Pumpkin Carving: 2011 edition

Happy Monday Friends,
and Happy Halloween!

Today I wanted to share with you just ONE of the many projects we checked off of our list over the weekend.

Carvin' up some pumpkins.

Check.

The hubs and I are pretty competitive when it comes to, well...

anything,

so punkin' carvin' is no exception. I'm planning to do a "Pumpkin Carving 101" post in a few days but for now, here's what we ended up with this year as well as a few pics from previous years.

The hubs 2011 pumpkin:

Ironman

Hubs did most of his carving last Thursday, outside, but since it's starting to actually feel like Fall around here, I opted to do my carving inside. The girls got in on the 'take out the pumpkin guts' action but Oliver wasn't interested.

Just ignore the laundry on the rack and the dishes on the counter and the ponytail holder around the cabinet door handles, mmmkay?

My 2011 pumpkin:

Barbie

complete with eyelashes.

do you see them?

I worked hard.

pssst- if you think Instagram is a cool photography app, try camerabag.

Also totally cool.

And now, for some pumpkin archives-

Here's the hubs 2010 Death Star Pumpkin-

and my 2010 Storm Trooper Helmet-

I think we skipped over 2009.

Probably due to lack of sleep from a little girl.

Her name rhymes with Schmeliza.

2008-

hubs is Darth Vader, mine is Thespians.

obviously

2007-

hubs Transformers symbol thingy

and my sweet lil' Nemo

2006-

hubs Star Wars

and my Charlie Brown and Snoopy

I also carved this Blues Clues punkin' that year for my preschool classroom-

And, I just so happened to have dug up a pic of my musical pumpkin from 2005.

So that's a walk through our pumpkin carving history.

Can you believe how many Star Wars pumpkins were in there?

Can you believe how many times I said the word pumpkin in this post?

Pumpkin.

There's another.

Sorry.

What about you?

Do you carve pumpkins?

Are you super competitive?

Do you and your spouse place bets on whose pumpkin will get the most 'likes'?

Yeah, us neither...

Hey! Pssssst!

I totally made it to 200 followers, so look for a giveaway post later this week.

Someone will win their choice of goodies from my shop, and I worked on a few new items over the weekend!

Thanks so much for being awesome readers!

I mean it-

you all totally rock!

I hope your Monday does too!

New shop items and a giveaway

Hello friends!

Sorry for my lack of posting as of late...

I'm learning how to re-stock shop items and teach full time and be a mommy full time and a wifey full time and oh bytheby the babe is teething and E and O are both coughy and snotty.

Too much info?

Sorry-

just keeping it real.

So, thank you for hanging with me while I try to sew and wipe snot off my shoulder and attempt to make something edible for my fam to eat.

Hopefully not simultaneously.

That could make for some unsanitary food.

Moving on.

I listed a few new shop items last night that I wanted to share with you here-

Finally just went with the best pictures I could get at 10:00 pm with no natural light, so the stockings are *finally* in the shop-

New flower colors are Melon-

and Mint

New flower pattern is Blue/White stripe-

and I've listed 2 wool felt flowers,

Turquoise-

and Fuschia-

**Please note that, just as it says in each of the flower listings, I can attach these to a headband OR a pin. Either one. Whatever suits your fancy. Whatever floats your boat. Whatever dings your bell. Whatever toots your whistle.**

Perhaps I should have left 'toot' out of it...

***

As to the giveaway portion of the title of this post-

I've noticed that I'm super close to reaching 200 followers on GFC, so as soon as I do, I'll be giving away a $25 shop credit-

Good for evah whatcha want in my shop.

Maybe it will happen this week?

Maybe next?

In the somewhat altered words of Antoine Dodson,

I implore you to,

"Tell ya kids, tell ya wife",

or in this case,

maybe just tell ya friends...

Happy Thursday!

Trick-or-treating on sorority row

We were excited.

Oh so excited.

A night of trick-or-treating before the big day itself?

Yup.

We're there.

Sorority row.

We live just down the street from campus.

University of Alabama.

Roll Tide and whatnot.

We costumed the kiddies,

grabbed two pumpkin buckets and one Darth Vader bucket, and

hit.the.road.

And then we saw this:

Ginormous amounts of people.

Everywhere.

There were people everywhere.

We parked, made a few costume adjustments, and snapped a few pics.

Super Girl is so fast she's blurry.

And then we walked,

and walked,

and walked.

And even though there were literally throngs of people there,

yes throngs,

the sorority gals were all quite sweet.

They spoke to each of the kids and gave them hoards of candy.

See?

There's a perfectly lovely piece of bacon giving Jango Fett some chocolate.

That may be the weirdest sentence I've ever typed.

When we had had enough walking,

and when we had way more candy then we could ever need,

and when we had caught up with most of our friends from church,

we decided to call it a night.

Because friends,

when a fully grown male throws on an elephant costume and pushes your kiddos out of the way to get a snack-size snickers,

well it's time to go home.

See the elephant in the picture above?

Not makin' it up, friends.

Big AL my arse...

On the way home I decided to try out the new camera on my phone, and folks,

lemme tell ya-

it rocks my socks off.

The flash is so spectacular that it caused my sweet MM to shut her eyes.

See that?

Now be honest,

would you ever have guessed that pic came from a PHONE CAMERA?

So.stinkin.clear.

Wanna know what else is clear?

It should be crystal clear to any outsider that we give our kids candy once every never.

Poor E wanted to sneak some of it so bad that she straight up sucked half the wrapper + half the sucker in just a few short minutes in the car. She's one clever little gal. Had her entire hand wrapped around the stick with her arm propped up on the arm rest of her seat all to hide the fact that she was eating forbidden fruit. To be fair, we did allow her one piece after she ate her supper.

I've never seen a two-year old scarf down a bowl of chili in under 2 minutes before.

Happy Tuesday!



weekend recap and a new shop item

Hello friends, and happy Monday to ya!

I hope you all had a fabulously mahvelous weekend.

Mine got off to a little bit of a slow start as I was

incredibly, insanely, overwhelmingly tired from the happenings of the week.

Do any of you experience that?

Monday starts off well enough, but if you go to bed the SLIGHTEST bit late, you're in trouble. There's no catching up on Tuesday, for Tuesday has an agenda of its own, and Wednesday? Fuh-get about it. No catching up then, and Thursday and Friday?

They just laugh at you.

"What? You think WE'RE about to give you a break? Cut you some slack? Not only are we NOT going to give you the rest you so desperately need, we're gonna take away even more of your sleepy time/sanity."

That Friday is a booger. Since Saturday is the ONE day of the week that doesn't have an early call, Friday is all like, "Stay up late with me! Drink coffee all night long and read those magazines that you've been piling up because Monday through Thursday don't give you time for such nonsense. I'll give you all the time you WANT for your Elle Decor and Traditional Home and Lucky and InStyle. ALL the TIME YOU WANT."

(Sometimes I just want to punch Friday in the face and go to bed at 6:00pm)

Sorry.

I digress.

As I was saying...

My boys were both up early, the older one went to church to help build a pavilion (more on that in a sec) and the younger one was ready to fly spaceships in a galaxy far, far away. After a bowl of oatmeal of course.

Since our church is running a distribution center now, it was decided that a permanent pavilion-type structure should be built in the parking lot. And for those of you wondering why my church would need a structure in the parking lot with a roof, THIS post will explain why. The needs of the community around my church are still great and so many are still volunteering their time and donating their goods to make sure those needs are met. On Saturday, my hubs was one of several men who made 8 wooden posts sunk into the ground go from this:

to this:

to this:

and if I'm remembering correctly, all that's left to do is to finish out the roof with shingles. Once that's done, the pavilion will serve as a permanent structure under which tables can be set up for the distribution of goods, as well as the occasional meal. Awesomeness.

While hubs was busy with the hammer and nails, I was able to check a whole slew of things of the ole' to-do list. Yes, I totally just said slew.

I fed the girlies breakfast, cleaned out their closet, listed some much-too-small-for-MM clothes on the facebook garage sale, cleaned out the fridge, fed all 3 kiddos lunch, washed the dishes, put the girlies down for a nap, cut some fabric,and took the quickest shower EVAH because the girlies didn't even nap an entire hour. (boo)

I was thankful for enough time, however, to cut these out:

Yes, I do feel like I owe a bit of an apology to Halloween and Thanksgiving for putting my thoughts on Christmas so early, but I jotted "Houndstooth stocking" on a piece of paper at school this week and simply had to make one. I used the same pattern I made for my burlap stockings last year and I'm tickled pink with how they turned out.

Yup.

Pink.

They'll be listed in the shop as soon as I have etsy-worthy photos of them.

And speaking of Houndstooth and Crimson and Roll Tide and whatnot...

these babies, as well as the solid crimson and the houndstooth/crimson hybrid flowers, are totally for sale at Alabama Express on the strip (as well as 3 other locations in town). So, for all you locals, you can totally see and purchase my flowers at an actual store. I mean, they'll be hanging in there. On the wall and stuff. And you can buy them. Did you hear me, internet? My stuff is available at a brick and mortar other than my house.

Thanks go to David for thinking they were cool enough to sell in his shop.

And speaking of my friend David....

he ran lights and sound for Tuscaloosa Children's Theatre's production of Thoroughly Modern Millie this week.

The hubs and I were able to see the show Saturday night and it. was. fab.

Kudos to their director, Drew, and to Rosie and Nick who were absolutely superb as Millie & Jimmy. The entire cast and crew should be extremely proud of their production. Also, kudos to Callie and Tim for their phenomenal cameos. Did you hear that Callie and Tim?

That's a total shout-out.

And now, here's a few more things you might need to know, or might care to know, or might not give a rat's tooty about:

1. I'm currently cooking supper.

In my crock-pot.

This is huge for me since I really don't cook.

(It's in my bio)

Thanks go to Judy for giving me that chili recipe on a blue index card a couple of years ago. It's the only thing I make that hubs will eat.

2. I'm taking the kiddos trick-or-treating on sorority row tonight.

Any of you ever done this?

Taken your kiddos to sorority houses to trick-or-trick?

Most of the fams at my church do it every year-

not quite sure why I've never gone before.

Oh yeah, I was probably in rehearsal for something.

Anywho, I'm pumped.

Should be a good time.

I'll report back tomorrow.

3. Did I hear that Kristen Chenoweth was going to be on DWTS tonight?

Can anyone confirm?

I heart her.

4. All Missoni for Target items that happen to still be in Target stores are now 30% off.

Did you hear that internet?

30% OFF.

Run, don't walk.

5. And is there anything funnier than a babe in a curly gray wig eating a pop-tart?

I think not.



No hoo-ha and a shop update

I've been crazy busy lately stocking the shop which caused a lack of posting yesterday, but I wanted to share just a few things with you-

1. We had dinner with my hubs family Monday night, not just for the sake of enjoying some deliciousness together at Olive Garden, but also to find out whether our kiddos would soon be playing with a little boy cousin, or a little girl. My sis-in-law, Mary Katherine, (yup, same name different spelling) is preggo with a wee one, and as everyone knows, "the day" you find out if you'll be buying pink or blue is pretty important. We endured the usual small talk while being seating, and then my hubs brother pulled out this:

leading us to believe that the bag was a sign of pigtails and Barbies and pink,

however,

it was just a tactic to throw us off,

a trick,

a flim-flam,

a bamboozlement, if you will.

Because this was inside:

There's a wee one with a weenus on the way!

My brother-in-law was quite proud of the weenus.

QUITE proud.

O was also excited about the news as he has enough estrogen around him all the time as it is.

Yay for little boys.

Also,

yay for little girls who want to see the little boy in the funny-looking black and white photos...

Sweet baby boy.

Sweet little weenus.

Excited to be an aunt.

2. I've been cutting and sewing like a crazy madwoman, but let's face it-

there are very few things I enjoy as much as cutting and sewing...

and acting like a madwoman.

 I digress...

I added a few more items to the shop- flowers in pumpkin, baby pink, pink + white gingham, and plum chiffon, as well as a few sets of note cards. ALL PERFECT FOR GIFT-GIVING. DID YOU HEAR THAT, INTERNET?

just sayin.

Also made lots of crimson + houndstooth flowers. A hybrid, if you will. Thanks go to David for the brilliance of that idea.

  

3. And lastly, since we can't turn down a free meal, we had chili at my parent's house last night and this was hanging on their mantel-

You remember when you were young and your parents would hang your artwork on the fridge to show you how proud they were?

It was like that, only in a grown-up version.

(Internet, that's your cue to "awwww...")

**You can get your very own flower pins,

note cards, and houndstooth banners HERE***

Happy Wednesday Friends!