Halloween Hullabaloo

It was a great night. We set up for our annual candy-o-thon in the driveway. 4 households were represented. It was basically a candy smorgasbord. We had a fabulous dinner cooked lovingly by Julie's Mom, Bonnie. We had meatball subs and pasta salad. It was great. Parker was a 50's guy, instead of the boxer he had started out to be. Caleb was the cutest little dragon on the block. Julie's sister Laura came bringing a very cute gentleman with her. Matt's dad and brother joined us as well. So all in all there were 9 adults and 2 kids. It was fun. We all took turns taking the kids trick or treating and passing out candy. We kept a tally and had around 90 trick or treaters. Julie and I gave out "booyah" awards for people we deemed best dressed. The first one went to a kid dressed as a pimp- but when we asked what he was he said "I'm the Mac Daddy". The treat was a full sized Hershey bar in addition to the candy buffet. I took Parker down the road to trick or treat one of of his teachers (and my coworker). We got there and she invited us in. Parker took off his shoes and socks and told me I could go home. It took about 15 minutes of negotiating to get the kid to leave. It was really funny. I hope all of my readers had a safe holiday and that you all do not have belly aches from eating the candy.

Brady on Halloween

I came home from school today wearing this necklace and I put it on Brady. He strutted around very proud of it. I had to take a picture to share.

 

it's here

The candy has arrived. I waited as late as I could about buying it because I knew I will end up eating it all before Halloween. I stopped and got it today. I know you can't tell from this picture how much there is, but this is a fairly big tub. (Mer- it is our Cape Cod tubs that we got for Christmas one year). My friend Tiffani and I estimated about 325 pieces of candy based on the wrapper and how many they said was in each pack. I have to subtract one piece because Brady and I shared a peanut butter kiss. He thought it was just as YUMMY as I did.

 

braggin' on my guy

While I was away at the Baby Shower last Saturday, my guy was in the garage building this beautiful case to hold his collection of baseballs. He is very talented at wood working and this is his latest creation. Just thought I would take a minute to brag on him.

 

I do not exist

My friend Whitney had a post on her myspace about this website that would tell you how many people with your name there are in the US. I put my name in and was shocked to learn that I don't exist. Who knew!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

drumroll please....

Here is a picture of me from the Fall Festival today.

Kudos to Kate

Kudos to Kate for being so much fun!

how I spent my Friday night

Look what I did tonight...
The color is called Light Reddish Brown. I like how it turned out. It is a pretty color for Fall.

kudos to Babies 'R' Us

For those of you who may not know me well... I don't hang out alot at the Babies 'R' Us. However today I ventured in. I was very impressed with the whole operation they have going on there. I pulled Leah's registry very quickly. A sales lady came over to me while I was reading it and helped me to locate what I was looking for. I checked out and then I saw the coolest thing ever. At the door leading out, they have a complimentary wrapping station. They provided paper, scissors and tape. I wrapped my gift on the spot. It was incredible. I wish all stores had this cool feature- especially at Christmas time!

The Friday 14

O.K. I know I am a total slacker. My day got away from me before I did the Thursday 13. So, as a bonus to my readers, here is the Friday 14- for those procrastinators who can't get it all done.

14 things I need for my fall wardrobe/look
(this is by no means a wish list for anyone to purchase for me.. just a fun list of things I want)
1) a smaller pair of jeans (yeah!)
2) a black turtle neck
3) a new sweater
4) a new pair of black shoes
5) a new pair of brown shoes
6) some cute boots-- maybe in pink
7) a few new pairs of striped socks.. fun ones!
8) a lightweight jacket
9) new undies
10) a cozy pair of fall pajamas
11) a sweatshirt (that is not sports related)
12) something dressy for the fall holidays
13) a cute fall headband
14) new fall skin care and makeup!

7 year wait begins

Someone in my house ATE an entire pack of citrus mint orbitz gum today, wrappers and all.

2 surprises on Sunday

On Sunday, I got 2 surprises. The first was when my Mom took me on a shopping spree at Walmart after our flight. She said she was treating and that I could get anything I wanted. I chose a toaster and a food processor. We got a computer game, razor blades and a new wireless laptop mouse for the hubby and then I stocked up on groceries. We even got a toy for Brady. It was great to get such a treat! I still like to be taken care of every now and again.
The second surprise was that while I was away, my sweet guy made a pot of Chili and cleaned the house for my arrival. It was so nice to come home to a clean house and dinner prepared. Another awesome treat!

the basement life

My room was in the basement and one night I said "goodnight- I am going to live the basement life" and Donovan thought it was hysterical. He decided every time we were there that we were living the basement life. Here are a couple pictures of us living the basement life. We colored, we watched movies, we played games, we told ghost stories and we slept. Every time someone would come down to the basement Donovan would say "hello (insert name here) and welcome to the basement life" even if they had just been down 2 minutes earlier. It was so funny! I talked to Donovan last night and asked if he had lived the basement life since I left and he said no, that he was just living the middle of the house life. (they have 3 stories. This kid really cracks me up!

K-Bug

Here are some pictures of my sweet Kaleigh Grace. She is so sweet, lots of fun and has the craziest fly away hair I have ever seen. I just love her to pieces!
For those of you who haven't met my Mom- she is in alot of these pictures too.

more tomorrow

It is late and I am tired from my trip. I promise more tomorrow. Look forward to post on Kaleigh, living the basement life and more. Sleep tight readers!

a boy after my own heart

Donovan has had my heart wrapped around his finger since the day he was born. On Saturday, Donovan announced to me that he was sad to not have a lot of fall decorations. He explained that he needed more "equipment" to get ready for Halloween. Now the child was not deprived in the least, but I entertained him anyway- because that is just what Aunts do. We went to the store and rectified the situation. We bought bats and ghost to hang from the trees and a pumpkin man to build. You all know how I feel about decorating for fall. Here are the scenes from our decorating.

pumpkin carving 101

Luckily, there were pumpkins just waiting for us to carve once I arrived. Donovan was really in to it-- until he found out that you actually had to stick your had in the pumpkin. Then he freaked out. My mom told him to close his eyes and while they were closed- she shoved his hand into the pumpkin. It was so funny! He couldn't get his hands washed fast enough.

He warmed up to the idea later and agreed to scoop some "guts" out with a scooper. However, he left most of the squishy work to his sweet Auntie Sandy. I didn't mind. I loved every minute of spending time with him. He chose bats for his pumpkin and chose a cat for Kaleigh's. Things got a little silly at times. It was a blast!

I am back

I am home safe and sound from the whirlwind trip to Minnesota. It is actually fall there. The trees were gorgeous! Of course, I didn't take any pictures to share. Enjoy the many post to follow.

(Wednesday edition)Thursday 13: 13 things I have not told you

My Dear readers,

I know I will be WAY too busy to post this tomorrow. So here it is, a day early! Here is a list of thirteen things that I haven't told you. It's not that I have been keeping any of this from you- I just haven't blogged on these 13 facts. After this, you will be "in the know"!

1) I am going to Minnesota TOMORROW! I have not seen my Neice and Nephew in FOREVER and I am getting on a plane at 6:20AM and going for a nice long weekend.

2) My Mom is going with me.

3) I joined Weight Watchers 2 weeks ago.

4) I have already lost 5 lbs.

5) I am actually attending the meetings.

6) Tuesday was a pretty crappy day for me.

7) I am 1/2 way through the book Wicked and I plan to finish it during my trip.

8) I asked for a Nintendo Wii for Christmas (and my Mom is getting it for me!)

9) I am thinking of coloring my hair a light auburnish-brown color for fall.

10) I just got all new- custom made shelves for my classroom.

11) Bubbly by Colbie Caillat is my new ringtone.

12) Tonight, we are grilling out chicken.

13) I am planning on being a witch for Halloween-- but a good witch!

chicken and broccoli pasta bianco

We had this last night and it was SO yummy. Basically it was chicken, mushrooms, broccoli, cream of mushroom soup, mozzarella cheese, salt and pepper. Very yummy. This evening we will be trying the red chicken chili.

and there's more

This afternoon I went to a sweet girl's birthday party at Pump It Up. This is a super cool place that must just be raking in the bucks. Imagine a place with 3 rooms. 2 of the rooms have those large inflatable jumpy things in it and one room is for the cake and/or pizza. They rotate you through the rooms. The staff was great. The best part was that they let the adults jump on all of the stuff. I bounced. I played. I slid down huge inflatable slides. I acted just like a kid and had an awesome time! I may have to have my birthday party there. check it out at http://www.pumpitupparty.com/

more from the most awesome weekend ever!

Today, I met some friends at SupperThymeUSA. It was a super cool thing to do. In a little over 1 hour, we all made a combined total of 36 meals. We each go to take 6 home. The hubby and I will be enjoying cheesy chicken mexicana, chicken and broccoli pasta bianco, tortellini and asparagus with ham, jambalaya, red chicken chili and buttermilk pecan chicken. I brought the meals home and froze 4 of them. I plan on cooking the chili tomorrow for football and maybe I will make the chicken and broccoli bake tonight. It was so much fun and much more economical than you may think. I hope the food is as good as the fun we had. If so, I will be going back for seconds!

Janet (Julies' Mother-in-law) and Julie
Camille
me making the chicken broccoli bake
Bonnie (Julie's Mom)
Blair (Julie's sister)

my masterpiece

Tonight, J-Love and I went to paint... no, not pottery- but an actual painting. We have discovered a wonderful place where you can go and they teach you how to paint a picture. We looked on the calendar and chose the "Funky Tree and Flowers" painting. We started by putting on our aprons and getting our paint.

We started with the blank canvas and quickly added background colors as instructed. Here is Julie working on her background.

Here is a picture of my background.

Then we had to draw our trees in pencil and fill them in with black paint. Here is Julie's tree.

Here is my tree.

We had to take several breaks to let things dry. Afterwards we were instructed to draw the flowers and then the rest was up to us. Now- the moment you have all been waiting for... here we are with our masterpieces!

I can hardly wait to go again!

Thursday 13: 13 things that have kept me from blogging this week

Where has this week gone? It is Thursday already. Here are 13 things that have kept me having time to blog this week.
1) I am co-hosting a baby shower for my co-teacher from my class.
2) I am in charge of the invitations.
3) I had to come up with something clever to write on the invitation.
4) I had to print 37 invitations on transparent vellum.
5) My printer jammed and then flat out refused to print 4 on a page.
6) I had to go buy more vellum.
7) I had to cut all of the little vellum pieces to fit onto the 3 1/2 by 5 card.
8) I had to adhere cute pink diaper pin scrap booking paper onto card stock to go under the vellum.
9) I had to poke holes (2 per invite) into the tops of the card stock and vellum. Therefore I had to pick a million little punched out holes off of the floor since my puncher didn't catch them.
10) I had to cut 37 ribbons.
11) I had to tie 37 diaper pins onto the invitations.
12) I addressed and stuffed 37 envelopes.
13) After all of this I am flippin' exhausted!!!

There is more info- but this being the internet- I covered up the address and phone number of the other hostess.

scenes of Fall

Here are some scenes of Fall from around my house. Enjoy!

have you ever tried to take a picture of a picture?

If not, it is very very hard to do. Here are our pictures that we put up today along with the new wall sconce that I have been trying to find a place to put for a few months now. These are pictures that we took in Paris and London. We are getting better with our photography skills. Don't worry dear readers, after I took this photo, I took the frames down and got the rest of the price tags off of them. Not a great photo but you get the idea.

 

my new purse

A little girl in my class made me a new purse on Friday. This new purse contains a cell phone, lip stick, eye shadow, a picture of Brady and a picture of me and her. This is way less stuff than in my last purse entry. I love it!

surprise adventure

One thing that you may not know about my hubby is that he can be incredibly fun and romantic. I can tell that he missed me while he was on his trip. This morning he announced that we were going somewhere very special today. Of course I asked a million questions- none of which he answered. All I knew was that it was some where we had never been and that he found out about it on the Internet. It was a local botanical type garden that had a scarecrow walk. People created scarecrows and we had to vote on the one we liked the best. Here are the scarecrows that we saw. It was fun walking through the park looking at the different scarecrows and just being together on a nice fall day.

Afterwards we went home and had lunch. If I had known where we were going I would have packed a picnic to take with us. But anyway, we ate lunch and caught up on the shows we had not watched all week. Later in the day we went to Costco and to the grocery store. We picked out 3 pumpkins at the store. We came home and cooked Fajitas together. It was such a fun day. I am glad to have him back from his trip.

me as a pumpkin

Here is a picture of me that my friend Kate painted on a pumpkin. I love it!

Thursday 13: thirteen things I did while my hubby was out of town

I told my friend Karen about my Thursday 13 idea on Tuesday. She suggested that I call it "thirteen reasons you might confuse me with a senior citizen". My hubby has been out of town all week. He is in our Nation's Capital and I have been all living the single life. Here is a list of 13 things I did this week that I wouldn't normally do if he had been home.



1) On Monday, I went to bed at 9pm.

2) I watched Heroes when it actually come on television. This is not a show we normally watch together so I usually watch it after school and never at the actual time it airs.

3) I sleep diagonally in the bed.

4) On Tuesday I ate dinner at 4:30pm.

5) On Tuesday night, I did yoga for a half hour.

6) I slept with the TV on all night long.

7) I cooked things that only I would eat.

8) I reorganized the kitchen (see post titled 27)

9) Argued with the dog multiple times every night about why he is not allowed to sleep in the bed. (usually my hubby just says "NO" and that is the end of the discussion. My "no" must sound to Brady like a maybe)

10) The temperature was no where near the "acceptable zone".

11) I didn't sleep with the fan on.

12) I slept with rollers in my hair.

13) I didn't watch any of the shows we watch together so that when he comes home we can have a DVR filled weekend. So, I had to watch things like Lifetime TV, Sunset Tan and Oprah.

27

While cleaning out my cabinets tonight I found 27 lids without anything to match them to. I have had a most productive afternoon. I got off of work at 3. I got home around 3:45. I started by cleaning out the pantry and organizing it. Then I moved on to the storage containers cabinet. I relocated these, as well as my random unused appliances. I organized the storage containers into canvas bins. I cleaned out the refrigerator. I loaded and unloaded the dishwasher. I completed all this in a 2 hour period and then I went to eat Mexican food with my friend Leah and her sweet baby Reid. He was as sweet and cuddly as ever. I came home and finished straightening the kitchen. I pack my lunch for tomorrow and now I am finished working for the night.

guess what!

It is only Tuesday and I already know what my Thursday 13 topic will be!