Halloween seemed to be an all day event in our house. It started with GQ in a costume at 9am this morning. And asking is it time to trick-or-treat yet? a MILLION times! He didn't give me much grief when I told him no, but it averaged about every 1/2 hour or so that I'd hear the question.We trick-or-treated with our neighbor friends and it was a lot of fun. You could tell that GQ was tired and got even more tired along the way, so tired that he fell while walking house to house three times! Face down on the drives, sidewalks and street. He broke his candy bucket the last time. But it didn't stop him. Then about two houses from being done, he hit a wall of exhaustion and it wasn't pretty. The walk home was painful...crying, screaming, melting down... Luckily I had taken my phone along and called daddy to meet us out on the street and carry him the rest of the way home.All in all it was fun. GQ had a blast and got lots of candy, 2/3rds of it he cannot eat due to allergies, but he does have a good chocolate stash. And he got to run around with the neighbors! I was proud to hear him telling people thank you and Happy Halloween! as he left their porches with his candy! This is the first year I haven't gone to the door with him so I was hoping my training paid off!Here is a picture of my Amazing Spider Man! He wouldn't wear the mask while trick-or-treating, but after seeing him fall three times, I'm glad. The mask could have doubled the number of falls. I don't know why they even make those crazy things for the little ones?Boo!
I noticed on my friend Jenny's blog that she had her eye on me ;) She started a fun little game where you go to your picture file and pull up your 4th folder and then the 4th picture in that folder and post it along w/a little explanation of the photo. So before her eye on me turns into the evil stink eye, I'm posting my picture. LOL!
Luckily I had a 4th folder and 4th picture in that folder to do this tag. I spent last weekend archiving photos on disc and removing them from the computer, but I also uploaded some recent October pictures that are in need of scrapping.
Here is the qualifying picture:
It's a picture of the pumpkins GQ and I painted for Halloween. We picked these pumpkins at a real pumpkin patch, except GQ wanted to pick from the big pile that had already been picked vs. going out into the field and picking our own. We painted the pumpkins as soon as we got home and it took a good 12 hours for GQ's to dry, there were several coats of paint on that pumpkin. He was so proud of it and excited to place it on the front porch for everybody to see. It was such a cute moment to experience his excitement!
Now it's your turn to carry on the game...who's playing? Karie Melissa Kim
My awesome friend, Paula, who knows how much I love paper and making pretty things with it, gave me some really great scraps of paper. First of all, the paper is really cool! It's a holiday and winter collection with a really nice weight to it, I believe she told me it was Bazzill. The paper all coordinates so nicely together and it's double-sided paper, so there were tons of great patterns to pick from.
I used some of the paper to make some holiday cards, which I've yet to photograph, but I'll post them soon. (my camera battery died mid photo shoot) I did manage to get photos of the darling holiday gift tags I made. They were too easy...I used the patterned-papers and cardstock from my scrap stash, that's it. I have a tag die-cutter, which made this project super easy; all I had to do was punch the patterned-paper & coordinating cardstock, the glue together. I still have to get ribbon on most of the tags.
I think they're darling and they'll look great on my holiday packages sitting under the tree!
It's one of my favorite sayings. I have a set of vases with those words, made by my crafty friend Paula. And now I have this gorgeous necklace made by another crafty friend, Melissa. Isn't it pretty? Melissa just recently added hand stamped metal to her jewelry line and I was lucky enough to have her create this piece. I look forward to ordering some more of her stamped pieces!
We spent yesterday morning with Jen Hunt and her husband Chris. They are both so sweet, kind and extremely talented. Look at some of the gorgeous pictures they captured! I don't usually enjoy being the one having her picture taken, but this was so fun and so natural. It was just our family having fun at the park. I don't think the weather could have been much better. The sun was shining, the sky was clearing from a day/night of rain, and it was wonderfully cool and breezy; a perfect fall day. Thank you Jen and Chris for spending your Saturday morning with us capturing the spirit of our family! You're the best!
Today you are four years old! Wow, I can't believe how quickly these years have passed. You're growing into a very well-behaved little man and we're so proud of you! Your vocabulary and grammar amaze me...you use adverbs like a champ, better than some adults. It makes my heart smile to hear you say please and thank you all the time with out any prompting. I just love it when you're holding conversations with adults and being so polite. We still have to work on patience and excuse me to interrupt a conversation, but we'll get there...
You take after your daddy when it comes to sports, everything is so natural for you. Soccer seems to be your favorite...I think you're going to be a superstar! You and daddy practice regularly and I think in the future you'll be teaching your daddy a thing or two.
I could go on and on but I'll just stop here and say, thank you for filling our lives with all the love and joy that you bring to us each and every day! We love you! Mommy & Daddy
A couple weeks ago my friend Paula created an Etsy treasury that was selected for display. All the items in the treasury were made by South Carolina artisans. I was immediately drawn to the paper butterflies included in the treasury...I had to have them, I knew exactly what I would do with them, so I bought them! They were created by beachcottagestudio, I loved all the goodies in her shop but contained my excitement over paper to the butterflies...but check out her shop when you have time, she has lots of beautiful things for sale.
Here is what I created with my butterflies, it's an 8x8 shadow box picture frame. I cut a piece of cardstock to fit and adhered all my little butterflies with some dimensional adhesive and popped into the frame. I just love it! I want to buy three more sets and do a row of them over my bed. It's so simple and so pretty. (sorry about the green towel reflection in the picture, but it's the best shot I could get...all the others had my head and camera in the reflection, too.)Have a great weekend!
I made these cute little treat bags up to BOO! the neighbors. They went together very quickly...I used some cardstock to wrap around the paper board tube from an aluminum foil roll. I glued that to a cardstock circle, punched holes and used a pipe cleaner for the handle (had to rob GQ's craft box for that part.) I free handed the ghost image on white cardstock, cut out, added some googly eyes and applied with dimensional tape. Lastly I tied some ribbon on and used stickers for the word BOO! Now I have to run to the store and buy some little candies to stick in there. I'm guessing it will hold around five or six mini candy bars.
My house got up extra early this morning to hop a ride on the light rail into uptown Charlotte and participate in Race for the Cure. It seemed awfully early when my alarm started ringing at 5:45 am but it was all for a good cause.
We had a great time. GQ thought the train ride was really cool. He also thought it was neat that he was waking up before it was even light out! We walked with team members from the husband's job; there were three other little ones walking. All the kiddos did great. They walked some and rode in strollers some. GQ petted some very friendly and happy dogs along the way...my favorite being a massive-sized blood hound...gorgeous doggy!
I didn't get as many great pictures as I thought I might. But I managed to get a shot of GQ holding a sign that his daddy wore during the race. We walked in memory of the grandma Barber, she sadly passed away from breast cancer at a very young 62.
Many thanks to everybody that supported the three of us in this walk! We appreciated all your thoughts and donations!
or four year olds at GQ says. :D It's hard to believe that in two weeks our little baby will be four years old! Where did the time go? He's turning into a little man and I'm so proud of him. As frustrating as he can be at times, he's still so stinkin' cute. And even when I'm mad at him for something bad he just did and I'm trying to talk to him about what he just did wrong, he'll turn my frustration into laughter quickly by sarcastically asking me "what do you expect?" Stinker! He has a lot of his daddy in him. LOL!
No big birthday party this year for GQ. Grandma and grandpa A. are driving down for a birthday visit and we're all going to Lazy 5 Ranch for some family fun. I was going to have my friend, Carrie, make him a really cool Spiderman cake, because he's all about Spiderman these days, but with all his food dye allergies, he can't have colored icing. You can hardly make a cool Spiderman cake with all white icing. And I don't want to get him a cake he can't eat. So we're going to end our day at the ranch with some good old vanilla ice cream, his favorite, in a sugar cone...the regular cones have dyes...ugh!
I've totally lost where I was going with this post...I think I'm basically realizing that having an almost four year old means I'm almost four years older, too.
Halloween seemed to be an all day event in our house. It started with GQ in a costume at 9am this morning. And asking is it time to trick-or-treat yet? a MILLION times! He didn't give me much grief when I told him no, but it averaged about every 1/2 hour or so that I'd hear the question.
