a month in review

Geesh! It's already been a month since my last post. Where did the time go? Oh, wait...it was spent caring for a newborn, making costumes, having family visit, and taking care of a sick kid. I guess time flies whether you are having fun or not.

It was so nice having our families out to visit and to have the extra hands to help out. It can be hard having them on the other side of the country, especially when our kids are little. Hopefully another grand child will be a good incentive for them to come back and visit again soon.

Speaking of the new baby. She's 6 weeks old this week. That seems so old and yet so young all at the same time. Here she is at 2 weeks.

And 1 month old.

Gosh, I love this picture.
Our family actually left on Halloween which was a bummer but we still dressed up and had fun. Well, my son and husband did anyway. Here's Super Mario & Luigi.

I love that my husband likes to dress up and go trick or treating with our son. He's really just a big kid which is great for our kids. = )

Now that Halloween is behind us I am trying to prepare for Christmas. Hey, I have to start early or I just won't get it all done in time. In fact, I am about 50% done with my Christmas shopping. My goal is to start getting up all the Christmas decor and finish my shopping early so that I can sit back and enjoy all the festivities this holiday season.

decorating for fall

The leaves are starting to fall and turn beautiful shades of orange, red, and yellow. The weather is finally starting to cool off (don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the warm weather), and it's starting to feel like fall.

I am less than two weeks away from baby day and so I have made a point to start getting up my fall/ Halloween decorations while I still can. My husband and son will add the rest of the Halloween once we get into October but I put up a few things just to set the mood (and because I wanted them a certain way). This is our first fall in our new home and so I am still trying to buy decorations for this home and figure out where I can put what we already have. I know that trying to get this all done with a new baby seems a little crazy but I LOVE decorating for the holidays!

Please forgive bad photos. I have my baby/hospital bags packed and refuse to take the camera out in case I forget to put it back so these photos were taken with my cell phone.

Of course, there is much more to get done but here is my modest start. I am hoping to pick up some more of those fall berry vines from Michael's this week. They are so fabulous and addicting!

And no, I don't have a horse. I just haven't managed to print out the photo for that frame yet.

we've been BOO'ed

On our way out of the house we came across a Halloween bag full of goodies. I looked around and no one was there so we took it inside and opened it up (who wouldn't, it was full of candy!!). Inside the bag there was candy, some kid's craft items, and a note. The note basically said that we have been BOO'ed and now it's our turn to BOO someone new. We have to keep it a secret though. I thought this was pretty cool and immediately went to work on a BOO bag to give away.


After it was sewed up and ready I filled it up with candy and my son and I headed out the door to BOO a neighbor. My 1st mistake was bringing my son because he

1. tried to go in the people's home and play with the children
2. ran down the street signing, "we're gonna BOO you!"
3. managed to fall on the sidewalk in front of their home when they opened the door

I am about 99.9% sure they knew it was us. And that last .1% was confirmed by the fact that 30 minutes later a knock came to the door with a new BOO bag. So I think they probably felt bad for us and BOO'ed us back. lol So now the vicious circle of BOO'ing continues and we will be making new BOO bags tomorrow to secretly hand out with my mom. But next time I will put the diva in me aside and use some cheap Halloween bags to avoid blowing my cover.

teacher's pet

I finally finished the teachers’ paint cans. I embellished the quart cans and filled them with goodies. Nothing says Happy Halloween like a can full of spooky caramel filled chocolate eye balls.

boo

It's that time of year again! I just love fall and I adore Halloween! Maybe it's because I am a Halloween baby (well, almost... my b-day is the 28th). My husband is also a fool for holiday decorating. We have a ton of holiday eye candy but this year we only pulled out a few. The reason being that:

1. we are renting and the house is much different than our last home
2. the weather here is so unpredictable and many of our items are for outdoors
3. I don't want to put it all away in the snow

So we kept it simple. Maybe we'll do more for Christmas (my 2nd favorite holiday). My husband's job is usually decorating the outside and I get to decorate the inside of our home. After he has it all up I often give my much needed (and unwelcomed) advice though. Every year he gets better and I think he did a good job this year.
See my trick or treat can? Also pictured is my decoupage tree to the left of the witch. I told ya I love me some decoupage!

decoupage

Okay, so I wasn't drinking but a girl can dream, right?

My best friend and I set out on a mission to make trick or treat cans with some decoupage, scrap paper, empty paint cans, and embelishments. It took longer than anticipated but I solely blame that on trying to work around our husband's schedule and our kids' constant interruptions. All in all I think they turned out cute and plan to make some quart sized ones for my son's teachers.

And here is my finished trick or treat can:

I can't wait to fill it up and use it on Halloween.