they're coming

Pictures from the party should be up today. Some pictures have already been posted but they have been mostly costumes (there are more of those to post too) but today I am putting up the pictures I really love - pictures of the decorations, the details.

My friend Rona took the best shots for me and I am so thankful. I never have good shots of my parties because I am just running around way too much. Not only did Rona get me the shots but she took the exact pictures I would have taken if I had the time. She got all the details that I would want and took super cute and creative shots. I love having talented friends.

So keep an eye out - I should have them up soon (if Luke doesn't move from the sofa - I think the flu is prepping itself to hit our house and it's starting with Luke)

carpet angels, cheerleaders and raising the bar

As part of our farewell to family night we went out to dinner but before we left we had some fun. We made carpet angels.

Found our inner cheerleader and made pyramids

and attempted our own Cingular "raising the bar" ok, so I realize I should have been standing over them to get the full effect but cut me some slack - the house was empty - no ladders or chairs to help get the perfect picture.

na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, good bye....

Last night we went to visit my family and say good-bye as they prepared to leave today for Utah. We are so excited for them and their new adventures in Utah but we are still sad to see them go.

Now we just need to convince them to start a blog so we can know what is going on with them.


a parting shot of my old room (although my brother Garin is the most recent occupant) When it was my room it was painted in everyones favorite 80's color combination - peach and green. Quit laughing you all know that was a hot combination.

play me a song, you're the piano girl

Saturday was Megan's piano recital. It is usually in San Diego so we were thrilled when we learned this recital would be at the library, just 10 minutes from home - oh, happy day - no long drive.

Megan did really well. I love hearing the piano in our home, although I must admit by recital time I am ready to hear new songs. The week or so before the recital I am ready to pull my hair out hearing the same two songs over and over.

I was video taping her playing so I don't have any pictures of her actual performance but I love these shots I got of the girls after the recital. What cute sisters - I love them!

rock the vote - hit a sour note

Nathan came home with the sad news - he lost the elections. A moms heart breaks when things like this happen. I feel bad for him but I am so proud of how he is handling it. He still says he was sure he was going to win but is ok that he didn't. He is even planning for next years election - you go Nate!

three cheers

First quarter grades are in and Megan and Emily did great! They both made the school honor roll as well as the superintendent's honor roll. We are proud of them both for working so hard.

An extra special shout out to Emily for getting straight A's her first quarter of middle school. She has adjusted well and is doing great work.

Hip hip horray, hip hip horray, hip hip horray!

banners

I am trying to learn how to make my own banners for the top of our blog and I am not the biggest computer whiz so if you see weird looking things - ignore it! I don't have a picture yet that I want to use so I am just using random pictures of my kids or other things. That's my disclaimer lest someone gets the impression that I favor some of my kids over others when they see a picture of just one or two kids.

adorable

How cute are these cupcake papers? I found them here and am now obsessing about them. I wish I had a reason to use them - Christmas, maybe? They would be cute for delivering cupcakes to folks.

rock the vote!

Nate is running for assistant photographer, the only student council position that 3rd graders can run for. He had to give a speech today in front of the whole school and according to him, he is totally going to win. I told him that I hope he does but to keep in mind that he might not to which he replied "I know Mom, I'm a winner even if I lose"

We made him the shirt above to wear during the day - it went along with his speech. He also had posters up this whole week at school. They turned out cute but where a real nightmare. I won't bore you with a long story about it so let's just say getting the posters done involved a 12:30 AM trip to the nearest Kinko's that could laminate (the closest one was 20 minutes away) and a 1:30 AM trip to the school to hang them up. I am sure that one of these days Derek and I will win some type of parent of the year award - that's at least what I had to tell myself as we were driving around at all hours of the morning
We'll keep you posted on the election results.

christmas lights next

Ok, I seriously married the best guy in the world.

Most husbands don't love getting on the roof to put up Christmas lights - Derek is no exception, yet he does it every year without complaint. That is saying something especially since he also gets up on the roof every Halloween to put up spider webs. We are not talking about the 89 cent bags of spider webs either. These are top dog spider webs that take some creative thinking. These need to be stretched and cut to perfection. I know Derek would probably rather do anything but put up these spider webs with me standing by, trying to direct him where to cut next. I am sure that having me watching makes this job a hundred times harder because, lets face it, I'm particular about my spider webs. Yet, he does it and smiles. After all his hard work I just had to share the pictures.

stitch in time

Our congregation at church was asked to make blankets for all the kids 5-18 years old that lost their homes in Poway because of the fires. I pulled the sewing machine out to make a blanket and that got me going on a few fun projects

blankets waiting to be tied and sent to children that lost their home

Megan and I decided to try our hand at making a softie, ugly doll, creature, whatever you want to call it. This one isn't quite done yet. We call him hippoBLOBamis
I saw a cute flowered pin cushion made out of felt and thought I'd give it a try. The flowers did nothing for me so I went with skulls. This was a really fun project and super simple - I want to make more of these.

it's not too far

Total Est. Time: 10 hours, 3 minutes

Total Est. Distance: 695.99 miles

So my family - parents and little brother Garin are moving to Utah. What's a ten hour trip among family?!?! We are sad to see them go but are so excited for all their new adventures. My kids can't wait to visit during the winter. Those poor California kids that dream of days playing in the snow.

My parents are looking for a home so if anyone has an opinion on the best places to live in Utah let me know. My brother is 13 and will be in High School soon so they want to be in a place with good schools. They are looking for a home around the $300,000 range. The sooner you pass on info the better - they are leaving Monday! They plan on renting until they find a place.

Thanks for the help!

another costume?!?!?

The Monday after Halloween Emily had "Walk Through the Ancient Worlds" at school. The kids had to wear costumes (who planned that for a few days after Halloween?) As you already know I had hit my costume making quota so it was back to Costume Castle (I should buy their stock) to get a Cleopatra costume.

Emily had a great time. She got to eat a lamb sandwich for lunch. While most kids were chucking theirs in the trash, she tried it and found out that she liked it. Good for her!

halloween costumes

I am so behind on Halloween posts - it is a long road to recovery after the party :)

Here are the kids costumes this year...

Emily was a pirate. This costume gave me more grief. The pattern was one of the worst I have ever used. It seemed to add 3 unnecessary steps for every one step - it was complicated. I am sure I could have produced a similar costume with much easier steps. However, all that really matters is that it got done and Emily loved it. She looked cute and was blissfully unaware of the mental anguish her mother went through to get the costume done.

Nate's costume did not cause near as much trauma. Frankenstein is an easy costume to pull off especially when all it takes is a $12 suit, a black shirt borrowed from your sister, and $7 awesome high boots purchased from Goodwill. Halloween memories - priceless.
Here is the story with Luke. He was supposed to be the most adorable parrot you have ever seen so that he could accompany Emily trick or treating and repeat everything she said. The costume I was going to make was seriously so cute - covered in feather boas. No boas on the costume below? Why, you ask? After starting Em's costume and realizing I was probably in over my head I decided to spare my sanity. I asked Luke what he would want to be if he could be anything from Costume Castle (our local costume store) and he said Luke Skywalker. So I swallowed my "all good mothers should make costumes" pride and bought the thing, which I might add cost too much money. Why do costumes made with cruddy fabric cost so much? I thought he looked cute and the costume kept me out of a strait jacket. I do feel a little bad for him though...he has had very few handmade costumes in his lifetime.
Megan wore her gypsy costume. This picture is horrible but you can check out the costume here if you have a burning desire to see more pictures.

finally some halloween decor

Our party this year was a Haunted Victorian theme. Our family room looks anything but Victorian so we did a bit of decorating. Keep in mind we are not going for historically accurate, we were going for the best we could while shopping at Goodwill.
I found a bunch of frames,mirrors, candelabras and sconces and spray painted everything black - amazing what making everything one color does. I really love how it turned out (in fact I am keeping it up for awhile)
Here it is all lit. I love candles and the candles reflecting in the mirrors looked really cool.
This last picture is to show you what we did to cover the brick on our fireplace (see first picture) Derek cut wood to fit over our fireplace and then we glued black marble linoleum tiles over the wood to make the fireplace look like black marble. This was a cheap decor trick and I was pleased with how it came out. I'll have to find a picture of it finished.

for aimee

I saw your post today Aimee so this picture is for you and any of your blog readers that happen to stop by here.

Here is another picture from our Halloween party - I have a feeling pictures will show up on this blog periodically for the next few weeks. I just don't have it in me to sit and post them all at once or to get them all on SmugMug.

This picture is of our neighbors Jason and Aimee. They came as Dog, the bounty hunter and his wife. I have never seen the show but have heard enough about this couple from other people to know who they are. Aimee was especially funny because she is pregnant. You can only imagine how great black vinyl is stretched over the pregnancy belly. They looked great - as did everybody that dressed up.

trick or TREAT

Here is an easy idea for visiting teaching, school teachers or anyone else that might need a little treat. I realize that I should have posted this before Halloween but you can tuck the idea away and use it for another time.

I used this same concept for our Halloween party although with some slight variations (pictures to come)

The idea came from Jordon and I loved it so much I had to use it. The little cookie jars are from IKEA and the labels were made on the computer.

forgot one

I forgot funniest. 1st place went to Jack and Wendy. Jack played the part all night. He handed out Jack business cards, brought his own food from Jack in the Box and even gave Derek and I some Jack cash to use at jack in the Box. I can't remember who was 2nd or 3rd but we have Sonny and Cher and gum on the bottom of a shoe.

costume contest winners

I didn't take any pictures at the party so I am waiting on some more decoration pictures from friends before I post them. I do have costumes pictures on my camera that a friend took for me so I thought I would share those with you.

The winner in each category won a trophy and skull chocolate. We do a prize for the winner only but we always have the 2nd and 3rd place winners come up too so that we can all get a good look at the costumes.Best Male - 1st place Jack Skellington, 2nd place Red Neck (and yes, that is Derek) 3rd place Boy George

Best Female - 1st place the beating heart bride from the Haunted Mansion (this costume had an amazing red beating heart that doesn't show up in the pictures), I can't remember how 2nd and 3rd place went (there was obviously a tie from the number of people in the picture) The other costumes are Wendy from Wendy's Fast food, Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas, and the Snow White meanie (what's her name?)
Most Like Self - 1st place Barbie, 2nd place an injured person (he really was injured from a pretty bad fall he took a week or so ago - his wife came as a personal injury lawyer) 3rd place Red Neck (so does it frighten anyone but me that Derek placed in this category of most like self?)
Best Couple - 1st place Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, can't remember the rest of the order but we have Jack and Sally, Vampire couple (we had a few vampires thanks to Twilight) and Boy George and Cindy Lauper
Scariest - 1st place beating heart bride and her groom, 2nd place Jack and 3rd place Boy George

We had a lot of great costumes. I'll post more costume pictures soon. I love that everyone gets into the costume thing - it makes for a very fun evening.

derek gets a bite of the apple and i'm jealous

Derek headed off to the "Big Apple" last night and I am trying hard to not hate him. No, it's not really that bad. He is only in Manhattan for today and his time will be spent in meetings. I talked to him for a few minutes this morning and he was planning on walking over to see the Empire State Building before his meeting but that was going to be pretty much it for site seeing. So I really don't have much to be jealous about although I still think I could have occupied myself for a day in Manhattan and had plenty of fun. One day I'll see New York.