Happy Halloween!

I am busy getting ready for a big show this weekend so this post will be short and sweet - a quick overview of our Halloween festivities! We carved pumpkins this week. Actually, Jeremy carved pumpkins - he does an awesome job, he is truly an artist at heart! (The peanut pumpkin made a nice bat. ) Last night was trick or treat night (don't ask me why they never have it on actual Halloween?!) Lindsay was ADAMANT that she wanted to be a cat. Don't tell her - I believe this costume is actually a leopard BUT, it was only $10 and the other cat costume options were a bit more than I wanted to spend for something she would be wearing for an hour. Laura is an equestrian or horse rider in six year old language. Jeremy walked the neighborhood with them and I handed out candy here at home. He said that Lindsay got tired & cold and he carried her for awhile while Laura went to every house she could. She came home with a TON of candy - more than we will ever eat! By the way, why are so many teenagers trick-or-treating these days? Most of the candy I handed out went to teenagers?!?!?

Hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween!

(Do you like Lindsay's choice of (un)matching socks here?)

I blame the Berenstain Bears for this...

Okay, so as you know per my previous posts, my house was just a teeny bit disastrous after the busy week of orders I've been working on. After I finished Jimmy's Book of Thoughts and delivered it to the postal service yesterday afternoon, the time had come to begin to tackle some of the disarray of my once neat and comfortable home. I was working on laundry and some tidying in my bedroom for awhile. The girls came in begging me to read them a book and I agreed. I told them each to pick a library book from our stack. Laura selected a chapter from her current Magic Treehouse book and Lindsay returned with this:



We read the books and I went back to my cleaning and folding. Eventually I finished my task and stepped into the hallway to find this:

A FAUX GARAGE SALE IN FULL SWING! SUPER!

Nice. As I've been busy getting lots of household tasks done, my children have been creating a mess of epic proportions. I know there surely must be some moms out there who go through this. You are busy cleaning and making lots of progress on getting the house presentable (feeling really good about yourself and what a great housekeeper you are) while unbeknownst to you, your children have been doing some work of their own. Sometimes it is so frustrating! So much for being a good housekeeper. This is my one reason for having them "help" me clean. Their help is not what I would consider "helpful"; however, at least I know where they are and that they are not making additional messes!

By the way, yes they did destroy their whole rooms in order to find merchandise for their faux garage sales. And yes, they each got merchandise from their own rooms. (Why only make a mess in one room when we could make a mess in both?)

I got multiple requests to come and shop at their faux garage sales which I did finally oblige. I "purchased" a lovely miniature baby doll, a Lion King book, and a Littlest Pet Shop mouse. I remember having faux garage sales when I was a kid. (Beth, I know you are reading this and cracking up.) Why did I torture my mom this way? It certainly has come back to bite me in the you-know-where.

Back to the Berenstain Bears, I believe this faux garage sale plot was hatched during the reading of this book. The Bears have too much stuff & clutter in their home and decided to [not] have a garage sale but give all their no longer needed items away to others in need. I noticed that my children ignored the "moral lesson" and decided to go for the garage sale instead. Thanks Berenstain Bears.

Thoughts...

Next up, "Jimmy's Book of Thoughts". Jimmy contacted me looking for a special gift for his girlfriend. He gave me all the titles and thoughts (in his own words) that he wanted. He was looking for a paper bag album with an autumn/love theme. Hope I was able to capture it!

Dolphins in Ohio??

I thought I would display a couple of my custom orders I have been working on. This is a collection of tags for a baby shower. I have made a few of these in the past and they have been big hits. One side of the tag is decorated in the shower theme and the other side has lined space for writing.

The purpose is to the tags available for everyone at the shower to write a prayer/blessing to baby or message/advice to mom. The tags add a nice touch to the shower decorations when they are all spread out on the tables. After everyone fills out their tag, the tags simply get placed on a ring and mom-to-be has a wonderful keepsake from her shower. The theme of this particular shower is dolphins and the colors are pastel. Just in case you wondered, it is a bit difficult to find dolpin "stuff" in Ohio. The shower will be taking place in California - maybe dolpins are more popular there?

By the way, I will NOT be displaying photos of my house that has gone un-mantained this week while I've been working on FOUR custom orders. Yikes!

A Fall Tradition

As long ago promised, here are the photos from the hayride and pumpkin patch. Better late than never I guess. We had a great time. Lindsay was so funny. She had to pick up every pumpkin she came across to determine if it was the one for her. Her rejection of the pumpkins probably could have used a little help as her method was just dropping them back onto the ground. (Sorry pumpkin patch owners.) She ended up finding one that was in the shape of a peanut. She certainly has her own flair! Laura's method was to find the biggest one in the patch. (None were very big. Apparently you had to pay more $ to get a decent sized pumpkin...) She's such a firstborn, always scouting out the biggest and best for herself.

Happy Fall!

This one below is my favorite photo - she's so beautiful!

Lindsay's peanut shaped pumpkin.

Are you obligated...

to purchase a vehicle if while you are test driving it, your kid pukes in it?

We are now the official new owners of a brand-new-to-us Toyota Sienna. I love it! We were tired of having two somewhat unreliable vehicles with over 100,000 miles on each so we decided to finally take the plunge and replace one of them. We have shopped and researched and shopped and researched and finally decided this was the minivan for us. The fact that Lindsay puked in it sealed the deal. I like how we can trash a vehicle in no time flat.

She (Lindsay) didn't actually puke per se, it was more like a very wet burp. A regurgitation, if you will. This occurred on Saturday when we test drove it. Jeremy and I, kids in tow, made a quick exit after "the incident". We didn't inform the salesman. After another two nights of sleeping on the decision (and feeling bad about "the incident" deception) , we decided that we would indeed purchase the van, despite the unpleasant "incident".


Seriously, the next post will be the pumpkin patch.

Olive You!

I know, I promised pics of the hayride/pumpkin patch next but I haven't had much time to go through the photos yet. (I don't know how single moms do it all!!!) So, here is a card I made for next weekend's craft fair that I am doing. It's on Saturday which just happens to be "Sweetest Day". I know, it's a Hallmark holiday - all the more reason why people should buy my cards. Look out Hallmark, here I come...

More projects coming soon...

Lindsay's photos

Finally, here they are - Lindsay's four year photos. Sorry it's taking me so long to fulfill my blog promises. (I know you all are out there checking every 10 minutes to see what profound and amusing nugget I am blogging about now.)

Here are a few of my favorites:




It promises to be a long week for the simple reason that Jeremy left this morning for Kansas and won't be back til Friday. (Good news - I get the bed to myself and can stay up all night and watch TV if I want to. We can eat cereal for dinner. Bad news - no one is here to give me a break from these perfectly behaved & polite children.)

Today we went on a hayride and to the pumpkin patch. (Hmm, I wonder what the next blog nugget will be about...) We had a lot of fun & it was an absolutely beautiful day for it!

Until the next nugget...

The Tooth Fairy Dilemma

Laura has been studying money at school. She decided that she wanted to take her "gold dollar" coin that the tooth fairy left her to school to show her teacher. Deep down, I knew this was a bad idea because she is accident prone and very forgetful. (Traits that drive me CRAZY because I am so not like that. I CANNOT STAND to lose things.) I'm sure you can see where this is going. She lost the gold dollar.

She decided to write the tooth fairy a note regarding the lost dollar and place it under her pillow. At first the tooth fairy was not aware of the note. Once the tooth fairy had been informed of the note (the next night), she took it and read it over. Here it is:In case you may be unfamiliar with first grade scrawl, this is what it says: "I am sorry tooth fairy. I lost my dollar. Can I have another one? Love, your friend, Laura" The second note says: "Tooth Fairy, take this present." The present is an iced animal cookie wrapped in saran wrap. I was informed that only one cookie was needed because the tooth fairy is very small.

What is a tooth fairy to do? She has already been very lenient because the original tooth that the dollar was given for was lost. Yes, Laura lost her lost tooth but the tooth fairy is kind and left a dollar for a non-tooth.

The T.F. stalled around for a few days (Laura checked under her pillow first thing every morning) and finally decided to let her husband handle this one. Last night, the T.F.'s husband decided that this was in order:

It says: "Laura, I was sorry to hear that you lost your tooth and your gold! I am sorry but I cannot give another dollar at this time. But, be sure you look really good next tooth you lose. I will leave an extra surprise for you. Love, Tooth Fairy"

When Laura got the notification this morning, she seemed fine with it. Dilemma solved.

Up next, Lindsay's photo session.