Pandemonium of Pumpkins

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The Pumpkin Carving Party turned out to be a great success! I think the adults enjoyed it as much as the kids. It's funny how the inner child comes out in adults during those fun made holidays for kids.

I was not able to make everything on my menu, due to time constraints, but I did make a majority of it. My chili, I mean my graveyard dirt, went over so well that Samantha and I did not even get to have any. Guess I need to make more next time. I made my Skeleton Dip, which did not go over so well, but at least it looked pretty. I guess no one wanted veggies. We had salad with them the next day. The mummy dogs were a hit and easy to make.

We started the festivies with musical chairs for the wee ones. They seemed to like it after they got the hung of what they needed to do. Then we did bobbing for apples. I forget how hard this could be-those apples just want to sink when you try to bite down on one. Then all of us got into the painting, scooping, and carving of our pumpkins. Lucky for us the new neighbors had just moved in over the weekend and they had ton of moving boxes, which we used to collect all of the insides from the pumpkins. Some people who painted their pumpkins used it as their painting palette. When it was time to clean up, we just folded the boxes together and walla we were done!

Next year it will be bigger and better. The gears in my head are already spinning!

Adults like Halloween too!

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Have you noticed that Halloween is not just for kids anymore. Adults are really enjoy the parties and the dressing up as much as the kids. I don't ever remember my parents or grandparents dressing up for Halloween and getting into the holiday as much as I do today.

Saturday evening (10/24) we went to my supervisor's (Tim) Halloween party. I spent all week worried about what to wear, because I just knew Tim and his wife's costumes were going to be fabulous. Lucky for me I have a daughter that loves being outlandish and she helped me get dressed. She helped me dress as the Devil's Temptress. We went and bought some red hair color, fake nails, and blood red lipstick. The rest of the costume was put together with what I had in my closet and her devils cape, horns, and pitchfork from last year. I think my costume came out pretty good considering it was thrown together. As for Hector, he just pulled out the Zorro costume from last year and called it a night.

We arrived at his house and it inevitably stood out from the others. The best decorated I must say. Tim was dressed as a Tiki God (he has a tiki bar in his backyard) and Blair was Cruella de Vil. Other guest arrived as Urkel from "Family Matters", Slash "Guns N Roses", Courtney Love, Cesar, and the St. Paulie Girl. They even gave mini-oscars for best costumes. I must say my highlight of the night was the Ghostini's. See recipe below.

The Ghostini's
1oz Midori
1oz Sweet and Sour
2oz Vodka

Ghoulish Ghastly Goodies

Planning the menu for Sunday's party and party ideas. I found this cool site for Halloween recipes. I have also taken ideas from other sites.

Halloween Haunting Menu:

Graveyard dirt (chili)

Dead man in his grave (hot dogs)

Skeletal decomposition (chips in casket with a skeleton inside)

Pumpkin Pasties (Pumpkin Empanadas)

Skeleton Brain Dip (a skeleton crudite tray, the dip will be his head)

Sangre de bruja (aka. Witches blood)Sangria for the adults

Melted witch (Green Kool-aid) for the kiddos.

I will take lots of pictures of the ghoulish night and gruesome table feast.

Holland Huskies and dedication

Sunday (10/19) Samantha had her school dedication. This school was built in our neighborhood this past year.

The dedication started with some of the school staff and the principal coming out of an igloo with Huskies. The kids were thrilled.

The dedication was for Ms. Bonnie Holland. She has offered many years to the dedication of children and their education, working with the superintendent and school board staff. The dedication was to honor the naming of her school and guest speakers who spoke on her behalf as a devoted employee, mother, and grandmother. Some of the children of the school presented her with gifts and the school choir sang several songs.

The school mascot is a Husky. The school raised pennies and other coins to present to Husky Haven, a rescue organization for Huskies. I think the kids found the presentation of the check to Husky Haven most memoriable at this dedication because they brought along dogs. I found it was a rewarding experience for the children to see that they can really make a difference in a community by their good deeds and efforts.

It ended with the children taking the parents on a tour to see their artwork in the school's hallways and a reception of goodies. The Husky cake was awesome! I just had to take a picture.

Creative and Productive

Creative and productive that was what my weekend was all about. I am in my best state when I am moving and ideas are just generating from my head like wildfire.

1. I made my Halloween invites for our Pumpkin Carving Party next Sunday (10/26). I wasn't going to have a party, but I had several request and I just couldn't let them down - could I? Hosting parties and gatherings are costly and timely, but you know when it's something you like to do, you just overlook those things (Hector would think otherwise).



2. I took Samantha on her annual pumpkin patch photo shoot. I have been taking her since she was a year old. She also looks forward to it. It's a tradition I hope she carries on with her children when she has them. It's also fun to see her growing up in the photos. Maybe the same setting every year, with pumpkins every where, but I also see her growing up into a young woman in those photos. We took Oreo and Lilli this year. I did not know what to expect from both of them, but they did good. We bought them costumes and decide to take them along for the ride so they could show them off. I never thought I would be one of those people who would dress up their dogs, but the costumes were so cute I could not resist.



3. After the pumpkin patch, I went out craft show shopping. Solo of course. Hector and Samantha found it would be too excruciating to go. I used to do the craft show circut with a friend about 10 years ago and I have to admit the shows now are awful. Nothing is handmade anymore. They go buy all of the stuff from those (Harwin district) warehouses and bring them to craft shows to pawn off.



4. I was so unhappy with the craft shows, but along the way I found some cute shops in Old Town Katy. This will be my new shopping place! There are about 5-6 antique stores, somewhat reasonably priced. At one of the shops I went into, I ran into Judy Bielec. Name sound familiar. She is Frank Bielec's wife (Trading Spaces Frank). They live in Katy and she was in the store visiting with her friend, who I guess owns the store and she also has a booth space there. Now we know where Frank gets all of his goodies for the show. I also, found this awesome gift shop, The Cottage Door. Lots of neat decorative items and Brighton jewelry. This place will definitely be on my wish list for Christmas. I found Lindee too! Lindee is an artist that uses recycled fence post to make yard art. She used to sell at different shows I worked at and at a craft mall, but when it closed down and I quit the craft show circut I lost contact with her. Well I found Lindee at Old Time Antiques in Katy. I posted her artwork in my slide show. The pumpkin sign.



5. I worked on a altered Halloween item for a scrapbook challenge amongst my scrapping friends. I may use these glasses for the party on Sunday.



6. We ended the weekend by attending Samantha's school dedication. Read story above.

Look forward to the upcoming Halloween week next week. Stay tune for party photos next week!

Photography Fall shoot

My friend Holli celebrated her son's second birthday on Saturday (10/11). Prior to his party she asked me to come over to take family Fall pictures. I was pretty pleased with my results. As you know it can be a challenge to keep a 2 year old toddler focused on the camera, but I managed. I had to do lots of tricks, but it worked and he gave me some great smiles with his boyish charm.

Photography has always been a hobby I loved. I'm starting to build a portfolio and using my friends and family to help jump start my new part-time business. Any little $ will help to support my photography and scrapbooking habit.

I used the photo editing site Picnick to create the black and white photo with the colored pumpkin.

Rambling on in Round Top

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I did not get a chance to update my Round Top experience on Monday. This was a busy week at work.

Unfortunately, I did not find anything that caught my eye this time or maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. I did see a cool mirror for Samantha's room, but I decided not to go back for it. It was an vintage shutter. The top portion of the shutter was taken out and a mirror was put in its place. Since we recently have remodeled Samantha's room I thought it would be a cute in her room. I will be on the look out for an old shutter to refurbish now.

I did take lots of pictures though. Check out the slideshow above. I love how all the vendors get into a Fall mode and decorate with Fall items.

Oh the anticipation!

Tomorrow (10/4) I will trek down to Round Top for my junk finding mission. What am I looking for. Heck I don't know! I just love going and finding some kind of vintage article or item that I have no idea what I am going to do with it, I just know I need it. I have posted just some of the off the wall, but fun things you can find in Round Top

Actually, there are two rooms in the house I have not touched yet. Our study, which is a hodge podge of everything right now and our game room. I have decided to add a vintage look to our study and I would like to make our game room more of a media room. I hope to find some vitange movie reels. Of course, I have to pay a visit to my favorite vintage wear store - Junk Gypsy. They also have a blog site, which is featured in my favorites. They have some really neat jewelry, little on the high side, but it gives me great ideas. And last but not least I need to find some ephemera collective items to add to my scrapbooks.

I will report my success on my new found treasure(s) on Monday.

Blog tagger

I got tagged by my friend Misty! You have to answer your top 4 answers in each category and then tag 4 people. I my case I think most of my friends have already been tagged who have a blog, so I will email my other friends personally.

4 things I love about my husband:

1. he loves to clean, so he is a big help around the house

2. he is a great father and husband

3. he loves to be a jokester, maybe even sometimes at my expense

4. he listens to all my gripes

4 movies I would watch more than once:

1. Urban Cowboy

2. Steel Magnolias

3. Forrest Gump

4. Sex in the City

4 TV shows I watch more than once: If your talking repeats, then I don't watch repeats, but if your talking about weekly shows I watch. I have listed them below.

1. Desperate Housewives

2. Brothers and Sisters

3. Dancing with the Stars

4. Lipstick Jungle

4 places I have been:

1. Alaska (Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan)

2. Puerto Rico

3. Florida (Orlando, Madiera Beach, Key West, & Tampa)

4. California (San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Lake Tahoe)

4 people who e-mail me regularly

1. my boss

2. Holli

3. co-workers

4. my scrapping friends

4 favorite foods:

1. Mexican

2. Sushi

3. Frito Pie

4. Chicken and Dumplings, but only my moms

4 places I would like to visit:

1. Hawaii

2. Italy

3. Paris

4. North Eastern states during the Fall season

4 things I am looking forward to this coming year: 2008 first two; 2009 last two

1. Get a raise; hopefully my boss sees this

2. Getting my Christmas shopping started early

3. Plan for our 2009 family vacation

4. Run a 1/2 marathon

4 people I would like to tag:

1. Holli

2. Lisa S.

3. Brenda

4. Amanda

Have fun girls!