Jumping in the Leaves

More quickpages:


The quickpages were designed by Glam Fairy Designs and SMD Designs...just wanted to show off a few cute pictures:) The leaf jumping was in our own front yard. We barely have enough leaves to jump in. The other picture is at Ada Hayden Park here in town. A man came this fall to build an artistic sapling structure that turned out really cool.



Click any photo to "bigify" (Janet's word), but especially the last one...I checked...you should be able to read all you ever wanted to know and more about the stick house!

Milestones

Our 9th anniversary was last Thursday (thus the beautiful flowers, same periwinkle color as at our wedding). At first it looked like we might not get to celebrate alone, but we ended up celebrating two days in a row! I have a maternity aqua exercise class that meets T/Th evenings until 6pm, so my friend Amy watches the kids. She offered to keep them Thursday evening while we went out to eat at The Cafe. This is probably the coolest restaurant in our town...awesome food, awesome ambiance, and they are dedicated to providing as much locally produced food as possible, which is great.

Then Friday night my in-laws, who are in the throes of a COMPLETE kitchen remodel (as in no cupboards on the walls at the moment and just got their new appliances), offered to watch the boys while we went out again:) This time to Cool Basil, which has had mixed reviews. Spouse had been there once before for a business lunch and the service was terrible, but the food great, so we figured it was worth the gamble. It was awesome! I had Tom Yum soup and gingered orange roughy. Spouse had Tom Kai soup and angry dish Pad-Pi-Rod.

Then on Saturday, S-i-L had her baby, so I am an aunt for the second time:) Dominic Borg (family last name) Purcell made his appearance during the day and we saw him briefly before I had to fill in a partial shift at the Fast Track Sunday evening. They've been too busy to blog his appearance yet, so no pics of him yet:(

Back to Summer (at least in photos!)

On a very cold, overcast day I needed a bit of sunshine in my life:) I rely on my gardening expert/friend to tell little Black-Thumb me what to do with my flower gardens. After our blue hydrangea experiment failed (sob, they are my favorite flowers in the whole wide world) she suggested St. John's Wort shrubs to replace the hydrangeas. I call them my happy little flowers, heeehee. For those who don't know, St. John's wort is best known as a health supplement touted to help those with depression. Well just looking at these flowers helps make me happy:) (They are the picture clear to the right in the filmstrip.)

Plain Digital Wrapper KCS Designs "Joys of Summer"
Aneczka W flowers freebies
Angie Briggs filmstrip
Brandy Hackman daisy
A Langpap orange flowers/leaves

More Spookiness

A smattering of our holiday decor:




The "scary guy" as Michael calls him was a 50% off find at Target last year...love him! He sits in our storage side of the basement during the off-season and happily scares the kids when they go downstairs to check out the toy stash down there, lol.

Mom made the witch a number of years ago...she's way more cute than scary:)

Christopher designed the jack-o-lantern based on a t-shirt he has, and Jeff did the honors with the sharp pumpkin knife. I'll never forget the first year I convinced my parents I was old enough to carve a pumpkin. I sliced my thumb open and was too embarrassed/didn't want them to know I apparently wasn't old enough after all, and told them I had a hang-nail to explain the band-aid:) Methinks I'll supervise a little closer when my own children start cutting pumpkins alone.

It's been awhile since my last owl reference, so of course I had to show off our new doormat from Target!

Hallowed Halloween

I have more pictures to upload from Halloween, but my wireless connection isn't working properly right now and I cannot access my stash of pics on the desktop:(

The boys kept us in suspense until the last minute as to which costume they would wear. They opted to be the "Skeleton Brothers" as Jeff dubbed them. Mom actually made Michael an Arthur costume b/c he was infatuated with Arthur...oh well. And she made Christopher a mummy costume...oh well. Then she went to Salvation Army when they had their costumes on clearance about a month ago and this is what the boys fell in love with. Christopher's costume is about 1-2 sizes too small, lol...he didn't care.

Both of these pages are "recreated" quick pages from Cinzia Loosemore. Her "Tales of the Night" collection is awesome! I bought the whole collection and just recreated the quick pages she made in a separate kit. I changed the colors a bit to suit me too. In general I like these "white space" layouts a lot better when someone else does them, but I like the look here.

All Tied Up

Proud Parental Announcement: As of about 3 weeks ago, Christopher knows how to tie his shoes! Hurray!:) He even double knots them...very smart.

Fall Crafts

As promised! Here's what we did a week ago on the weekend: We got the ideas for the witch hats from HERE. I really liked their example so I actually bought the pack of digital paper, lol:) The second one is Christopher's...totally his idea to make lightning on his hat. Very creative! Luckily I actually had some glitter on hand (I hate the mess, so am not real big on glitter, and until 4 days ago I didn't own any Stickles either...now I'm the proud owner of one color. More on that later.) I laid down tacky tape and we shook the glitter over it together. The third hat is Mom's, and it uses DCWV glitter/embossed paper with a green shimmery hue that looks perfect with the glittery green "pick".

It was very difficult, surprisingly, to find fall themed ribbon here in town. Either no one stocks much/any to begin with, or they sell out long before fall is over. We eventually scoured Hobby Lobby, Wal-Mart, and Joann Fabrics. The paper mache cone is from Hobby Lobby and was in the Christmas section. The styrofoam cones in the floral section are totally the wrong size and shape for this project, so I was glad to get an answer from the Peppermint Creative team member who originally made the hat!

The Indian corn was a project in a parenting magazine from 2004. I dutifully filed the torn out sheet in a crafts folder and each year promised to do it someday. Well someday finally arrived this year! I spent about $3 on the beads and about $6.50 on shipping to get the fall colors I wanted:) The base is a chenille stem and of course the tie is raffia. Christopher had a lot of fun with this project.

And last, I copied the Halloween card idea from Adobeaddict at Jenn Wilson. Paper is Jen Wilson (a paper version is sold through My Mind's Eye), jewels from Hobby Lobby, and "Hooloween" sign inside is Mindy Terasawa. Christopher's version is the black card. The one card that says "happy" instead of "spooky" was for my friend Jennifer's birthday on the 30th. Hers of course has a birthday message inside as well.

Also note the button usage...I was in a challenge last month to use up buttons, brads, and eyelets. I even added some to my witch hat:)

TFL! Hope you all had a good Halloween...I'll post pics soon! Always behind, always behind...