good because he was just about dead and had to lie down on the grass for a few minutes after finishing. He did 13.1 miles in 1 hour and 39 minutes... which is about a 7:30 mile pace for the whole time! I am just so impressed by his running skills. I could never run that fast. I felt so proud.

Tommy and his two friends from our ward who ran with him, Craig and Dale. They all did awesome. 

Halloween Stuff

We didn't have as many Halloween activities as we have in years past. All we did was our ward trunk or treat and trick or treating on Halloween. The kids chose their own costumes and it was all super easy this year, thank goodness. 

Dane was a ninja. His friend was a ninja last year so we borrowed the costume from them and it was perfect. 

Lucy was a pumpkin--the same pumpkin costume that both boys wore for their second Halloweens. I love traditions!

And Graham was a scary, scary bear. He was so funny--he wanted to be a scary bear and whenever he put on his bear costume, he started acting like a destructive tornado and started attacking people and ripping papers and stuff. But he looked like Winnie the Pooh (that's actually what people thought he was) and looked so snuggly and cute. 

It was funny--Tommy was matching with another guy in our ward with their Batman shirts. 

Kiki and Kurt were here for the trunk or treat with us!

These are all the pics I got from carving pumpkins. Dane was really into carving the pumpkins this year--I couldn't have done it without him! Tommy wasn't home for most of it (we did it in the afternoon before soccer practice) and Dane scooped out all the guts and seeds from his and Tommy's pumpkins while I helped Graham. Then afterwards, he really really wanted to count all the seeds for each pumpkin and see which one had the most, so we did that on Halloween day after I roasted them. It was cute. 

THANK YOU FOR BEING CUTE FOR PICTURES FOR ONCE CHILDREN!!!!!!

I have to say, trick or treating is one of my very favorite things to do as a parent. It is so easy, no work, and everyone is so happy. I couldn't ask for more. I love it. It was supposed to be raining all afternoon and evening on Halloween, and it magically lightened up and didn't rain at all the whole time we were trick or treating. It was a Halloween miracle!

After trick or treating for a while, Lucy starting crying for "milk!" so I brought her home and we handed out candy on the doorstep until the boys got home. She was so cute. 

They were so happy about their loot! I loved that Lucy was into it this year. I love watching that little pumpkin go trick or treating. 

Broken Bow, Oklahoma

We'd wanted to go on a short weekend trip for Labor Day weekend, but never got around to planning it (and good thing, because it rained heavy all day Labor Day around here). So for Columbus Day weekend we decided to do something. We have heard for years that Broken Bow, Oklahoma is a really great place to go, with a couple of nice state parks with lakes and hiking and other fun outdoorsy things. So we booked a cabin with Airbnb and headed up there. We had a great time, except that I was really disappointed that I didn't plan well enough and several of the things I'd wanted to do weren't open on Monday when we wanted to go. It was tricky also since it was General Conference weekend, so it was hard to balance watching Conference while also being in a tiny cabin where our kids were pretty much being awful (so pretty much all of Sunday). But the time that we spent outside was fun, and that made it worth the trip. 

Beautiful scenery on the drive from Dallas to Oklahoma!

Our cabin had a fire pit, which was one of the main requirements I had for it. We roasted s'mores every night and the kids were in heaven. So was I... having a campfire is one of my favorite things about camping. 

The boys were very serious about roasting their hot dogs. 

Lucy was trying to blow out the fire. She's so smart. 

Lucy was so happy to be staying somewhere that didn't have a high chair for her to sit in! More excuse not to eat anything at all!

We went on several great hikes on Saturday morning. The kids were troopers--not that they were hard, but we did get kind of lost on our first one and were walking for a while. 

Dane got a "nature explorer kit" for his birthday and was so excited to use all of the pieces of his kit while on our hikes. 

Excuse me. This is possibly my favorite picture of the whole trip. SO CUTE. 

Oh, but I forgot. Lucy on a pony was definitely my favorite moment of the whole trip. Even if nothing else had been fun, Lucy's reaction to getting to ride on this pony for 3 minutes would have made the whole trip worth it. She kept laughing and laughing and yelling, "Wheeeeee!!!" at the top of her lungs--I have never seen her so happy!

Dane and Graham loved it too--but Lucy stole the show. 

She was not thrilled about taking a family picture... 

... but she will definitely do a selfie with Daddy any day.

Everyone was excited to ride on the little train through the woods in the state park. 

And then we got ice cream afterwards. I love Lucy's little face watching the boys with their ice cream. Where is mine??

Don't worry, she got some. 

Doing some paddleboats...

And then we played on the beach at the river for like 3 hours. The kids could seriously play in the sand at a beach all day long. If only it didn't require constant diligence from us to make sure Lucy doesn't drown herself, then it would actually be fun for all of us. 

We finished up the day by heading back to the cabin and watching the last hour of General Conference in the hot tub while Lucy slept in the car. Best hour of the day!

We started off Sunday with a nice little nature walk. 

With some gorgeous views!

Daddy with his ducks in a row, haha. 

We tried watching Conference with the kids. We really did. But by the middle of the afternoon session all of my great ideas had failed and everyone was mad at everyone. I was so frustrated because I spent a lot of time and energy packing things and activities and snacks to keep them happy while we watched Conference in a different place. But it just didn't work very well. So Tommy just took the kids to a different beach close to the house and let them play for the last while while I watched it at home and got dinner ready. Oh, well. Next time we are ever traveling over Conference weekend, we'll know to do something differently. 

The kids love the Foosball table in the cabin we were staying at. 

Everyone was a big fan of the hot tub!!!

The last thing we did there on Columbus Day was going to this very weird animal rescue petting zoo. It wasn't just a normal petting zoo with goats and chickens--they also had deer and snakes and skunks and all sorts of wild animals that had been rescued. I got SUCH a kick out of watching the kids feeding these wild deer. I've never seen such a thing before!

Graham surrounded by deer, haha. 

I love this of Lucy feeding a deer just her size, ha!

Dane even got to feed a baby deer its bottle... but this bigger deer kept stealing it. 

Tommy and I held a de-skunked skunk. Apparently there are skunk breeders who breed skunks like this for pets. Why would you get a skunk when you could get a cat? I don't know. 

It was a fun weekend, but also a long one. I think Broken Bow would be a really fun place for us to visit again, especially once our kids are a little older. There were lots of things we hadn't done, like canoe and kayak rentals--I could see that being really fun for Tommy and the boys in a few years. I'm glad we went, and we've learned some more things about traveling with kids!