Life of Laraia: Happy Halloween!

I am trying to be better at blogging more often so everyone doesn't have to endure a novel each time they read my posts.

The happenings of the Laraia household over the past couple of weeks have been as follows:

I found a frog in front of our apartment
I got a free haircut at a friend's salon. I was a model for their long layers module.
Elisabeth came for a weekend visit
My friends and I finished the second season of Downton
Pedro has found a new video game buddy
I started to paint with watercolors some more
Pedro finished up his intramural flag football season
We hosted a Halloween party

This is my froggy friend named Jumpy! He is so cute! I just found him hanging out in front of our building one night when I came home from the store. He ran away about an hour later though. I hope he didn't freeze to death!

Last weekend Elisabeth came up from Tennessee to stay with us while her boyfriend Jake played several concerts in and around Minneapolis. She was with us for three days and we were so happy to see her. We went to the Mall of America, Cafe Latte, and Uptown. We also had fun playing Lego Harry Potter and Halo on the xbox. It was just a relaxing, fun time.

My friends and I have been watching Downton Abbey together over the last couple of weeks. We just finished the second season and I can't wait to begin the third. On the day we started the series, my friend Jaewon and I watched the entire first season in one day. We ate all 3 meals together! There are around 8 episodes each approximately an hour long....so it was a very lazy day :)

source, learn more about Downton

Pedro has found a new friend to play xbox games with him. His name is Russ and he and his wife live close to us in our complex. They are great friends and I adore their little one year old Girl. It is so cute how Russ and Pedro stay up until 2 am shooting each other on Call of Duty. It reminds me of Rick and Pedro playing in our apartment back in Provo. We miss everyone back in Utah and are so grateful that we were lucky enough to find more fabulous friends here in Minnesota.

A few months back I bought a cheap set of brushes, paints, and paper to start trying my hand in watercolors. I painted once and then just stuck my stuff away because I got caught up in puzzles. The other day however, I busted the kit out again. I watched some you tube tutorials on basic watercolor tricks and then got to work experimenting with color, shading, and brush tips. Here is one of the techniques I learned from you tube.

I am quite proud of my little fall tree :)

Pedro's MHA class and the year ahead of them formed a couple of teams this semester for intramural sports. One for coed volleyball and one for flag football. On Monday flag football finished up their season with the MHA-ers making it to the championship game! They lost by one point in overtime, which was sad, but it was so fun to watch Pedro play. Pedro has been sore all week due to some pretty bad turf burn on his knees, and some probable internal bruising around his left knee. We will keep an eye on it and hope that it gets better soon.

I thought this was a cool take with the lights blaring around him.

sporting his BYU pride on the field

And the last of our happenings occurred last night. Pedro and I hosted a Halloween Party. There were a ton of people in our apartment and I thought it was so much fun! I also loved having trick-or-treaters coming by before the party started. I can't wait to take our kiddos trick-or-treating one day! Here are some pictures of the festivities:

Perfect weather!

Tender Heart Bear. I had so much fun making my costume. I just used my forever lazy suit, felt with iron on backing, and whit pom poms. I forgot to get a picture of the back, but I had a pom pom tail that was pretty cute!