The Start of our Halloween Traditions

These little guys have nothing to do with Halloween but we were pretty excited to have them! On the last day of school I got the kids a butterfly keeper cage which came with a coupon for caterpillars. After reading about the caterpillars they needed cooler weather than the TX summer so we had to wait until fall to redeem our coupon. Fall came and we finally decided to get our caterpillars! Here they are, all eating, getting big, preparing to make their chrysalises.
A couple of weeks before Halloween we made our annual Gingerbread Haunted House. I had the best one last year with notches on all of the pieces that held it all together so well. I forgot which brand I bought and I didn't get that one this year! :( This house fell down about 10 times but I finally got it all together.

The kids each took a side to decorate.

We had much less sneaking of the candy this year and the Haunted House turned out pretty cute!

I also redid our downstairs bathroom and I LOVE it!! This is still my not so nice camera so the colors didn't turn out so well. I'll have to take the pictures again since I finally got my camera back. I painted the walls first all white since they were builder beige. Then I painted thick gray stripes with turquoise accents.

I also made the matching shower curtain. The stripes were pretty time consuming but I love the result!

Last Weekend

I know, I know, it's a terrible picture! It's the only picture I had of our Daisy Scout garage sale that we had last weekend. We did a fundraiser for our troop in our leader's yard. The girls made baked goods and lemonade to sell. The moms sold all of our stuff!! It was pretty successful, we made $400! Here's Elizabeth at the money table. The girls took turns sitting at the table, giving cookies to everyone who bought something.

We also went to the zoo and met our friends Joanne, Jay, Jane, Jill, and Jena. It was super cold, but luckily we brought jackets so we were pretty comfortable.

Jane, Jill, Elizabeth and Ben. The best picture of the older kids.

I started making this wreath for Elizabeth's upcoming birthday. I didn't take a finished picture, but I really love the way it turned out. It took SO many balloons though, a lot more than I thought! It's going to be my birthday wreath for the front door any day someone in our family has a birthday.

I have also been loving my cricut and vinyl. I bought these buckets at Michaels for a $1 - and added the kids names. I'm not sure what we are going to do with them, but I think they're cute! In case you can't read the above...

Name: Elizabeth

Excellent on math.

Good on reading.

I was sunning for sun. (not really sure what this means - maybe it's on the yellow slips at her school?)

Elizabeth and her friend Emma were playing school and giving each other yellow slips (for being good) and their brothers were getting blue slips (they were being bad, I guess). It was pretty funny. I loved seeing this on the counter with her spelling - especially the excellent! It was a fun weekend, and we have a crazy week this week ending with Elizabeth's birthday party! I should have a lot to post in the upcoming week! Now if I only had time to post them!

Only Dad Part 2

I came home one day last week to this!
These aren't actually body paints,

they're just regular old paints that Tom thought would be fun to use on their bodies.

It was fun -

and messy!
Only with dad! :)

These are for you, Amy!

I totally copied these ideas from other blogs. I made this subway art for the fall. I just painted a canvas with orange, red and yellow and then used my sister's cricut to cut out the words. I then made fabric flowers for the corners. Pretty simple!

I made 2 of these wreaths for about 1.50 each. I got the ideas for these from here.
It will tell you exactly how to make them. I made them for right outside the study - but I think I need to paint the walls around them - it looks very white in the pictures!

I hope you like them, Amy!

7 hours

So I spent 7 hours yesterday painting Ben's room. I caused my family to sleep like this (Tom is on the floor) while I was up painting away.

and I hate it! :(
I feel like it looks like a day care center or something! Maybe it reminds me too much of Ben's "baby" room in the other house. The road and some of that wall are magnetic (I put layers of magnetic paint under the wall color) and I made people and vehicles from Joanne's cricut (thanks Joanne!) that I laminated and I'll put magnets on.

But I'm ready to paint over the whole thing. I don't know what it is, it just isn't how I pictured it.

Ignore the mess! I guess I'm going to put all the furniture back, put his bedding on his bed and see what it looks like.

And then I'll probably paint the room yellow or something :)