My amazing brother....Tim

A special tribute to my brother...Tim

My sweet, loving brother passed away peacefully Saturday morning at 2:30 a.m. after suffering a very hard battle with colon cancer. He was the most wonderful brother ever! He is the father of 8 children (7 boys and 1 girl) and has the sweetest and most beautiful wife, Liz, who I adore. Tim was a very talented and creative person who was able to accomplish many things. His determination was unbelievable and he has passed that down to his children. He had a very full life that was filled with people who adored him and who wanted to be like him. I can't even begin to say how much I already miss him even though it has only been a day since his passing. I love him so very much and know that we will be together again some day... I am grateful for that knowledge and so grateful for eternal families!! I am so thankful he is no longer having to suffer and that he has been freed from his pain. I am sure our family members who have gone on before and our loving Father in Heaven were there to greet him and are embracing him right now! Tim you are in my heart and always will be forever! I love you more than you can imagine and can't wait until we are all together again.........

HaPpY HaLlOwEeN! (Some last minute ideas for you)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2009 EVERYONE!!!

I thought I would share some of our quick and fast costume ideas in the event some of you are still searching for some! Also a quick and fast breakfast or brunch idea that I served my family this morning...

Orange pumpkin pancakes (not pumpkin flavored, just orange colored with an attempted pumpkin shape) :o) Served with black eyes (purple globe grapes) and wormy juice.... (apple juice with gummy worms in ice cubes - I will show you how to make the ice cubes below)

Here it is served on my Halloween placemats...The yummy juice....

Here is what you do for the gummy ice cubes:
First you get a cheap bag of gummy worms and an ice cube tray.
Then you take two or three worms and stick them into the dry ice cube tray.
Last you pour water over the worms and put it into the freezer!!
When frozen pop them out and put into a clear drink of some kind and watch your kids' faces light up!!!
Ok now for the easy peasy costumes....
The one above is my oldest son who decided to look through some magazines for some ideas. He and I found an old Martha Stewart Kids mag and this costume looked perfect! It is as if you are being blown by the wind!! All you need is some hair gel, a tie, some wire and some hair color spray (opt).
I had Conner lay on the counter with his head hanging over the edge so that his hair would fall back a little bit. I then coated it with hair gel and blew it dry so that it was all going back. I then sprayed it with silver sparkle hair spray. We then tied a tie around his neck and took a long piece of wire (about the same length of the tie) and wrapped it around his neck as well and then took the ends and wrapped them with masking tape (so it does not scratch the tie) and put the long pieces of wire down through the tie back. Now you can manouver the tie to the back and make it look like it is blowing in the wind!!
I wanted it to look like his shirt was blowing as well so I decided to put a small pillow in the back of his shirt so that it would make the front pull tight. It looks so real, doesn't it??

And here is my second to youngest little guy, Turner. He was a three headed person!! I, for the life of me can not remember what magazine I got this from!! My other son Conner was this about 6 years ago and it was a hit!!

All you need is some nude colored knee highs or pantyhose, fiberfill, beanie hats, and some eyes, noses and mouths cut out from magazines and some safety pins.

First you stuff the pantyhose with the fiberfill until you get them the size of your child's head. Leave enough of the pantyhose leg (about three of four inches) so that you can tie a knot in the end. Cut the rest off. Then put the hats on and glue your eyes, noses, and mouths on. Connect the hats together, including the one your child is going to wear with safety pins. You can also secure the heads to the hats if you want to by using more safety pins. I then safety pinned the bottom of the heads to my son's sweater and hid the remaining pantyhose down into the sweater.

This is really easy to throw together, super quick and fast! I promise your child will love this and so will all who see him/her!!!

I HOPE YOU HAVE A FUN AND SAFE HALLOWEEN!!!

Ok so my amazingly creative sister is doing her VERY FIRST GIVEAWAY!!! And the lucky person gets a set of 12...(YES 12) of these adorable berry wreaths to use for napkin rings, added cuteness on a gift, ornaments, a fun garland, and the list goes on...... You get to choose either red or white!! So head on over the Style Sisters and enter to win today!! I am doing this lovely post for her so that she feels that she may have to give me some for Christmas!! (he he he) :o)

Aren't they just the cutest things ever??!!!

By the way she is selling these wreaths along with some of the cutest banners and baby boots that she made! click here to check it out!

Some last minute Halloween party treats (easy peasy)

Tonight is my son's "Fall Carnival" at school and I volunteered to bring a baked good for the cake walk.... A few years back I made some really fun spider cupcakes but I did not have all of the ingredients this year to make them so I made these up. I call them candy corn flower cupcakes. They turned out pretty cute... I just used a box cake mix and store bought frosting that I colored green and purple and then I stuck 5 candy corns on the top with a mini marshmallow in the middle...THAT'S IT!!

Another quick and fast idea.....

The classic rice crispy treats.... I made these for my youngest son's class a couple of weeks ago for his "birthday treat". I made the basic recipe:

3 Tbls butter

4 cups mini marshmallows or 40 lg marshmallows

& 6 cups rice crispies

and then before adding the rice crispies I added orange food coloring to the marshmallow mixture and then added the cereal. I let them cool for just a few minutes and then formed them into balls and pushed a skewer into the ball. (I prefer to use craft sticks that are skinny but I ran out) What I was trying to make were pumpkins... I ran out of time but my plan was to create a face. I was going to use frosting that would harden but my time was limited. So you could do whatever you wanted to create a face or leave them plain. I have hundreds of clear cello bags and so I grabbed 19 of those and put the treats in them and tied them with some really pretty burnt orange colored yarn! The kids LOVED them! It was super fast and a little bit more fun than your basic square cut treats! So if you are having to bring something sweet and yummy to your child's class this next week...try one of these and I'm sure you will get a few smiles!!! :o)

Some Halloween Deliciousness!!

I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT HALLOWEEN IS ONLY 2 WEEKS AWAY!!! OCTOBER HAS FLOWN BY WAAAAAAY TOO FAST THIS YEAR! I WANTED TO HAVE A HALLOWEEN PARTY BUT I DON'T THINK I CAN PULL IT TOGETHER THAT FAST... I GUESS THERE IS ALWAYS NEXT YEAR.... BUT IF YOU ARE HAVING A HALLOWEEN PARTY HERE ARE SOME AMAZING TREATS YOU CAN MAKE WITH YOUR KIDS! HALLOWEEN LOOLIPOPS

HALLOWEEN WHOOPIE PIES

LADY FINGERS

HAUNTED HOUSE CAKE............ DONT KNOW IF YOU WANT TO ATTEMPT THIS ONE BUT IT YOU HAVE THE TIME WOULDN'T THIS BE AMAZING???

INVISIBLE LOLLIPOPS

CREEPY CUPCAKES

Ok here is my inside Halloween Decor.....

Hi! Well.... here is my indoor Halloween decor! I love this holiday and making it extra special for my kids! I love to decorate but not over-do. So here is what I have going on this year.......Love this Halloween banner in my entryway I found at a store going out of business last year! BTW... if you are looking for an absolutely adorable HALLOWEEN BANNER go check out the one my sister (The Style Sisters) is selling on ETSY!!!! And my good friend found me some Aspen tree branches while on a horse ride in the mountains and brought me some!! So I put them into my spooky vase!

Do you love this pillow??!! I got this genious idea from
La-T-Dah (sooooo easy)



A fun little autumn wreath made from cute little hands of my 6 year old!! Just trace their hand 9 times in different colors of cardstock or construction paper and glue together in the shape of a circle and hang where everyone can see it!!

Some fun ghosts we made years ago out of white foam (you know the kind you get at Walmart next to the felt squares) Just simply cut in the shape of any kind of ghost and hang with clear fishing line or clear thread!! My kids loved creating their own ghost!!

Can you tell I love bats! They are so easy to cut out and yet look so cute wherever you put them!! This is just our picture display with some added fall leaves and of course....BATS!

More bats......on our windows!

An apothocary jar filled with gourds!

More AWESOMENESS with burlap! I love this stuff!! Got this adorable banner idea from Everyday Chaos I love how it turned out!!

I found these candlesticks at the thrift store and did not like how they looked so I sprayed them gray for Halloween and topped them with real pumpkins!

I love this! This is an amazing cake plate I found earlier this year at Sam's Club for 9 bucks!! It has a black base (perfect for Halloween). I found the "Spooky" sign at Pier 1 last year at 90% off and the bones at the dollar store! So this year I decided to put them inside the cake plate and I love how it turned out!

Here is what it looks like on our table with a couple of things I have found over the years on clearance! I NEVER PAY FULL PRICE FOR HALLOWEEN DECOR!!

So there you have it.... my Halloween decor! Nothing spectaucular, but just a little bit of fun!

Here is a peek of some of my outdoor decor...

Here is our front door with lots of bats! I just cut them from cheap black cardstock!!

Click here for the template!

Of course our favorite spider ever! I made this years ago. Found it in Family Fun mag! Make it here!
Our skeleton that we have also had for a long long time! Made from PVC pipe and a clorox jug!
This also came from Family Fun. Click here for the know how!

Here is just a plastic planter on a cute red wooden chair filled with dirt and sticks that I spray painted black (well almost black... I realized that once I got out of my garage I missed some of it...but you get the idea) And the bird is a quail that I found at a thrift shop... I tore the little feather off the top of his head and sprayed him black as well! The best part was the guy at the thrift store gave me the bird as a free gift with purchase!! I LOVE FREEBIES!!

Here are our little circle of ghosts! I just used dowels poked into a crumpling of newspaper shaped into a circle for the head and then covered them with cheap Walmart twin flat sheets (I think like 2.96 each), added their faces and tied the necks with black ribbon!! Then I tied the sheets together to make it look like they are holding hands and hammered them into the ground! This is a pic I took last year but I have them around our apple tree this year!!

I will post pics of my inside decor hopefully tomorrow!! So come back and see!

OOOOHH Look at these adorable Halloween Decor ideas.....

Ok I am dying at the CUTENESS going on here!!!! Found these adorable ideas from Parents Magazine! I am so excited for Halloween this year! I already decorated the front of our house! No one else has yet... (they probably think I am crazy, but I dont mind). I will post the pics of my decor tomorrow!

Spooky Silhouette
Inside, make a spooky family tree by cutting a tree shape out of black paper and affixing "family" silhouettes to the branches. Is that a witch in your family tree?

I AM ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE WITH THIS IDEA!!! I think it is because silhouettes are SOOOO popular right now!

How cute is this????

Hang-O-Lanterns
Bend a handle out of thick wire or a clothes hanger and use it to hang small jack-o-lanterns along an outdoor path.

For those who have been following this blog for awhile know that I love felt and when I found this I started grinning from ear to ear!! Dont you think this is just the most adorable witch hat ever!!!! There were no instructions but I think they just covered a basic witch hat with felt and then cut hair and attached it underneath! Looks pretty simple!
Witching Hour
Hang a row of cute felt-covered witch hats on your front porch.

Hope you have fun with these!!

Cute and Yummy Halloween Treats...

Tonight, I was trying to find a monthly menu planner on Family Fun and had no luck but I did happen to stumble on these adorable things for Halloween... Pear Witches

Edible Eyeballs

Mummy Treat Holders

Floating Ghosts

Balloon Bats

Cute Cute Cute Halloween DIY decor...

Oh Martha Martha....

She has some of the MOST FUN ideas for Halloween!! I thought these three are aorable! BEWITCHING TREE

GLITTERIZED PUMPKINS

BAT GARLAND

I AM LOVING ALL OF THESE SUPER CUTE IDEAS!!! They all look do-able too!! Have fun with these and have a great weekend!

Easy Peasy DIY Halloween Trick-or-Treat bag...

Today was a day of creativity at our home!! Love those days! While the kids were at school I was thinking that I needed to start working on Trick or Treat bags for them. I thought, I really dont feel like sewing bags this year, what else can I do instead.... and as I was looking around at what I already had, THE IDEA STRUCK!! I have black reusable Wal-mart bags!!! Then I thought ok, they have bunch of words on the front of them, what can we do to cover them up?? Well we have a plastic bucket filled with with felt scraps! So when they got home from school I got it down and told the boys to get creative with it and maybe make a monster face or whatever they wanted to do to cover up the words. They were so excited and they got to work... here is what we created today!The one on the left is a monster of some kind that my 8 year old made. I love how he used bright colors. The middle one was made by my 5 year old and it is supposed to be "Ulverine" (Wolverine) he he he! The rocket one is one that I made just for fun. I thought it would be cute with our Astronaut costume!

So all you need to start with is a reusable bag. I love these from Walmart! They hold a ton of stuff! They are only $1 too!

Then let your little ones start creating...

and create some more...

and some more......

Until they are pleased with their design!

Here is Turners monster...

And Landon's monster...

And the rocket...

I did not glue anything until they had everything in place first. Once they were happy with their monster I used Eileen's tacky glue to glue all the pieces on the bag! THAT'S IT!!

TA DA! Here is my rendition of the spider cake (do our cakes ever look like the ones in the magazines??? NOOO...) but I think it is pretty cute!

And here is the reaction from my 3 little men before they devoured it..... THEY LOVED IT!!
P.S. I made the template out of regular paper and it stuck to the frosting of course, so you may want to try to make it with parchment paper instead!

Fun HALLOWEEN DIY ideas...

LOOK AT THIS FUN STUFF FROM COUNTRY LIVING!!!!!

SPIDER CAKE

As I am typing this my cake is cooking in the oven!! I am using chocolate sprinkles instead of the sugar ( I cant find the black sugar in my little town) I will take a pic of it when I am done with it! I love getting my kids excited for Halloween!

It is only 54 degrees outside today...a good day to cook don't you think??

LOOK AT THESE ADORABLE TOTES! These are very easy to make! These would make great trick or treat bags for your little ones!

PARANORMAL PORTRAITS
he he he... I love these!! How fun for a Halloween party! Your kids would LOVE LOVE LOVE these!

Hope you are making some fun stuff for Fall and Halloween!

Repurpose your Christmas wreath to a fall wreath in a couple of steps...

I was sruggling to find a cute Fall wreath and really did not want to spend any money .... so I looked around my garage and found my Christmas wreath from last year and thought I KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!! I will spray my red berry wreath ORANGE! So that is what I did! I left a tiny bit of red on it but it looks more fallish like that anyway! I had also seen many creative gals out there use the letter of their last name in their wreaths so I took my "K" that I have had for awhile and attached it as well! I love the simplisticness (is that even a word?) of how it turned out! The best part of all is that I can simply re-spray it red again for Christmas this year!!!!

I L-O-V-E S-P-R-A-Y-P-A-I-N-T!!!

I am participating in two, lets just call them, Fall DIY Parties today..........

1.Kimba's DIY day

2. Reinvented

Go check out these super cute blogs when you have a minute!!!

~Cuteness~

I am LOVING all of these fun things below to do for Fall and HALLOWEEN!!! Im sure most of you know, if you have been reading my blog for the past year and a half, that I LOVE FALL!!! It is my favorite time of year for so many reasons... cool air, gorgeous leaves, wool sweaters, scarves, delicious treats and yummy soups and my list goes on.... As I was looking at one of my fav websites today (BH&G) I found these adorable ideas and had to do a post!! I hope you like them as much as I do :o)

Witch Legs

( ARE YOU DYING AT THE CUTENESS HERE!!!!)
Your kids will love this wickedly wild coconut-topped cupcake, with wacky witch's legs made from peppermint sticks.
To make it, follow these steps:
1. Start with frosted store-bought or homemade cupcakes.2. Use black marzipan to make the shape of the witch's boots.3. Stick yellow mini M&Ms on each boot for the buckles with frosting.4. Mold each boot around a peppermint stick to create the legs.5. Top cupcake with coconut dyed with green food coloring.6. Insert the peppermint sticks into the cupcake to create the witch's legs.

SO CUTE AND SIMPLE TO MAKE!!

Bare Bones

These skeleton-inspired cupcakes create a spooky Halloween treat.
To make it, follow these steps:
1. Start with frosted store-bought or homemade cupcakes.2. Place a large candy mint on top of a chocolate frosted cupcake; decorate face with icing.3. Arrange licorice pastels to make arms and legs.4. Place small mints at the bottom of the legs for feet.5. Use white sprinkles to make the skeleton's ribs.

ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!!!

Tin Can Luminarias

HOW FUN IS THIS??? Not only is it cute for Fall but how cute to do it in bright colors for a birthday party!!!
Dotty Table Runner
With a layer of orange felt beneath, the dotted design on this table runner conjures the image of a field of pumpkins. The chocolate-brown felt top layer will carry you through the harvest season; use black felt for a traditional Halloween look. Trace circles of various sizes onto a length of dark-color felt; cut out. Layer the felt over a length of same-size orange felt. Secure the two layers with glue, if desired, and drape the runner over the table.

HOW FUN ARE THESE GOURDS!!

Outdoor Decor

Suspend a group of gourds on a cord (we used bicolor spoon gourds) from tree branches and watch them dance in the breeze.