we are off

Derek and I are off for a vacation. Here is just one of the adventures we have planned

orem?

Who reading this (besides my sister) lives in Orem? My parents are looking at a house there and I want to find some things out.

reflections

I was looking through pictures and realized I was a bit behind posting some of our family events and accomplishments. In October Megan, Emily and Nathan participated in the Reflections program. The middle school did not do an awards night so I have no pictures of the girls but here are some of Nate.

The theme was I Can Make a Difference...

Life Is Wonderful

One of my favorite songs and a good reminder for all of us...Life is Wonderful!

merry mraz!

Here is a little Jason and Toca to help you get into the Christmas spirit. Enjoy!

all i want for christmas is this...

This giveaway is unbelievable - yes, my heart sped up when I saw it. Can you imagine more than $7,000 in entertaining goodies - what a party you could throw. If you're interested head over to Hostess with the Mostess and check out the prize package - then throw your name in to the mix to see if you can win this fabulous prize.

a must see

We, along with most of America, saw Enchanted this weekend. Loved it! If you haven't seen it yet add it to your must see list

i'm no paparrazi

I am seriously lacking pictures from Thanksgiving - not sure what I was thinking. Maybe I was just spent from cooking and cleaning. I did manage to get this shot of Donevan (our nephew) crying like a baby. Ok, maybe he wasn't crying like a baby but it's still a funny shot.
We had Donevan and Dusty over, as well as the Webbers from our ward. It was a fun change of pace to host Thanksgiving at our home since we are usually at my parents or Derek's mom's house.

After dinner we bundled up and headed outside to watch Elf. Derek pulled out mattresses, pillows and blankets so everyone was able to find a spot on the sofa or mattresses. It was a bit cold but us wimpy Californians managed to handle the 50 or 60 degree weather. The pictures below aren't great but since it's all I've got to commemorate our Thanksgiving I thought I'd better post it for posterity's sake.

we got noticed

I was checking out one of my favorite party blogs today and look what I came across... this post from At Home With Kim Vallee.

vacation, all i ever wanted

The kids are out of school this week and this song has been running through my mind all morning. We needed this break - yeah for vacation!

remember

I gave the visiting teaching message this month in my companionship. Since last month was conference there was no set message so I had decided to use the talk by Elder Oaks, which I believe was titled Good, Better, Best (one of my favorite talks from conference) A few days before our appointments I felt like I should change the message and instead I focused on Pres. Eyring's talk O Remember, Remember (another fav talk from conference) I felt that this was an especially good topic with Thanksgiving coming up.

As I was preparing the message I was thinking about my own family and what we could do this month as we prepare for Thanksgiving that would allow us to remember God's hand in our lives. It needed to be simple enough for the kids and out in the open so we wouldn't forget to do it. I decided to do a remembrance jar...each day we can write down a quick sentence or two about how we have seen God's hand. I was just going to use any old jar but then remembered a post I saw on Amy's blog about glass etching. I decided to try my hand at it to see if I could spruce up the plain glass jars that I had. My first attempts were not great (I needed to use more etching cream) but I still love the results. It turned out to be such an easy craft project that Kari (my visiting teaching companion) and I delivered them to our sisters as well so that they could use them with their families.

If you want to make these for your own family check out Amy's how to. I also ended up making a monogrammed one like Amy's for one of Megan's friends and am trying to think up other reasons to make more. I may try to incorporate the idea somewhere on our Thanksgiving table.



I used stickers from the scrapbook store to write remember. I mixed up the fonts because the word was so long and I was making 4 of them - I didn't want to buy so many stickers just to get all the letters in the same font. Each jar was a variation of the different fonts. I found the glass etching cream at Michael's but I am sure you could find it at any craft store. I had the jars but they also can be found anywhere. I buy a lot of glass stuff for parties at Big Lots - the prices are good.

more family good bye pictures

Here are a few more pictures of our last night with my family before they headed off to Utah. I love the dogpile picture above with Derek, the kids and my brother Garin. Someone in the dogpile got hurt - any guesses?

Derek doesn't do many horsey rides at home with the wood floors so this was a fun treat - lots of room and carpet in my parents empty house
Grandma Wood trying to convince Luke to give her a kiss. He is thinking about it...

STOP right there!

I have posted party pictures. If you want to go through them in order as they were written (kind of a tour through the party) then scroll down to the post titled...let's get this party started (I think that is what I titled it) then read backwards - meaning read from the bottom post up to this one.

send then home with a sweet treat

I am a firm believer in party favors, take home gifts, swag, whatever you want to call it. Derek doesn't understand it - he figures we threw a party and people enjoyed it why do we have to give them a gift but I love it and think it is a nice way to send people home and thank them for coming.

I couldn't think of any grand Victorian themed take home gift so I decided to go with chocolate chip cookies - who doesn't love cookies. I found the jars at Ikea (told you it was a great party store) and added the labels.

Now I gotta fill all 40 jars. In steps Super Rona, friend extraordinaire. My friend Rona (who also took all these pictures for me) baked the cookies for me. Not some of the cookies - all the cookies. Keep in mind that each jar held a dozen cookies - yikes! She saved my life. The take home gifts turned out perfect and they would have never happened without her.
It should be noted that I am not super woman - this party only happens with the help of a ton of peeps. This is the one party that we host that we charge for. I do not make it a habit of charging people to come into my home for parties but to feed as many people as we do, and to provide prizes, etc. we have to charge. It is $15 a person and we have not had anyone complain yet. My friends, the Wrights, make an amazing meal - the meal alone is enough to make the $15 worth it.

So the guests are a big part of making this party successful because of their contribution. My great group of friends help every year. I don't even have to ask for their help. They just do what is needed before the party and during. Derek is the most easy going husband and is willing to be the party slave. He makes planning and throwing the party so much easier. To be honest, my kids were a ton of help this year too. I am afraid I am creating little party throwing monsters but oh well, they love it as much as I do. I couldn't do this on my own!

and the winner is...

Here is our prize table filled with fun goodies. The small little round trophy at the front of the table is an award that our last party won. I am a member of some haunt communities - people who love Halloween and take it to the extreme. We entered our Halloween party in the Haunters Choice Awards and got 2nd place (runner-up) I put it out so that our guests could see the award.

The headless, solid gold :), skellie trophies came from our local party store. I added a tag stating the prize category and awarded these to the costume contest winners along with one of the chocolate skulls you see next to the trophies. The skulls came from Target.

The glass container filled with little white envelopes help Golden Spoon certificates, good for one free frozen yogurt. Each guest that came in costume (which was all of them) got a certificate. I like that everyone is able to go home with a prize.

The big bottles of sparkling cider went with gift cards good for 2 movies and a tub of popcorn at our local movie theater. These prizes went to the winner of our game. The game turned out great - I will have to devote a post to it so you can see what a great job Derek did in putting it together.

more details

More of my favorite spider webs, that are actually beef netting - who knew?!?! Want some of your own? They can be found at Trenton Mills.

Our fireplace mantel. Love these gargoyles. Got them at Big Lots. Do not under estimate stores like Big Lots, 99 cent store, etc. Some of my best decor items have come from these discount stores.
I had these chandeliers hanging from our patio cover. These were a great find at Ikea. I couldn't believe I found such great lighting for $17.00 Again, my plug for going with what you can afford...these obviously aren't historically correct but they lend themselves to the look and you can't beat the price. If you have an Ikea by you and are planning a party - get yourself there. I happen to think that Ikea is a party planners heaven.
Some shots from inside. The party was held outside but of course we needed a bathroom. Don't over look the areas that people will be in even if they are not the general party area. We blocked off our kitchen and living room using pipe and drape that we rented so that people couldn't see all the busyness and mess going on in those rooms but to get to the bathroom people had to go through my dining room and family room. These shelves are in my dining room so we decked them out a bit. Once all the candles were on these shelves and lit it looked great. The framed pictures are the kind that change as you walk by them. I borrowed these small ones from a friend but have purchased similar ones from Ghoulish Gallery Tim, the owner is a way nice guy and his products are outstanding.

I originally intended to have a silhouette artist come to the party and do silhouettes for the guests as a take home favor. I decided against it because I wasn't sure how many people would want a silhouette of themselves as Frankenstein, a mountain man or a bunny. I still wanted to use silhouettes somewhere in the party. I happened to run across some silhouette dingbats while searching for fonts on the internet - score!! The four you see below are simply dingbats printed in black on white printer paper and framed. Super cheap and turned out great! In this shot you can also see the curtains I made for the party, I found the fabric at a local fabric store and used cheap Ikea curtain rods. No hemming needed because it is a run down old mansion and was supposed to look ratty. We also covered our furniture with white sheets to give it an older feeling.

place setting details

One of my personal favorites from the party was the place settings. The final look included a black cloth napkin that was folded on top of the plate with the Gourley Manor candy box sitting atop it. The best part of the place settings...the silverware - one of my favorite things!

I scoured ebay, antiques stores and asked friends just so I could find enough place settings of old silverware for 80 people. It was not easy but boy was it worth it. The mis- matched tarnished silverware added such a cool look to the tables. The designs on the silverware were amazing. The fork below is one of my favorites. I googled "eating with tarnished silverware" to make sure I wasn't killing anyone off and found out we were good to go. I can't say enough about how much I loved this. I like the mis-matched look so much I am polishing up some of the pieces to use for Thanksgiving and Christmas - I figure tarnished is good for Halloween but not the other holidays. Then the silverware will have a couple years to tarnish itself back up for the next Victorian Halloween.
I found a how-to for these candy boxes in Paper Crafts magazine. I typed Gourley manor (the name we used for our home) in word and added it to the pattern from the mag. I printed enough of these out, one for each person and then the fun began...cutting them out. My friends and husband who work as hard as I do to make this party come together helped with all the cutting and folding. I inked all the edges and my girls, Megan and Emily filled them with candy and tied them all up. This were definitely a group effort.

did i mention....

that i love these candelabras?!?!

rounding the corner to the backyard

This is what the backyard looked like. We ended up fitting nine long tables in the back and if we needed to we probably could have fit a couple more. This was the first time we had the Halloween party since our yard had been redone so I was a bit nervous about how it would all fit but it ended up working really well.

We went with long tables instead of round because I thought they lent themselves to more of a mansion type, family dining feeling. I used white tableclothes with black lace overlays that I shredded up a bit. My friend Max found the lace in LA for a $1.00 a yard - tell me that's not a great deal?!?!


I rented the chairs from a local rental business and was so pleased with how they looked. I am not a hug fan of plastic chairs but the design on the backs of these particular chairs helped to create more of a Victorian feel. One of the things about parties is being able to go with the flow and your budget. Would I have loved ornate wooden chairs - you bet, but my budget wouldn't allow it so I went with the best thing that I could afford and I think I still got a great look.

So my big splurge was these candelabras. Is it wrong to be in love with an object? I love these beauties. I found them at Z Gallerie and knew I had to have them. I rationalized this purchase by telling myself that our plan is to do this Victorian theme every other year so I will get plenty of use out of them. I may even use them for Christmas because I love them that much.
Keep in mind that all these shots were taken during set up so if you see missing silverware or whatever it's because we were not done. Also, I need to make a plug for lighting. It was dark when guests arrived and the party took on a whole different look when candles were lit on the tables and surrounding areas and other lights were glowing. Never forget lighting when planning a party.

moving on to the side gate

This was the area that I was most disappointed with. These pictures were taken before the entrance was complete and some things got taken away or added but it still never worked for me. The entrance to a party should have some WOW going for it and this entrance did not. I just didn't have any great ideas for it. I also kept comparing it to our last Halloween party and the entrance we had for it (see next 3 pictures)
Once it got dark and candles were lit it was ok but next year I'm working harder on this area.

Every person or couple had a bag with their names(s) on it. The bags contained drink tags (to keep track of their glass all night), costume contest ballot and pencils. Again, I loved the last party so much better with the burlap bags I made but I guess I should just get over it - the party is done.