Halloween 2011

1-3 Comfy Walking Clothes in Halloween-y colors (in lieu of costume)

4 Specs (so I can see, I need them - especially at night)

5 Flips - 'cause it's fall in Phoenix

6 Phone, clock, flashlight, protected

7 JW Hulme Field Thermos Guard (would love this)

8 Pumpkin chili for early dinner before trick-or-treating

9 Wagon - 'cause we'll need to haul the loot and the tired kid legs

10 Mexican hot chocolate (in case it gets cold) kept warm in thermos - photo credit

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This is my plan for cruising the neighborhood on Monday.

The little dude (son) is planning to be a snake - husband is planning to sew it, like on a machine.  Excited to see how it will turn out.

Little darling (daughter) will be a fluffy white kitty cat.

Mom (me) will be photographer and wagon puller.

Dad (husband) might surprise us with a costume, as he often does, or me might not and assist in parent duties in the dark.

Also excited for Sunday's Cupcake Love In event in Scottsdale and family photo session with Tiffany.  Tiffany is a friend of a friend and we won a free session almost a year ago.  So happy we're finally making it happen.  I've been gathering outfit ideas on my Pinterest - check them out here.

What are your plans for Halloween?

Until next year

Our family festivities have begun.  I hope you and yours have a super duper time together making lots of special new memories.  I'm off to watch Love Actually in bed next to my sick sweetie.

Here's what we'll be doing tomorrow night.

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our holiday card

I look forward every day to getting Christmas/Holiday cards from our friends and family.  We've had our cards for a few weeks but I finally addressed them tonight.  I hope to get them in the mail tomorrow.  We'll see how much I get done.  

I love our picture.  I grabbed our bench, a stool {to place the camera with timer set} and the family {early Halloween day}.  We all seemed to be in good moods and I liked that this was what we were wearing at the time - we never have shoes on.  We do live in Arizona after all.  Simple and sweet.

We're looking forward to having our pictures done by a pro next month - wasn't able to time it right with ordering cards this year.  I won a free session with Tiffany Tcheng of Abbott Graphie {she's a friend of a friend} and I can't wait to see how they turn out!  "Capturing Happy" is her tagline.  How darling is that! Here's a pic from a session at a local orange grove. I love bubbles!

We're trying to decide where exactly to have our photo session.  Tiffany has had a lot of great ideas.  Downtown Phoenix has a lot of cool spots to choose from.  I was thinking the farm, or our backyard {done that} or I saw on Tea Talk today that there was some nice red brick at the new Pita Jungle downtown.  Hmm, I think I'm liking it.

Chelsea and her boyfriend are so cute.

Oh Christmas Tree...

Saturday we drove to Payson {and my husband's sister's family} with our tree cutting permit and my hunky husband chopped us down a Christmas tree.

He used my great-grandfather's saw.  That part was particularly special to me.

We did lots of hiking and the kids had so much fun picking up pine cones, spotting spiders and tossing stones into the stream.  We didn't find the tree on our first attempt {sigh} and we'd gotten pretty tired.  We drove to a second location and let the boys run out and get it while Gretchen snoozed in the car.


Then today we decorated.

I love how the lights from the tree sparkle off the ornaments, and make the tree smell like our own personal forest.  We could have gotten a pinon or a juniper, we got a juniper, and let me tell you, it smells out-stand-ing.  

I love the holidays.

Before I forget...

I just wanted to make a quick mention of how delicious last weekend's Thanksgiving meal was.

We had:

Fried Turkey
Brussel Sprouts with Bacon, Carmelized Red Onion and Cranberries
Potato and Cheese Bake
Breadless Cauliflower Mushroom Hazelnut Leek Stuffing
Scalloped Sweet Potatoes and Apples
Fresh cranberry blueberry pomegranate sauce

It needs it's own moment.




Ok, I did it.  I feel better now.

Now when I try to remember what we did, I have this post to refer to. :)

On to holiday cookies.

Handmade Wooden Toys by AsherJasper

How awesome are these kids' blocks.  I want them.  For me. :) I'd stack them up really high, then have my Godzilla child knock them over.  Then we'd laugh and do it again.  I'm easily amused.

Sewn Paper Garlands

I'm totally over the moon for my paper garland I made.  See below.  It was so easy and so fun. Gretchen didn't enjoy the process though since she couldn't help out.  I guess being 6 months old is hard sometimes.  Especially with two bottom teeth trying so hard to come out.

I'm sorry for the big break in posts.  I've got a huge list of things I want to talk about but not the energy and time to actually do it.  I think this whole lack of sleep thing is really killing me.  Usually I'm not one to spend time making things, except for when it's easy and fun and the result is stupendous.  This is stupendous to me.  I think it looks really great.  And this particular one could double for Cinco de Mayo decor too.  Ha.

I discovered this neat little project from mini-eco.  So so cute.  And so easy.  She explained how to do it the "right" way.  I just eyeballed the whole thing from construction paper.  I picked red, green, white and grey.  I love how it turned out.  

This is what Kate did:

Check out the tutorial here.  I'm totally into making easy pretty things right now.  I hope you like it.  Let me know if you make one too.  I'd love to see pics.

Gettin' my holiday on

I feel like I'm at the starting line of a marathon of fun called "the holidays." I'm hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas again this year and while I'm glad that I get to be in my own home, it's darn hard to get it all together.  Last year I was pregnant and this year I have a 3.5 year old and a 6 month old and it's not any easier.

I will say that I have ordered my Christmas/Holiday cards, so that's a big one for me.  I wish I had one of these Primele stamps for the return address.  Beautiful!!

However, I need to menu plan for Thanksgiving.  This is a hard one for me right now.  I'm trying to live a more minimal and primal food lifestyle right now.  My challenge is in trying to please everyone.  I want to prepare food that everyone craves for Thanksgiving, but I want to avoid the bloat {I need to with my mommy tummy that I'm trying to reduce}.  Doesn't this cauliflower mushroom stuffing look gorgeous?

But I know my sis in law and family isn't into veggies and will my dad be sad that my mom's sausage stuffing isn't on the plate.  See my problem?  Not sure what to do.

I'm trying to be all healthy and then Ree posts all these drool-worthy recipes.  I think I will steal this cranberry pomegranate sauce recipe for this year.

I am getting way ahead of myself 'cause I've planned a Mom's night out for some friends this Thursday.  We're going bowling at the posh new place downtown and I don't go out.  Like hardly ever.  I don't know what to wear to a posh bowling alley.  I guess one of my go to uniforms of flats + jeans + 3/4 length striped top + scarf will do just fine.  Twill be super fun.

Then Sunday I'm trying to help organize a party where I work.  We're working on a fun menu and one of the items will be crispy turnip chips served in a parchment cone.  How cute is that?  I'm envisioning something like this:

And then after Thanksgiving is my husband's graduation from law school.  How amazing is he? I can't believe it's all over already.  I'm so proud of him.  We'll have to plan something fun for that too.

It'll all work out.  I just need to remind myself of that.  It's all fun stuff.  I'm just a worry wart.  Are any of you like me too?  I am generally an in-the-moment kind of girl but it's only 'cause I've planned it all out ahead of time - if only in my head.

What fun ideas do you have for Thanksgiving?

Kids Punkins

Patrick has really started to enjoy making things.  I'm not super duper crafty in the paper arts division.  Here's an easy one we're going to try:

http://makeminelime.blogspot.com/2010/09/fall-pumpkin-tutorial.html

I found this from the One Pretty Thing blog.  It's a great resource for all things crafty and printable on the interweb.