Halloween Halloween Trick or Treat

The other night my husband and I were trying to remember all of our Halloween costumes from when we were children.
And sadly I could not remember them all!
These are the one's I do remember in no particular order:
Raggedy Ann
Princess Leia
Flapper Girl
Navy Sailor (used my dad's old Navy uniform)
Roller Disco Girl (It was my best fried Merri's idea. We went as twin roller disco girls and got to wear our roller skates! She was a genius)
When October rolls around I have to say that while I "like" the idea of Halloween the actual stuff that makes up Halloween creeps me out.
I don't like being scared.
No if and's or but's about it.
I HATE super scary costumes. Especially one's that conceal the identidy of the people behind them.
My mom used to ask me why I was bothering going to the Haunted Houses with my friends when I was literally sick to my stomach before going!
This year Miss Thang is going to be a Vampire.
Not your Cullen style vampire but this style....

While I preferred her years as Pop Princesses and Sassy Cats and whatnot I have to say this actually turned out pretty cool!
She wore it for her piano recital where all of the students dressed up (even the teacher dressed up) and played Halloween songs.
Her song was "The Wily Witch".
In other bits of random news that sort of have to do with Halloween and sort of not....
check this out.

Wouldn't you say that Keith Richards could qualify as ghoulish? Which puts him smack dab in the Halloween category!
I bet you didn't know I collect random biography/auto biographies, books on rock musicians, their wives/lovers/friends/roadies etc. from the 60's?
I started reading this book (Life By Keith Richards) on my Nook (you get the first 25-72 sample pages for free). Then today I trucked on down to Costco (cheaper there then anywhere else...sorry local booksellers) to pick it up and finish it. I had to have the hard copy for my collection.
Brian does not like to let me forget that when we met I said that Keith Richards was sexy.
He thought I meant this Keith Richards

But I meant this Keith Richards.....

The younger, pre-decomposed Keith Richards!
I am not sure how much new information I will get out of this book but it seems like it will be a good read!
And now it is time to go do some reading, watch the finale of Project Runway and get some sleep.....from the looks of that picture of me and the bags under my eyes I must need some!

Truly Great

My husbands grandmother passed away a little over a week ago. It was a very special thing for my children to have a great grandmother. I could barely fathom the idea of them having a great grandmother when I lost two of my grandparents by the time I was five years old, my mother's father passed away before she was even married and my dad's mother passed away when I was twelve.
I always told my husband he was so lucky to have a grandmother still alive because I would have loved to have that kind of time with my grandparents now.
He was right by her side the last few days of her life.
The children miss her. Especially my Little One. She has taken it the hardest. She has a very tender heart.
They loved to go and visit their Grandma Mae.
They loved her stories.
And my boy loved the tennis balls affixed to the bottom of her walker to keep it from sliding.
He thought those tennis balls were the best thing since sliced bread!
The last visit the kids had with her was such a great visit.
Despite her having bits of dementia coming on, the last day the kids went to see her she was on the ball!
She told them stories about the dog the she bought for her children when they were little. She was remembering all of the wonderful details of her life that were beginning to fade.
The Boy crawled up on the bed beside her and she held his hand.
She always got such a kick out of him.
Grandma Mae loved the girls but there was something special about The Boy!

I miss her.
I wish that we had spent more time with her.
Her four children gathered together from different parts of the country.
They had not been together the four of them altogether in nine years!
They have vowed that they will not let another nine years pass before all four spend time together.

Death is a funny thing.
It brings people together.
People who are living and people on the other side.

When I think of Mae now it is with a smile, because I know she is the arms of her beloved Clive who she has waited to long to see again. (Over 30 years). And she is at peace.

She would be good at long distance running....cross country running.....

Yesterday was our big school fundraiser jog-a-thon. Little one was gearing up and training hard for the event, trying to surpass her awesome record she set last year for herself. She ran around the track fourteen times. FOURTEEN TIMES! And when I saw ran I mean RAN. The lady standing next to me in the pouring rain where we cheered them on said "I have been watching her, not only is she running the whole thing but she is doing it with a smile on her face!"
A toothless smile I might add.
Thank goodness we took the jack-o-latern shots because that night she was doing homework and suddenly got a weird look on her face and spit out her other tooth!
Anway back to the jog-a-thon.
The rain was pouring down on and off through the whole event but those kids just pushed on through. It was very inspiring to watch!







Miss Thang here preferred to call it a walk-a-thon-talk-to-your-friend-a-thon but hey at least she did it! She ran parts of it and when I cheered her on and yelled "run run!!" She would give me the funniest look like I was the biggest dork ever and shake her head like "no, that's okay I am doing just fine at this pace!"
The d.j. was hilarious. I am pretty sure I was the only person laughing at him. The kids looked at him like he was on crack when he would make jokes or sing along with Lady Gaga while he cheered them on. And the other parents didn't really even seem to notice that he was there....but me...I was his best audience!
What a great day and a great idea for a school fundraiser. Beats the heck out of wrapping paper and pecan brittle sold door to door!

Design House Digital

So I had to scrap a little ode to the jack-o-lantern!



I used the wonderful Kate Teague's Life:October the complete kit.
This is a GREAT kit! It could be used for so many hybrid projects. My cute friend Stacy used it to make a great invitation to her twin's birthday party.....I wish I still had the invite, I would post it and show you all and then everybody would be invited to the party! (just kidding!!)
And if you are in the market for some Halloween-ess how about Carina Gardner's new line HAUNTED.
Here are some Hybrid projects done with this line.
I want to post a page I did with this line but can't get my photobucket to work right now....stinkin' photobucket.

The Little Jack-o-lantern

My little one has been working on pulling out one of her front teeth for the last two weeks. One afternoon last week I offered to help and apparently I pulled it the wrong way because she burst into tears and told me she no longer needed my help, she would do it herself!
Then the other day she came running to the car after school, put her cute little face up to the window and gave me a HUGE grin.
HER TOOTH!!!!
And it wasn't even the tooth she was working on it was the other tooth!
Now the original loose tooth is all wonky and sideways making her look like this little jack-o-lantern.
Perfect for Halloween!






Speaking of Halloween have you started your costume hunt?
We have and aside from finding some vampire teeth we are good to go :)

If you want a good happy laugh....

And I mean a good laugh but also a laugh where you sigh really big at the end and say awwwwwwwwwwwwwww...then you have to go to Mila's Daydreams.
I don't know the whole story behind the blog but I do know that this woman needs to make a coffee table book of these pictures when she is done because I could look at them all day long!
My daughter thought these were the cutest pictures she had ever seen. And it made me wonder what I did with all of the time I had while my babies were napping?

Touche'

The other day my youngest daughter arrived home from school ever so excited that a dentist had visited them in class! She pulled out her little bag filled with wonderful tooth-ish loot including a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, etc. and some little purple tablets to chew which would show them if their teeth were clean, ala Glee! (tell me you saw Glee last week...I am still tossing around quotes from that episode!!)
My Little One babbled on excitedly about everything the dentist had talked about and when she was done bubbling over with excitement my "glass is half empty" nine year old cocked a hip out to the side and announced,
"In my opinion that dentist was just trying to advertise himself to get some new patients."
I turned around, eyes wide, mouth opened and said "Why do you have to be so negative about it! I am sure he was just there to teach the kids about keeping their teeth healthy and you're ruining it for her with that kind of attitude!"


A few hours later as I was cleaning up the Little One's backpack I emptied the bag from the dentist and inside found a flier announcing that he would be accepting new patients to his practice and how important it was for your child to have clean teeth and that he was the man when it came to finding your child a dentist.
Damn.
So with my tail tucked between my legs I went into the nine year old's room and issued an apology for shooting her theory down so quickly.
She gave me a lovely "I told you so" smile and accepted my apology.
And for the last twenty four hours I have been treated to different renditions of...
"Hey mom, remember when I told you that the dentist was trying to get new patients and you said...."