Counting My Blessings Today...

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

—Melody Beattie

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

On this special day

(one that feels sort of forgotten with all the hoopla over the Christmas Season)

I want to express thankfulness for the blessings in my life.

Of course, that includes my family.

I'm thankful for a husband who works hard providing for his family.

I'm thankful for two little girls who bring light and joy to my days.

I'm thankful for my friends, in real life and in the computer.

These are givens.

I'm also thankful for

A strong body, that, while not physically perfect, allows me to work hard creating

a clean and comforting haven for my family.

Two hands that allow me to create items from the heart.

Items I hope bring a sense of joy to others like they do me in the making of them.

Two eyes that see the potential and fun in different creative endeavors.

I may not be inherently creative (coming up with original ideas) but I am thankful that I can see something I like and use my abilities

to execute those ideas to bring joy and happiness to myself and to others.

I'm grateful for my curiosity.

It allows me to remain open to new ideas, to try new things, to see things from a different perspective.

I'm thankful for the computer (and the internet).

Silly as that may sound, the computer and the internet have opened a whole new world to me.

A world full of wonderful friends I would never have known otherwise,

of ideas I never would have been exposed to,

information that I might have otherwise missed.

I'm thankful to wake up each morning

full of joy and comfort in the potential that comes with each new day

(with no mistakes in it yet <-----Anne of Green Gables reference *Ü*).

I hope you have a wonderful holiday with your family and friends.

(I also hope the Broncos win today!)

*Ü*

Thank you for stopping by and for always sharing your thoughts support and encouragement.

I am truly blessed.

How About A Little Turkey?

First of all, I have to share this beautiful card I received in the mail today from my friend, Barb of The Buzz. Not sure if you can tell, but the sentiment is embossed with a gorgeous glittery embossing powder. Thank you so much Barb!! I'm so blessed by my friends!

I sure hope Barb doesn't mind "sharing" this post with the project the girls and I worked on this afternoon. This is totally not something I came up with on my own, but when I saw it on the Econobusters blog, I thought it was such a neat idea, I had to have the girls and I try it. (I've subscribed to this blog for about a month or so and enjoy the tips and ideas shared there.)

Behold a tiny turkey dinner!

Can you stand it??

You can find the information about it here.

It's all sweet stuff, no real food here. LOL

I made a few modifications to make it work better for me.

I chose not to make the cupcakes.

I used generic vanilla sandwich cookies (fake Oreos).

I found the Brach's Maple Nut Goodies at Walgreens.

Instead of melted chocolate chips, I used caramel syrup

I found the green candies (peas) in a package that had 3 other colors as well at Walmart.

I bought vanilla frosting and tinted half of it with yellow food coloring.

I used yellow gel icing for the "butter."

And here's the final result. I had the girls make enough for each of their classes with some left over. I didn't use the entire package of cookies.

Jessica got tired of doing it after about 10 "dinners," but Amy stuck it out with me until we got them all done. Yay!

They enjoyed the project and are looking forward to sharing them with their classmates/teachers tomorrow.

Just a little fun we had around here this afternoon. LOL

Thanks for stopping by!

Busy Week

While I may not have any photos to share, I was pretty busy this past week. Steve had a business trip that took him to the east coast on Monday. He got back on Thursday. Because I don't watch tv during the day, I had no clue about the nationwide computer glitch that messed up flights. I did know about the detour I'd have to take to get to the airport though, thanks to the signs on Monday. Steve's flight was only an hour late getting back to Denver, so it wasn't too bad.

Tuesday was a whirlwind kind of day. The girls went to school, then we had swim lessons and Amy had Brownies (which was a finger food potluck). Amy wanted to be dropped off because"she's a big girl now," so Jessica and I did and errand or two while waiting to pick Amy back up. We had to do something I really wish we hadn't, as it just symbolizes being too busy to me. We had to go to the drive thru for dinner that night because there wasn't enough time for us to get home, make dinner and get to Brownies. I hope that doesn't happen too often. Of course, the girls loved it! LOL

I rented a rug doctor to clean the carpet in the one room that has carpet in our house. This is not something I normally do. I leave the carpet cleaning to Steve. But, I thought it would be nice to surprise him (and it was over due to be cleaned). While it didn't look as nice as when Steve does it, it looked better than it did when I started-dang I had to change the water so often!). I think he appreciated the gesture. And he gave me some pointers on how to best do the job (for future reference-should I ever decide to surprise him again *Ü*).

The one decluttering/organizing project I was able to start this week was working in a cabinet/cupboard in the kitchen. I pulled everything out of it and had it covering the kitchen floor. Just how do we managed to stuff so much into a small space is beyond me (and I didn't think to take pictures this time, sorry). I shifted around some items into the top shelf in the pantry, sorted through the rest and cleaned the floor of the cabinet. I put back what I wanted to for the moment and stashed the 8 million cookie cutters I found (not really, honest) until I can sort through them and put them into ONE storage container. I spent a little longer than I thought on this one space, but when I open it now and see space instead of stuff, it was well worth the effort.

*****

Friday was kind of special.

Amy's teacher has a Mystery Reader come to the class once a month to read to the students. The Mystery Reader can be someone from the school staff or a parent. When I got the paper detailing what she wanted to do and that she needed volunteers, I immediately said I'd sign up.

Friday was my turn.

Amy's teacher had me write 5 clues as to my identity and she read them one at a time to the class in anticipation of the arrival of the Mystery Reader. The clues started out general and by the last clue the identity should be pretty clear. At the designated time, I knocked on the classroom door and heard a collective gasp that the Mystery Reader had arrived.

I walked in and immediately saw Amy with a huge grin on her face and tears rolling down her cheeks. She was SO excited to see that I was the Mystery Reader. Her reaction made tears come to my eyes as well. You see, Amy's gotten the short end of the Mommy volunteering stick most of the time (because I had Jessica at home). She's been very understanding, and it's not that I don't volunteer, but it's mainly been for parties and such.

This was something I did just for her

and it didn't involve Jessica at all.

I think that meant the world to her.

So, I sat down and read one of Amy's very favorite books,

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.

And she loved it.

The class loved it, too.

Amy's teacher is fabulous and she guided a great discussion on what was so appealing about the book. And I got to tell the kids I liked it too, because I had heard all the things the pigeon says from my own girls and it made me laugh.

It was a special time that I am thrilled to have been able to share with and for Amy.

*****

I've been thinking I might have to ease up on the household stuff until after the holidays. I've got several handwork projects in the works and the best time to work on them is during the day while the girls are at school-so they don't know what I am up to. We'll see how that goes.

*****

I am not sure how I did it, but I managed to sign up for three very different online classes that have been running at the same time. And I've not been able to focus on any of them. Sigh.

I'll get to it at some point.

Yep, it's been a busy few days, but it's all good!

Hope you have a happy Sunday!

Half Finger Gloves~Crochet Project

I did some crocheting yesterday while I watched the Broncos self-destruct during their game with the Redskins. I've been working on these for a week or so. I found the pattern in the same Crochet Today magazine issue as the Gingerbread House I made earlier.

You can see the sample here.

I started the first one using the size hook called for (but was too lazy to do a gauge swatch) and I realized that it was going to be too small to wrap around my wrist. You can't see it, but each glove needs two buttons to close the wrist area. I might have forged on, but these are going to be a gift, so I pulled it out and started again with a larger hook. (note to self...doing a gauge swatch is not a waste of time) The second time worked much better. I got the first one completed the other night and started the second one. I pretty much finished it during my football watching session yesterday. I knew the pattern pretty well by then and it worked up very quickly. What's kind of neat about this pattern is that it is reversible, meaning I made the two gloves identically and simply turned one inside out to make it fit the other hand. Pretty cool huh? I still need to put the buttons on, but I have to find some that I like first. I didn't find the exact color yarn in the sample, but this color worked out well. It's called Razzle Dazzle and it's by Red Heart, the Heart and Sole line (the yarn has aloe in it and was designed to be used to create socks).

And for those of you who have asked how Jessica's big ouchie is healing, I took a picture for you.

Here it is as of yesterday morning. She wanted to pose with her new Beanie Baby Bear that I picked up at the thrift store on Saturday. I got a bag of something like 4-5 stuffed dolls for a buck. I also found one of the cutest giraffe dolls I've ever seen for Amy for the same price.

Anyway, as you can see her ouchie is healing very nicely. Thanks for asking.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Hope you are having a good start to your week!

How About Another Digi Layout?

I couldn't resist the lure of the Sweet Caroline page kit by Kristin Cronin-Barrow over at Sweet Shoppe Designs. First off, the name of the kit brought back a ton of memories. Sweet Caroline is a song sung by Neil Diamond, who was my mom's very favorite singer. I grew up on his music. She and I would sing this song together all the time. Then when I saw the colors in the kit, I was just smitten. So I had to buy it and I had to scrap with it today.

The template for this layout is by Jacq Delphin and was a freebie from Sweet Shoppe Designs. They regularly offer freebie templates as part of challenges in the Community. This one is from 9-17-2008 and is called Cookie 51. The challenges are called Cookie Decorating.

All of the papers and elements are from the Sweet Caroline kit. I recolored one of the buttons to have each one colored differently.

The font is CTMH Fountain Pen and I reduced the opacity so it would look a little more vintage.

I added a Photoblast action to make the photo Sepia.

I really like how this one turned out.

Thanks for visiting. This was post #3 today. It's starting to snow again, and it was the type of day that one likes to hang out inside by the fire creating. So that's what I did!

Did Some Digi Scrappin' Today...

And thought maybe you'd like to see what I worked on. LOL

First up is Jessica's Big Ouchie layout.

For this one I used Kay Miller's Template from Collection 30 and Mary Fran's page kit appropriately called Ouchies. The font is Pea Jane.

And here is Amy and her pumpkin named Jack.

For this layout I used Cindy Schneider's Freebie #4 template and Mary Fran's Eerie-sistable page kit. Journaling font is Pea Jane and the title fonts are CK Ali's Writing and a DJ Inkers font(forgot to note which one I used, and I simplified the layer, so it's not one I can double-check anymore)

You should be able to click on them to enlarge the layouts if you want to see them larger.

Thanks for laughing with me about my cleaning {mis}adventures.

For those who don't know what Jello Jigglers are, I found this link. I don't usually cut mine into shapes because I don't want to mess with "scraps." So I just cut them into squares. They are a hit with the kids. And just so you know, I've got part of the old Jello Jiggler jingle running through my head...watch it wiggle, see it jiggle...sigh...

Hope you are having a great day!

Adventures in Cleaning...

Hello there!

Would you believe I was searching on the internet for images of a refrigerator that I could use for this post? Then I thought, duh, take a picture of your own fridge, silly. So I did. And I chose this one because it's so typical. Amy picked up those ladybug printed pajama bottoms at a garage sale. Never mind they don't fit in any sense of the word, but she loves them. My girls sure enjoy combining their jammies with whatever suits their fancy, so they come up with interesting combinations (much like when they dress for leaving the house).

I've been fairly quiet the past few days, haven't I? You know it's not because I'm sitting around watching Oprah and eating bon-bons, right? (much as some people in this house, who shall remain nameless, like to joke). I don't watch Oprah anymore, or Doctor Phil or tv at all during the day. I got me some satellite radio on my DirecTV and I've found an awesome country music station that I listen (and dance) to all day. Technically, I guess the tv is on, but I'm not watching it.

Yesterday I cleaned the refrigerator.

Shocking, huh?

I have a little tidbit of advice that you might want to remember. When you are making Jello Jigglers for a birthday party (in October), it is NOT a good idea to try to stretch the concoction by pouring it onto a cookie baking tray (at least it isn't a good idea for me). Why? Because, until that stuff sets, it's very liquid and very, very easy to spill. And spill I did, all over the fridge. Did I clean it up at the time it happened...nooooooo....I was in the middle of party prep.

Second little tidbit, Jello Jiggler concoction is a pain in the patootie to clean up after it sets for several weeks. Just sayin' you might not want to let it do that should you ever spill the stuff in your fridge. And you might want to listen to your daughter who tells you just about every time she opens the fridge, that there is STILL Jello in the fridge.

Sigh.

But not anymore.

I cleaned up the Jello. And would you believe said daughter didn't even notice?

Sigh.

I gotta say though, I went in armed with a bucket of hot soapy water and cleaning rags, but it was my Pampered Chef scraper that saved the day. I love that thing (well three of the things) best couple of dollars I ever spent. I use them all the time. I guess an old credit card might do the same thing, but these scrapers save the day more often than not for me.

And in honor of cleaning the inside of the fridge, I also decided to clean behind and below it as well. Which led to me accidentally hitting the ice machine pipe and causing an itsy bitsy teeny tiny leak. It also led to a trip to the home improvement store to try to find something to help me clean the coils under the fridge, since my vacuum attachment was too big. I was surprised at how hard it was to find, but I was persistent and successful.

And the brushes I found will also work for the dryer (yay).

What should have taken maybe an hour ended up taking most of my kid free time.

Sigh.

But it's done and I've added a note to self...add cleaning the fridge to my regular cleaning cycle

and...

always use the correct pan for Jello Jigglers.

Just sayin'.

May your weekend be free of hardened Jello Jigglers in your fridge!

Have a good one.

What a Feeling!

Remember that movie, Flashdance? And the song about what a feeling? I don't remember the title, but that line has been running through my head since about 1 o'clock this afternoon.

Why?

Because it was at 1 o'clock that I finished washing the ceiling, walls, baseboards and floor of the last room that needed it in our house!

I stood there and said, I did it, I did it, I DID it! Yay!

For the record I washed the ceiling, walls, baseboards and floors in

the kitchen

the living room

the entry way

the hallway

three bedrooms

two bathrooms

the great room

the pantry

the laundry closet

and

the front porch.

Our house has just over 1700 square feet of living space. And to reach all the corners and such I had to move furniture, too.

Wow.

What a feeling.

And no, I'm not coming over to your house to do the same thing.

LOL

Actually, I think I might have aggravated a nerve in my right wrist as it's feeling a little tender. So, I'm glad it's done for more reasons than the feeling of accomplishment this brings.

I'm not done yet, though. I still have to clean out those spaces that are out of public view.

All in good time.

I want to savor this feeling first.

Thanks for indulging me as I toot my little horn about this accomplishment.

Wow.

What a feeling!

Second Hand Skates~Digi Layout

Hi again! This is my second post today, so feel free to check out both. *Ü*

I was able to complete the other layout I had in mind. Yay!

Jessica has been talking about wanting to take ice-skating lessons since her swim class buddy, Annabelle, started taking them. Steve thought it'd be smarter to take the girls on the weekend and let them try it out for a while before making any lesson decisions. So, he took them yesterday morning and apparently they had a blast. So much so that Steve started checking out used ice skates on Craig's List. Well, he found a pair that would fit Amy, but the seller was way out in the boonies and I wasn't willing to drive that far for a pair of skates. So, I piped up that I could check the thrift stores. Amy asked me to check after dinner last night. I knew Arc was having their 50% off Saturday, so I agreed to check it out. Talk about lucky! They had a pair for each of them! So, for about $11, the girls have skates to use on their ice-rink adventures. They were so excited they begged to go to the rink today so they could try them out. Steve willingly took them. (I personally am not a big fan of ice-skating...it hurts my ankles too much, so I was content to let them have Daddy-Daughter fun).

Anyway, I took a picture of the skates and wanted to make a layout about them.

What do you think?

The journaling reads: Jessica has been talking about wanting to learn how to ice-skate since her friend, Annabelle, has been taking lessons. Steve took the girls to the ice rink to see if they would like ice-skating, and they sure did. Rather than take lessons right now, he’ll take them on the weekend. Their enthusiasm prompted a trip to the thrift store to find skates and we got lucky. Amy was thrilled at her “Olympic Style Skates.” She and Jessica have been walking around on them in the big room. The skates may be second hand, but the fun they are having is first rate!

Credits:

Template: Kay Miller Designs, Collection 23

Page Kit: Arctic Antics (Kay Miller Designs)

Fonts: CK Ali's Writing and Century Gothic

Stitching: Jen Wilson Designs (feather stitch)

I think that's it from me today. My mental muscles are tired now. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope you have a great start to your week.

Pantry Clean Out~Digi Layout

Hello there!

Yesterday was Digital Scrapbook Day! I took advantage of a sale at Sweet Shoppe Designs and picked up a few kits. Then I tried to download the kits at the same time as everyone else. Not the smartest move I've ever made. It took forever because the server was overloaded. But did I wait? Nope, I kept trying and it took all afternoon. There were a few files that I couldn't get to download, so I finally gave up and finished downloading this morning. I didn't want to wait because I had a layout I wanted to create using the kits I bought, of course! But, I had to wait anyway, because I needed one of the files to get this layout made.

Credits:

Template: Yin Template #145 (part of Daily Digi File #8) modified-I moved some pictures around to fit better

Page Kit: All in a Day's Work Collab kit by Heather Roselli and Libby Weifenbach

Font: Pea Missy

The kit is called All in a Day's Work and I thought it would be perfect to use with my pantry clean out photos. I liked all the little appliances and tools for cleaning that were included.

Remember when I said I had finished organizing all my digi supplies? Well, I was trying to pull up my templates for layouts using 10 or more photos and my attempts were pulling up bizarre selections. So, I ended up having to re-organize that part of my supplies before I started on the layout. But now all my new supplies are tagged and my templates are organized better AND I completed this layout!

So much for just relaxing after my busy day on Friday, huh? LOL Well, it may not have been physically taxing to do the organizing, but mentally? That's another story. (hee, hee)

I have another layout in mind to work on. We'll see if I get 'r done today...

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you are having a super day!

I Can't Believe This Took ALL Day!

Hi there! Happy Friday to you!

I decided to tackle my "pantry" today. I thought for sure it would be relatively quick and easy given its small size. Um....nope. I decided to get brave and show you what it looked like before and after. Hopefully you won't think less of me after you see the before shots. LOL

This space is in our big room (the converted two car garage portion of our house). The previous owners created this little space, probably for storage. It's kind of an L shape and it also houses the water heater. The door goes out to our back yard, but we never use it. After we moved in, we added the wire shelving. Oh and Steve added texture to the walls and ceiling. What a joy that was to try to clean (not).

So here's what it looked like as you look into the space.

Turning to your left is more shelving with who knows what stashed here and there. Oh there's Steve's jimson weed plant. He brought it inside, I think to try to preserve the seeds in case it doesn't grow next year. The silver vent tube is Steve's jerry-rigged "pipe" to get the heat to go into the big room and not just warm up the pantry.

Oh my gosh...what all is up there?!!!

And what is down here??

Brace yourself. Here's what what actually IN that space!

Can you believe it? I think I said holy cr*p, I can't believe that all came out of that little space!

At 9:05am this morning I had everything pulled out of the space and the cleaning began. First, I vacuumed off the spider webs. Then I started washing down the walls. That door took some effort. Then I started washing the baseboards and the floor. E-gads, THAT took forever! I think I finally got done about 1:00 and I took a break to eat lunch and take a shower. I started putting the shelves back into place. And adjusting them because I forgot where they originally were. LOL I had to fight some of the braces to get them in place. By then it was time to head out to get the girls from school. And I STILL had to go through all the items before I could put them back. Sigh...

I started that about 3:00. And at 5:00 I had finished vacuuming the big room and took the last garbage bag out to the trash. At 5:05 or so, Steve walked up the driveway from work. I had a bag for Goodwill and oh about 3 large bags full of expired food. Ugh. I definitely won't let THAT happen again.

Here's what it looks like now...

Look, there's open space!! I plan on cleaning out cupboards in the kitchen and putting things I don't use very often up there.

I discovered that the mice we had earlier found the Top Ramen soup packages and ate into a couple of them....ewwwww. But I'm pretty confident that they are all gone now because I didn't see any "evidence" of them yesterday when I was moving couches to finish up the cleaning of the big room. (whew)

I have to say I'm absolutely pooped right now. My whole body is sore, actually. But I'm SO glad to have this done!

Thanks for visiting and hope you enjoyed this little "tour" of my pantry. Just a couple more rooms to go and I'll be done with this major part of my deep clean. Then I'll move on to the stuff behind closed doors (oh my).

Thanks to Barb for This *Ü*

My sweet friend, Barb, awarded me this last week and I really appreciate her thinking of me.

The Rules are:
1. You can only use ONE word!!!
2. Pass this along to 5 of your favorite bloggers!
3. Alert them that you have given them this award!
4. HAVE FUN!!!
***************
Just ONE word, huh? That may prove to be difficult! We'll see...

1. Where is your cell phone?purse
2. Your hair? short
3. Your mother? remembered with love
4. Your father? generous
5. Your fave food? popcorn
6. Your dream last night? dunno
7. Your fave drink? diet coke
8. Your dream/goal? happy
9. What room are you in? living room
10. Your hobby? handwork
11. Your fear? earthquake
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here
13. Where you were last night? home
14. Something that you aren't? thin
15. Muffins? maybe
16. Wish List Item? laptop
17. Where did you grow up? California
18. Last thing you did? crochet
19. What are you wearing? clothes?
20. Your TV? on
21. Your Pets? one
22. Friends? special
23. Your Life? happy
24. Your Mood? good
25. Missing Someone? yes
26. Vehicle? van
27. Something your not wearing? make-up
28. Your fave store? Archiver's
29. Your fave color? green
30. Last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? Sept 21
32. Your best friend? special
33. One place that I go to over and over? kitchen
34. One person who emails regularly? Dad
35. Fave place to eat? Chili's
36. Facebook? sometimes

I'm supposed to give this to five bloggers. However, I've seen it around quite a bit (my choices would be repeats) so I will leave it open to any of you who visit and would like to participate.

Thanks again, Barb! This was fun.

I got the rest of the big room (converted two car sized garage) done today (vacuumed the ceiling since it's a popcorn ceiling). After the leaf job the other day and holding up the mini vac today...I can safely say my arms are tired. But it's a satisfying tired.

Hope you have a great Friday!

Too Cute To Spook!

This layout has nothing to do with the class I signed up for. It's just one I've been working on for the past few days. The previous layout I tried wasn't doing it for me, so I scratched it and started over. Then PSE locked up before I could save so I had to start all over again. But it's done now and I'm pretty happy with it, so thought I'd share (and get it off my brain).

Template is by Kay Miller (Collection 12) and the page kit is called Can I Be Frank? by Nitwitcollections. The word art is also a Nitwit product, only it's the Little Bits add-on.

Font is Pea Missy

Thanks so much for stopping by!

(in case you didn't notice, the little ghost has been transformed to look more ghostly by changing the opacity of that element. I thought it looked neat)

Blogging for Scrapbookers

Hi there!

Happy Wednesday to you. I hope it's a good one. *Ü*

As I was reading blogs yesterday morning, I came across one from my friend April (Capture the Memories), a gal I've "known" from my CTMH days. She's also taken Library of Memories and other projects. She hasn't posted all that much lately, but she's been busy, like all of us. Plus, I think she moved too! Anyway, she posted about a new class she signed up for called Blogging for Scrapbookers. I was instantly intrigued.

After all, I've pretty much completed the tagging of my digital scrapbook supplies and I've pretty much finished getting my photos all centrally located (by month and year) on my computer. I'm itching to scrapbook and you all know how I love my bloggin'. *Ü* The class is $15, which is affordable. But I'm also trying to be frugal. What to do? What to do?

I did some leaf clean up outside and thought about it some more. I found I couldn't stop thinking about the class and how intriguing it sounded. It took about 2-3 hours (including breaks) to get the whole leaf situation taken care of and I felt like I sort of "earned" the perk (or reward if you will) of taking this class.

And so, early this morning, I signed up! For the next three weeks, I'll be involved in this class and because of that you might see more blog posts from me.

I thought this photo would be a cute one to share with you

about what I'm going to be working on. Wish me luck.

And if you happen to have found my blog because of my posting the address in the class forum, welcome and thanks for stopping by. I hope you'll visit often!

I even played hooky from housework today so I could get myself familiar with the class information....shhhhhhhh.....LOL

See you soon, I hope!

A Happy Halloween Was Had...

Happy Day After Halloween!

Hope you had a fun holiday and are well rested now that you've had an extra hour of sleep.

I might have enjoyed an extra hour, only I was kept awake last night by the neighbors behind us who had a party. The party wasn't too loud, but the fireworks they lit off between 2 - 3 am sure were! So any extra sleep was discounted by the time I was awake for that. It all evens out, I guess. LOL I did get my grocery shopping done an hour earlier than normal, which was nice.

The girls had a great day. Amy finally got to carve her pumpkin. We had to wait until the last minute to carve as the altitude seems to make carved pumpkins dry out and start looking like shrunken jack-o-lanterns rather quickly.

Look how proud she is!

She did ALL the work herself, with the exception of cutting the top off.

To think she grew this one herself from a seed made for a very happy camper. (and the pumpkin had a satisfying number of seeds to roast, too, which was great)

The girls had a Halloween party to go through that was organized by a troop in the unit. The girls had fun doing some crafts, checking out creepy containers and playing some games. There was also a gal there doing face painting and Jessica wanted to have it done.

It is fairly simple. She originally wanted a butterfly face (be still my heart), but didn't want the gal to have to paint onto her bandage, so she decided on this design. Still very cute, no? And did you notice on her ears?? Yep, I quick made up her pair of earrings and she's been wearing them pretty much ever since.

Here they are, ready to head out trick or treating. Never mind that I had thought Jess would wear pink under her dress and Amy a white shirt and jeans. They dress themselves and we have no arguments about it, which is nice.

Aside from needing a face wash, they are the cutest spooks around in my book. LOL

Hope you have a great Sunday. Thanks for visiting and your wonderful comments on the gingerbread house I made. They sure put a big grin on my face. You all are the best.

Big hugs to you!