Halloween 2015

Halloween was down right busy this year and I have so much to share! Plus I haven't shared this type of post in a really long time and I have actually really missed it. Lets start with the day before Halloween when Simone got busy carving her pumpkin. This year she was determined to do it all by herself and she did. She just needed a little help getting the guts out and cleaning up the cuts at the very end. Her pumpkin came out super cute and its so totally 2015.

Heart eyes all around for this kid and this pumpkin. I love it so much I wish we could save this.

The festivities continued that night with an adult only costume party at our friends house. Larry and I got the ideas for our costumes a few months back it just took a little time for me to find just the right one and and for him to find an authentic traditional outfit on eBay.

Ziggy Zaggy, Ziggy Zaggy, Oi Oi Oi! This ended up being a really fun couples costume and the bonus was I didn't have to wear a wig or alter myself too much.

Of course photo bomb!

The next morning is when things really got busy. Simone had a super early soccer game and then a birthday party to go to and then it was time for Trick or Treating. The great thing was this year she had a friend join us and it was such a blast for the girls.

Simone dressed up as Evie from the Descendants, I think she liked the blue clip in hair extensions the best.

Simone and her friend, two pretty Disney girls.

Larry did such a good job with the webbing again this year, and at the last minute he had me pick up these black spiders to hang up. It was just the right amount of decorations for us. Simple but festive.

Our neighbors however, do an amazing job of decorating and setting the scene at their house, its always amazing and so much fun to see. Darren always dresses up and he scared the beejezus out of the girls, but then gave them a ton of candy so it all worked out. We went back again when it was darker and the projections they have on the front of the house are the coolest thing I have ever seen. Their house was the best in our area for sure.

I couldn't wait to scrapbook the cute girls so I made this quick layout using the Be Scary Halloween Set from Color Cast Designs.  I just loved the black bats and love how they look layered on the black background.

The mirrored Oct 31st piece is just so cool, it really shines and sparkles off the page. The little veneer sayings were just the right touch to add to my little bit of journaling.

I hope you had a great Halloween too! We are already so excited for the holidays that are coming up. I'm sure I'll be back soon sharing more of that too.

Halloween 2012 Recap

Halloween 2012 is in the books and we all had a great day.  The excitement was heightened with it also being a preschool day with a special party planned.  I signed up to be snack mom that day which ended up being a great idea although it did add a little stress to our morning because of what I decided to make.

Simone of course woke up raring to go and couldn't wait to put her costume on.  We managed to get a little bit of breakfast in her before that happened.

I snapped a few shots of her out front before we left for school.  Simone was Belle from Beauty and the Beast.  A perfect choice that took awhile to come together.  She had several other ideas that didn't end up working out mainly due to fit issues or being out of stock in her size, this ended up being her 3rd choice and it suited her perfectly.  And yes the Belle socks ended up as a happy accident after I drove all over town trying to find pretty ruffled ones to no avail.  We found these in the dollar bins at a craft store of all places. 

The parents were all invited to hang out for the first half hour of class and since I am one of the parent subs I was asked to be there for the whole class.  I needed to dress up in some way and found this cute tshirt and ran out the night before for the witch hat and some super cute striped socks.  It came together easily and ended up being just enough for preschool. 

The kids did a little trick or treating in the park which they all loved.

The kids had a fairly normal day in class and when the teachers took them out to the park for play time, the other parent sub and I stayed behind to set up snack.  I opted to make something a little more elaborate than normal since it was Halloween and found some really cute ideas on Pinterest.  I saw the idea for the cute Mummy Hot Dogs and loved it but knew it would be a challenge in the morning.  Larry was a huge help and got up early with me to help wrap the hot dogs and make sure they were all cooked and packed up for me before we left. 

Simone and I also made the cute Frankenstein treat cups.  She attached all the googly eyes and drew on all the mouths and scars too.  I filled those with crackers and pretzels.  I also brought cheese sticks for the kids that might not like the hot dogs.  Some other moms brought in the fruit and some orange juice and the teacher provided the plates, napkins and gummy worms!  The kids seemed to love it and they all took home their Frankenstein cups.

Since we still had not carved our pumpkins we had to tackle that as well.  I always love to look online for ideas for carving and found two really great ones.  Simone and I of course fought over who would do which but they both turned out great.  I drew the designs on and she pretty much carved most of hers.  Larry helped with the de-gutting and scraping of both pumpkins.

 

Here are the finished pumpkins all a glow.  I love the new tool that is available now to scrap some of the outer layer of the pumpkin away, it lets light thru but the pumpkin isn't cut.  I used it on the door edge on the pumpkin on the left and for the windows of the one on the right.  There are so many great ideas out there for this technique, I think I might try a more elaborate one next year.

We followed our tradition of having a nice chili dinner before heading out to Trick or Treat and Larry's sister came over to join us.  Of course someone could not wait to get out there and Trick or Treat so it was a quick dinner.  I photographed Simone at this house last year and was happy to snap one again this year.  I opted not to take my big camera out, I wanted to focus more on her and the fun instead of tweaking my camera settings all night.  I did take my phone with me so this was taken with that.  Not to bad for a no flash shot.

She was all excited when we got home and had a chance to inspect her loot.

So much so that she almost ate it without taking the wrapper off!

I think Simone likes to pass out the candy more that she likes to Trick or Treat.  She couldn't wait to get her chairs set up by the door to see all the kids.

She has her system down.  This one does not like lulls in the action and if she had no visitors she would run out to the sidewalk to make sure more were on the way.  We had a decent number of trick or treaters and managed to pass out a pretty large bag of candy.  I guess we shut off the light a bit before 9pm and happily no one rang our bell when the lights went out.

She's already talking about next year, but its hard for kids this age to understand what 'you need to wait until next year' really means. 

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween!
 

Shuttle Endeavour

We knew it was happening when we set off this morning for Simone's school field trip to the zoo.  We saw the people lining over passes in our town and all along the freeway, we hoped just maybe if we got to the zoo in time we might catch a glimpse as it flew by.  Especially since the park is near the state capitol and that's where it was headed.

We got to the zoo around 9:15am, it was clearly field trip day because there were tons of people.  It wasn't just Simone's class it was all the classes from our preschool system plus students from other elementary schools nearby.  There had to be at least 100 people standing around in the park outside the zoo.  There are also a lot of trees in the park so we had pretty much assumed there was no way we were going to see it.  I felt so bad for Larry, I knew he really wanted to see it but just didn't think it was going to happen.

I don't know what time it was but I heard a bunch of people cheering and looked over and there it was, it flew right over our heads, super slow and super low.  I ran, trying to dig my camera out of my bag as fast as I could, by the time I got there, this is what I got as it flew away.  Everyone in the crowd was cheering, I had goose bumps and tears in my eyes.  Who would have thought.  A once in a lifetime chance to see a space shuttle fly by.  I was so happy I saw it I just wished I had a chance to catch a better shot.

Luck would have it I was given a chance, after the plane flew over the Capital it came by again right over our heads, super slow and super low.  This time I was ready and managed a few better shots.

What an amazing day, everyone at the zoo was talking about it even the guy who operated the train ride mentioned it.  I'm so happy I had a chance to see it.  Simone was just amazed, I think it surprised her but at the end of the field trip the train ride and the space shuttle were at the top of her list of cool things she saw today.

Construction Project - Part 3 | My wheels are spinning freely!

I'm sitting at my desk and my chair is gliding effortlessly over my brand new tiled floor!  Larry's been working the past three days getting the floor done for me and its fantastic!

Here are some photos...

Day 1, he laid the cement board

Day 2, laying the first tile

the first row done

all in and drying

Day 3, grouting

Today, all dried and ready for me to roll around on.

It still needs one more polish that he is waiting to do as we speak and then he has to stretch the carpet back to position and tack it down.  I thought about putting in a transition but I think we'll see how this works for awhile and if I need one later we'll add one.

The curtains are next and will be tackled next month when my mom comes to visit!

For now though I'm going to enjoy my smooth and slick floor!

Father's Day at Lake Tahoe

What to do on Father's Day...I suggested Lake Tahoe and he said yes.  We packed up the car yesterday and drove up for a quick overnight stay.  We stopped along the way to pick up sandwiches at this great store here in Sacramento, they had an amazing deli and I really loved looking at all the yumminess that they had.

We pulled into Pope Beach around 1:00pm and wow was it crowded.  I suppose everyone had the same idea for Father's Day.

Simone had a blast playing in the water, digging in the sand and chasing the geese that populate the beach,

while we enjoyed our yummy sandwiches

These two played in the sand for a bit

and she set up a little camp.

After the beach we drove to the hotel we like to stay at Mont Bleu, the rooms are pretty cheap when you stay off days.  Larry and Simone went swimming at the hotel pool and I lounged with a magazine. 

We had a late dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and played some games in the arcade.

It was an awesome overnight for one awesome Dad.

Construction Project - Part 2

Well the construction project is humming along quite nicely!  Larry painted the cabinet for me on Monday and luckily we had just enough of our left over touch up paint to cover it all. 

It came out great and really blended in so well with the house.  My sister in law saw it yesterday and thought it had been there the whole time.  Kudos to Larry and his awesome carpentry and electrical skills!

He added some trim to finish it all off.

Here is a look from the backside.  The backsplash will be perfect to keep stuff from falling over.

I wanted to make sure the paint had plenty of time to cure before I loaded anything in so I waited until yesterday to do that.

Here is a look at the shelves with my stuff placed in.  I still have some more organizing and fiddling around with where everything is, but for now it's all there.  I figure I'll live with it awhile to decide how I work in the space and see what needs to be changed.  For now it's awesome and I love it.

Here's a closer look at the shelves.  Over on the right had side on the top shelf (close to my computer) is where my Cameo will live.  Larry is going to build a pull out shelf for me so I can just pull it out and cut and slide it back in.  Right now I have to move things around on my desk to use it so I really want it hooked up and ready to go whenever I want to make a cut.  I'll be sure to post a picture when that's all set up.

On the top right of counter I set up a light, my radio and my Harbor Freight revolving storage trays.  Having that outlet there sure was a great idea.  My light has an extra outlet in it for when I want to use any other tools which is nice.

The left side has my Project Life album, a making memories lazy Susan and my paper trimmer.

I placed down a cutting mat that I had and plan to use this as my work surface for now.  I read on line that some folks use oven liners to work on since they can handle the heat, they are also non stick so I may pick one up so I can emboss right on the top of the counter.

We had someone give an estimate to tile the floor and it was ridiculously high.  We need to figure out where to proceed on that.  Larry may just end up doing it himself but we need to either buy or rent a tile saw, since he doesn't own one.

I also need to find a new light fixture and I need to figure out the window covering situation.  This is an older photo from this blog post on my previous work space organization, but as you can see from this picture, the windows over my desk face East, so I have major sun issues in the late afternoon.  They are also tall and narrow with a slight arch which translates to custom or expensive however you want to look at it.  Any suggestions would be happily accepted.

I'll be sure to keep you posted as we finish the last little bits of my project.  I'm just so happy with how this whole thing turned out.

We are planning a fun Father's Day here so I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  See you back on Monday for a recap on that.