Trick-or-Treat 2012

Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, our trick-or-treat was moved to Saturday, November 3rd. Saturday turned out to be a cold and wet day. I did not want to go. In fact, I offered Allison $20 and a trip to Baldinger's instead of going trick-or-treating but she wasn't having it! So, I did what any dedicated Mother would do and sucked it up.

Allison wanted to go as a Gothic Nerd. We did our best to come up with her "level" of Gothic . . . which was really just the skull skirt, suspenders, hair bows, black clothing and dark lipstick. I'm so glad she didn't want to go to the extreme!

She wears the "nerd" look so well!

 The neighborhood trick-or-treaters. 

Usually it's just Allison and the three boys who are on the step with her. However, we picked up 3 more this year. The pirate and the little princess just moved into our neighborhood a couple of months ago from Oklahoma and we also had a little lion who moved here from Nebraska a couple of months ago too. Although, our little lion was 18 months old and did not want to stand still for a picture.

To the left here is my little observation of the candy given out these days.

Please do not think I'm complaining, because I would rather not have any candy in this house. This is just my observation.

The Hershey bar is a regular size candy bar. One house gave them out and the kids walking away from the house were all commenting. I also gave out the full size Hershey bars but I only had to buy 6 since that is all we ever get at our house  - our little group. 

Anyway, look at the size of the Kit Kat! It is like 1/8 the size of a normal sized bar. I haven't seen anything so small! It probably costs more to make the wrapper than the candy!

Hope you had a great Halloween and Trick-or-Treat!

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Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to all my blogger friends out there! We had good weather on Trick or Treat night two days ago. They always have it on the actual day of Halloween but this year, just two weeks ago, they changed it to Thursday night. Thank Goodness! I prefer it NOT to be on the Halloween if it falls on a weekend night. There are just too many crazies out there drinking, partying and driving out there. We need to keep our little ones safe! Besides. It windy and rainy and supposed to be that way all day today.

This year Allison decided to be a Paleontologist. Yes. I know...only my kid! If you are sitting there wondering what a Paleontologist is, don't fret...you are not the only one! I actually considered typing out hand-outs explaining it because everyone who asked what she was going to be prior to Halloween replied "A what?" when I said Paleontologist. Basically it's a scientist who studies the history of the earth specifically dinosaurs. Now doesn't that make sense as to why my daughter picked it? Anyway, one of our neighbors immediately knew she was. I was impressed. Most people thought Dr. or Nurse and she quickly corrected them by saying "No, (in a roll of the eye kind of voice), I'm a paleontologist." Most said "A What?", some said "Oh, like Ross on Friends?" and one lady SCREAMED..."I LOVE IT! That's so cute!" So overall, I say it was a success...especially for me. It was a super easy costume for me as you can see in the picture. Thank goodness! I didn't spend my usual 5-8 hours creating a costume that only gets worn a couple of hours. I had a lot going on this week and I didn't need to add making a costume to it. I'll take that as a little blessing from above.

Here she is with our little neighbor boys...a Jedi from Star Wars, Indiana Jones and a little pumpkin. Do you think the 3 year old is a little smitten with Allison?
This is a house around the corner from us. The two guys that live there go all out for Halloween every year. It's my favorite stop! They graciously allowed me to take pics to share with all of you.

They have a graveyard out front with a fog machine going. You can see the fog when you are driving down the road. It's just amazing!

The "friendly" doorman?

Huge spiderweb with spiders all over the house. Look at the shutters here. They are made of wood and they put them up every year!

The gate to the cemetery. A little blurry but you can still see it.

Once we got home, Allison started throwing her glo-bracelet onto the dinosaurs' necks and said "Hey Mom, look the paleontologist's version of ring toss!"

This kid cracks me up! She's a keeper!

Oh look who we have here! It's my best friend, Susan, getting in the Halloween spirit! These pics were taken up at her campsite's Halloween festivities and borrowed from her camping friend, Stacy's, facebook photos. Okay, okay. I didn't actually borrow them because that would require asking. I just plain out thieved them. Is that even a word? Oh well, I wonder just how much of that bottle is in Susan's belly?
I'm almost afraid to admit that she's my BFF by this next photo...she's almost too comfortable working the costume!

Have Fun and Be Safe!

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The Moms FALL into Fun!

Finally! My post on our "Mom's Craft Night Out!"

As you can see, we made pumpkins! It was not my original idea. I found the idea on "It's a Daisy Day!" website and put my own little twist on it. As you can see, she made fall pumpkins for her craft. We did too but we painted both sides and added jack-o-lantern faces on one side. When Halloween is over, all we have to do is twist the ribbon, raffia and wire around that's on the stem and we've extended our decor through Thanksgiving! Gotta love a dual purpose pumpkin!

See. Here's the other side!

Okay. I get caught up in the night and forget to take pictures of everything but here are some pics from the night with the directions thrown in!

First we painted all the sides of the pumpkins except the bottom with craft paint. These pictures show really orange pumpkins but they aren't that orange. They look more like the first two pics. We used 2 X 4's for the pumpkins and they are cut in 6", 8" and 10" lengths. Thanks Curtis for cutting them...we all appreciate it!

Hanging out while we wait for them to dry. Usually at this time we are snacking on the treats our Snack Hostesses bring but we did that before we even started. We had some catching up to do since our group had the summer off from crafting.

Applying a second coat.

After the two coats of orange were dry, we painted the faces on them. This was a stressful time for some of the Moms but they ALL turned out so cute!

Once all the paint was completely dry, we took sandpaper to all the edges of the blocks. We also did a light sanding over the front and the back (right over the faces) to distress them a little.

We took floral wire and wrapped it around a pencil to make the curly part of a pumpkin vine. We then stretched to spring to elongate it and make it look not so uniform.

Okay, here's where I stopped taking pictures so there are no visual aids for the next steps. Anyway, they are really easy and I'm sure you can figure it out!

We hot glued (with a big old glob of hot glue) the 2" natural wood stems on top of the blocks. They are about a nickel size in diameter. Curtis found us some awesome branches on the ground (so no trees were harmed in the process...this makes my "green" daughter very happy) in the woods at his parents' house and cut them for us.

After the hot glue was set, we tied a piece of torn fabric, 5-6 strands of raffia and the curly wire onto the stem and ta da! We have pumpkins!

Here we all are with our pumpkins! Thanks Stephanie (Susan C.'s) daughter for taking our pics! Left to right are: Kelly, Susan C., Dawn, Sherie, Nettie, Sandy, Me (Cindi) and Susan D..

A little artsy shot from Steph...she wanted to highlight the pumpkins but I think she highlighted my double chin! Thanks Steph!

Here are our final projects. I think I missed taking pics of some but aren't the ones I did get sweet?

Have Fun!

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Halloween Happenings!

As most of you already know, I make Allison's Halloween costume every year. She decides what it's going to be and then I figure out how I am going to pull it off. This year was very easy. The only problem I had was finding a white sweat suit. As you can see, I wasn't successful in finding one so I improvised and she ended up being a brown calico cat. This was probably better since it was wet outside and she managed to find a puddle. :) If you are interested in years past costumes, click here for last year and here for all the previous years.

We always take Allison trick or treating back where I grew up with my Goddaughter, Maria. It's fun to hang out with my friends and visit the people that we trick or treated from when we were kids. They all still live there...I love small town America!

Here is our little ones. Don't they look adorable? I swear Maria has shot up 3 inches since I saw her in July! She looked me eye to eye and my shoes had two inch heels on them! She is outgrowing the "child look" and growing into a beautiful young woman. I'm sure the boys will be knocking on her door soon! Get ready Uncle Ron! You are going to have quite a few boys to scare!

Here they are 3 years ago in 2005.
They grow up so fast!

When we got back to my Mom and Dad's, we emptied the bags onto their table. We didn't go to very many houses but BOY did she get the loot!

Anyone want any candy???
As I mentioned in my last post, I am the head party parent for Allison's parties at class. Yesterday was her Fall Festival party. I took my camera but I did not take one single picture! I was having too much fun with the kids. They are so cute. I can't wait for the next party!
We started out with "Ghost" bingo and the winner had to yell out "Boo" instead of "Bingo." It was too cute. They get very excited and competitive. Next they made spiders out of Styrofoam balls that were cut in half and painted black. They put in the eight legs and put eyes on them. We then used them for the game "Put the Spider on the Web." They had a lot of fun being blindfolded and yelling at each other to turn "left" or "right." We also had them make smiley face foam leaf magnets to take home. I had one more craft planned but we didn't have enough time. I left if for the teacher so she can have them do it when she has some time. They are fall book markers with leaves and turkeys on them.
I also planned a snack of "Witches Brew" and "Spider Web Cookies. The punch was too cute and I wish I would have taken a picture of it! It was purple grape juice and club soda but then I put in green grapes to simulate eyes and apples cut up in little bits to simulate teeth. One of the other Mom's froze water in plastic gloves and we floated the ice hands in the punch. They all got a big kick out of drinking the "Witches Brew" with hands, eyes and teeth in it! As far as the snack goes, you all know that I am the cupcake queen. I LOVE to make cupcakes. However, when we were discussing what I had planned, the teacher hesitated on cupcakes and said she preferred cookies but she said either would be fine and it was my call. Since I am doing all three parties, I didn't want to make any bad feelings with the teacher on the first party so I went with her preference of cookies. I searched blogs on the web and found "Spider Web Cookies" from fellow blogger, Christie at These are a few of my Favorite Things. Let me tell you, Mom bloggers have the best ideas! Thankfully, I was able to take a picture of them since I took it before I left for the party. I loved how they turned out and the kids thought they were too cool! I even got several comments in the hallway on my way to the classroom from the other Moms who were there for their kid's party.
Thanks Christie!

Have Fun!

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Halloween Treats for Classmates!

This year I signed on to be the Head Room Parent for Allison's class. What does this mean? It means I am in charge of the 3 holiday parties they have throughout the year. I know. I know. You are probably thinking ... WHAT was she thinking when she volunteered for that one?? Well. When I signed on to this Motherhood thing, this is one of the things I looked forward to...participating in her life at school. The only thing I didn't think about was having to come up with more ideas for the party. If you are a regular reader to my blog, you know that I enjoy making or putting together treats for her classmates for their parties from Allison herself. This proved itself to be a little difficult this year because I had to come up with ideas for the party and an idea of what I wanted to do from Allison. I can only come up with so many ideas at a time. So with that being said, I fortunately came across Jill Scott's blog, Controlling My Chaos, some time ago and became a regular reader. She has the cutest ideas and fortunately for me, she had an awesome one for Halloween. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was what I wanted to do and then to make things better, she did the graphics for her readers. THANK YOU JILL! It was SO easy and I had everything I needed on hand except the border punch but as you can see, I did it without it and it still came out cute! Be sure to click on the picture to enlarge it. As usual, I blanked out Allison's last name to protect the innocent...or guilty. I never remember which one she is. :)
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A Halloween Recap...in Pictures!

Allison changed her mind two weeks before Halloween and wanted to be a gorilla. As always, I made her costume but I keep finding fur everywhere! Curtis even found it in his lunch the next day!

Doesn't she look scary?

Ever see a dancing gorilla? This was at the Family Fun Night at her school. It was a Halloween Dance.
I got to help out with the Halloween party. I supplied little treat bags filled with candy.
This was Allison's treat for all her classmates. I used the same concept as I did Easter treats last year and started with a cup. I filled it with a mini Hershey bar, M & M's, Skittles and four coupons from McDonald's.
Allison wanted me to take a picture of her stuff she got from the school party. The Beanie Baby gorilla was the model for the costume and the purple bowl was the treats I bought to give out to the kids but everything else on the table came from the school party.
My expert pumpkin carvers. I'm in charge of roasting the seeds.
"I'm not afraid of the pumpkin guts!"

"Mom, take a picture of my hands in the guts!"
Allison wanted us to surprise her with the design so Daddy is hard at work!
The finished product!
This was the third year we went back over to where my Mom lives to go Trick or Treating. We go with my Goddaughter. She's the mummified cheerleader. This year some of her friends came along. Allison had a blast and I get to visit with my friend. We always start at their Mom's...just like when we were kids.

Have Fun!

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