Blog Move!

Hey Everyone! I (Andrea) decided to move our blog over to wordpress.com so that I can post from my phone using their app. I think I can be quite a bit more consistent that way. Here's hoping! The new blog is at lukeandandreablog.wordpress.com. I know, slightly clunkier than our current title, but it's what they had, ok? Ha ha! Also, I decided it would probably be good to make it private so random people can't see pictures of our family. I believe I just need to add your email to a list of approved readers in order for you to follow it, so if you want to keep up with us, just send me an email at andreawperkins08@gmail.com and I'll add you! Let me know if you have any problems with it. See you on the other blog!

--the Luke and Andrea team

Halloween 2015

I haven't got much to say about halloween this year, but we've got some good pictures to show so here you are! Firstly let's talk about the pumpkin carving. 

I think it was three years ago that my Mom introduced me to Halloween Wars on the food network. If you haven't seen it, it's a show where there are 5 teams made up of 1 pro-pumpkin carver, 1 pro cake maker, and 1 pro candy maker. They compete against each other to make cool Halloween themed food displays. The pumpkin carvings are AWESOME! I have tried to do the 3-D carving thing in past years, but I never had great tools for it. My Mom picked up on my interest and last year bought me a bunch of carving tools for my birthday. So I was excited to try them out this year, and below are the results:

I'm missing a photo of pumpkin #1. 

This is pumpkin #2. I was thrilled when I finished this guy! I felt like I was finally getting somewhere! He has a pretty good nose and kind of an expression. 

Pumpkin #3 was the real breakthrough though. The eyes and smooth plump skin really sell it!

With pumpkin #4 I wanted to do something with an expression, and I thought a kissing pumpkin would be really hard because the lips needed to come out further than the nose. I was very proud of this one! Yeah. I did kiss him. So did Andrea, and it was SOOO funny because she kissed the lips and said "EEEW! It's all cold. I don't know what I was expecting, but . . ." hah hah hah!!! Guess he's not as good of a kisser as he looks like ;)

For pumpkin #5 I wanted to go for more of a Halloween face. I loved doing all of the smile wrinkles. 

Then there was pumpkin #6. I was really trying to focus on something that was anatomically correct that had realistic eyelids and contours and teeth. I'm most proud of this guy!

I LOVE pumpkin carving more than ever and I hope that I'll get to carve a giant one next year. If you know anyone who grows them, I'll do it for free!

Andrea was the one who really stole the show this year though:

She dedicated SO much time to be in the Adams Family Musical at the Terrace Plaza Playhouse. I was so proud of her for getting back into musical theater. She loves it, and when you see her on stage it's obvious that she belongs up there! She was in the chorus as a dead Adams Family ancestor. The boys and I went to see the play on Halloween night and we all loved it.

Just a side note: I was so happy with the boys' costumes. It's always a challenge to get it right with kids because they are changing their minds right up to halloween! So I got their final requests the weekend before halloween. Peter wanted to be a Dalmatian and Max wanted to be a purple cat. So I went to DI and sifted through all of the clothing racks and was lucky to find matching hoodies and pants for both of them. Then that night my mom helped me to sew on some of the features, and they worked out really well! They were comfortable yet sturdy costumes and when the boys put them on they immediately got down on all fours and started making animal noises. Everyone thought peter was a cow initially, which is fair, but the ears people, the ears. What cow has floppy ears like that?

Below is a photo of the family at my sister's annual halloween party. It's always the highlight of halloween for me! I love the games. We always have a pie eating contest and a donut on a string contest, and we carve pumpkins. It's a ton of fun!

 So There you have it.