Fashion Fabulous Friday

You'd think celebrating Halloween for 5 continuous days would result in some great photo-ops.

Instead I completely failed, and have next to nothing to show of our costume clad crew.

You've already seen Reed as Popeye, but Kyle was just as excited to be a motorcycle rider.

I had to hide his costume from him so it wouldn't be torn up before the big day(s).

JR loves the movie Zookeeper, and he's supposed to be Bernie the gorilla. 

Not that you can see his face, or his friend, TC's.

But when you're 8 and there's a party to attend and candy to be had, standing still for mom to take a picture is seriously exasperating.

Thankfully Cassidy snapped this one before our neighborhood hayride so I have at least one of his face.

I'm Election Day

Seriously. 

I really am Election Day. 

Well, I was for Halloween, at least.

(My Beijing friends will recognize this little ensemble as my costume for the 1776 Ball.  But that's the great thing about having a prop closet, I just grab something and rename/reuse for another occasion.)

Now, as you can imagine, I didn't get many compliments on my outfit.  In fact, I got quite a few stare-downs.

I honestly thought I was being on my best behavior. Not wanting to offend 98% of the attendees at our neighborhood Halloween party, I went as nonpartisan as I could.

I thought it was very nice of me not to go in with my conservative guns blazing.

But speaking of guns, I did add this one little button that I figured would sum up my election day choices.

But I haven't even gotten to the best part yet.

So we'd been at the party for about five minutes and a man I didn't know walks up to me and says,

"Who are you? Sarah Palin? All you need is a hockey stick."

 I looked right at him, and in my most sweet and sincere voice said,

"Oh no! Sarah Palin is much too beautiful for me to try and be her!

I could never pull that off,

 I'm just... Election Day."

 I thought his head was going to explode.

He looked at me completely dumbfounded, and then turned away and walked off.

Not. a. word.

I was so proud of myself.

I've never left anybody speechlesss before!

Not What You Were Expecting

So if you know me, you know today is the day the Christmas decorations go up. 

But I'm not going to talk about that.

Nope.

 Totally not going to mention how I've actually been working on getting them up since Wednesday.  Not telling you how I'm hosting a baby shower on Saturday so the house has to be finished. 

No way, Jose'.  Mum's the word.

In fact, just to show you how much I'm not discussing the love of my Christmas decor, I'm going to talk about fall decorations.

Look what my friend, (and new neighbor...that's a Texan!) Cassidy, made me.

 My very own "I" pumpkin.

Take that, Hobby Lobby!

It even has a blinking tea light in it, which the kids think is about the coolest thing they've ever seen.

BTW, Hobby Lobby's initial pumpkins have no illumination.  So, I win!



And how cute is this pumpkin picture Reed brought home from church yesterday?

(Kyle's picture wasn't blog worthy.)

  And yes, I should have scanned and upload it instead of taking a picture of a picture. 

But, what do you expect? How could I possibly have time for something like that when I'm decorating for Christmas!

Only Treats

This One's a Do Over

Alrighty, so yes, I know I've already made you look at Great Pumpkin Patch pictures.

But seriously, the pictures my friend, Niki, took make my pictures look like a three year old took them.

Soooo enjoy.  Pumpkin Patch Photo Ops Take II 

This time by a professional:

Halloween Mode Day #1

After looking at the calendar, I think we're in full on Halloween mode from here on out. That, and Kyle and Reed both begged to wear their train engineer costumes out in public yesterday.  Thankfully, JR was super in to trains, so I actually have two costumes!

Jason decided last night after dinner would be a good pumpkin carving night. Since I couldn't find our carving template book (and it was a school night) we just went with the ol' skool pumpkin design.  JR, and his dreams of pumpkin grandeur, was not happy with this turn of events, so I'm sure a more elaborate pumpkin will be carved...just as soon as I can find the cheat sheets  patterns.

JR is still firmly holding on to his irrational fear of pumpkin guts.

Reed and Kyle do not seem to have inherited the aversion to pumpkin innards gene.

Kyle was seriously excited about the situation.

Finished product
I call it "Simplistic Retro Chic".

Power Play for the Photo Ops

We rode the Charlie Brown Express out to the Great Pumpkin Patch today, and I'm pretty sure I left no photo op unturned.

Reed and Ayi in the Narrow Gage Railroad gift shop. 

Kyle on the train, but in the wrong car since we didn't know how to read our tickets correctly.

Happy to make it to the right car.

Picture of Jason

 300 lb goat

(I actually don't think photo ops come much better than that!)

Picture of my child eating fruit.

Picture of another child belonging to me eating fruit.

(Proving I'm meeting the health needs of 2/3 of my children.)

Hay maze particiapant

 Pumpkin selection

And the winners are...

And hanging with our celebrity guest hosts.

(And FYI, these aren't their Halloween costumes. I was a neglectful mom and didn't order costumes until this week.  Kyle and Reed are sporting JR's hand-me-down dress-up clothes, which I threw on them at the last second.)

Sexy Legs On Display

Here they are! Sexy witch legs stylin' on my front porch.

My little pumpkins

 Check out how both of their hair is standing straight up. 

Guess the Boo Ghost scared them!

I didn't take pictures of my inside decorations.  Although they look cute, they just made me want to get out my Christmas decor. 

No way the trees are waiting til November 1st this year!

Witch Legs Have Never Looked Sexier

Being that I live in a Target and Hobby Lobby free town,
(Have I mentioned that in the last week? Just wanted to make sure you hadn't forgotten.)
I find myself shopping at Pier 1 more than I ever have in my life. (Which really isn't all that much, since I'm pretty sure I'd never even been in a Pier 1 before I moved here.)  And being that I'm now a Pier 1 frequent flyer, I've landed the coveted position of being on their email distribution list.  I never really look at their emails, but since they were advertising Halloween decor, I thought I'd give the latest one a look-see. 

And here's the picture that greeted me.

Now see that cute little table with the witch legs? 

I bought that on clearance after Christmas last year.  The witch leg table was brought home amongst trees, Santas, and all sorts of glittery Christmas decor fabulousness, so it was pretty much just a sad, little afterthought. 

Until tonight.

I checked the price on the witch leg table (happy to see I was still in style) and saw Pier 1 is selling it for $35.

And that's when "happy" turned into an all out happy dance, because I paid $2.99 for that table!

You can be sure I'll be rocking my $35 Pier 1 witch leg table with pride right out on the front porch. 

(Which will, of course, be documented for you.)

What's in the Mail Today?

Well, it would be this happy little guy.



What a fun surprise from my mom!

I usually put out my Halloween decor (black cats and pumpkins) October 1st, but it's going to be pretty hard to hold out now that I have such a cutie hanging out in the kitchen.

If I make it to the weekend without pulling out the decorations I'm going to be way impressed with myself.

That's the Way it Should Be

I'm knee deep in Christmas trees, and I promise to have a post about my decorating progress tomorrow. But before we can jump on over to Christmas decor, I need to wrap up Halloween. Here's how I found JR yesterday morning. Check out the candy on the table. I said, "JR, I see you've got your candy all organized."
JR: I graphed it.
My stomach started knotting up at this point...There was "real life" math going on at my kitchen table! (Because if it involves candy, that certainly qualifies as real world application.) About that time Jason walked in.
Me: He's just like you. Look what your child has done with his Halloween candy.
Jason: That's the way it should be.

Costume Parade

Never had a "white Halloween" before. Check out the snow!

Nobody stood still long enough at our clubhouse party to get any good pictures.

Trick-or-Treat Hayride. And that's just one of the rides, there were two! They're were so many kids that Jason and I walked behind with the babies! Notice all the coats...pretty safe to say I never had to wear a coat trick-or-treating in Texas! (JR is in a green and blue coat in the middle front of the picture.)

Happy Halloween!

A Craft Post (next thing you know I'll be giving out recipes!)

Today was JR's school Halloween party, and this is one of the few pictures I have. He was excited for me to eat lunch with him (I figure I've only got a year or two more for that to be cool), but the real hit of lunchtime was breaking out the camera. I think these guys enjoyed posing more than girls! After lunch I headed to JR's room to help start setting up for the party, and it was nonstop from that point on. I helped kids get on their costumes, and then went to work at my craft station. I thought I had planned 2 easy crafts, but with 18 kids, that's a lot of work no matter how easy the craft. At one point I looked at myself and noticed I had paint and glue all over my hands, jeans, and shirt (and I think there was also some glue in my hair). Obviously, I need some little girls in my house...A girl mom would never have been so messy at the craft table! We made hand print ghosts and pom-pom/pipe cleaner spiders. The hand print ghosts worked out great and were a huge hit with the kids and parents. The glue didn't hold the pom-poms to the pipe cleaners as well as I had expected, so that one was a bust. Here's one of the only other pictures I took today...JR modeling his hand print ghost. I know it's covering his face, but by this point he was so jacked-up on sugar I was surprised he'd even hold still! So, no, I don't have any pictures of his class in their costumes, but you aren't missing anything. Every little girl had on wings, a princess hat, and/or a tiara. And, of course, they were all completely bedazzled. All the boys dressed in martial arts type wear (like JR), or were a character from Star Wars.