oooppps! i need a halloween costume!

well here i am to the rescue!

if you are lucky, your child won't want to wear an ugly, bought over the internet costume...

i hate this costume.

SO MUCH!

but i love parker so i made him happy and ordered it.

nate wanted to be a ninja and i got to make his costume.

and if you are short on time-you can be a ninja too!

lets work from the bottom up.

i got a pair of sneaker that i was ready to throw away anyhow, and just put a pair of men's socks over them to be ninja boots. i get the socks from the $1 store and by the end of trick or treating, they are trashed! so i chuck the shoes and the socks away.

next are your basic sweatpants. in this case, i happened to have a pair of black long underwear for nate.

black long sleeved shirt and a piece of black fabric or scarf for a belt.

$3 ninja sword from savers.

now for the hat/heard piece...

you need a long sleeved black shirt.

don't put your head the whole way thru, just have your face looking out.

tie the arms of the shirt around the back of the head and move the head hole around until you have covered most of your face.

so easy!

now get out there and get some candy!

halloween decorations-finally

i know! i should have done this way way earlier in the month!

but between strep,and an early halloween party at school and getting ready for disneyland, going to disneyland, getting strep AGAIN...

let us start with this...50 cents at the d.i.! i left it on '31' all month because

1. im lazy and

2. that is what i was decorating for and i liked it.

the little coffins on the right the boys decorated.

one is glow in the dark but it doesn't really show up on the photo well.

those are my scary halloween balls on the bowl type thing on the left.

and candy corn in the cups for the hubby.

(i have refilled those cups about 10 times!)

oh and the cup holder thing?

thanks to d.i., i only paid $3!

what i did while everyone else watched football and ate chips...

well, i did eat chips too.

with clam dip.

way too much clam dip.

and maybe pizza too.

but i had seen this cute little easy bracelet at flamingo toes. it is called her willy nilly bracelet.

as you know, i copy most things. but i do shake it up at bit...

i used an old piece of leather shoe string to tie mine.

and i just used elastic cording (clear) instead of all the fancy crimping beads and such.

here is the underside so you can get a better look at the beads.

i used 'traditions beads', spacer beads olive and large beads asian spice.

i think the colors are perfect for fall!

oh, ps...i guess the utes won against wyoming that night.

best. halloween. decoration. ever.

most of the time when kids bring home a halloween decoration from school, i hang it up then chuck it november 1st.

this is one that parker made on his own when he was about 4.

it is just on a post it note.

and it goes up every year.

has to be the cutes frankenstein ever!

ps-parker always refers to frank sinatra as frankenstein just to tease me.

i'm just happy he loves frank almost as much as i do!

a halloween favorite!

for the past several years, we have gotten the papa murphy's jack o latern pizza on halloween night.

my kids adore pizza and would eat it 3 times a day if i would let them.

of course, by the time we get to it, we take off the olives (YUCK) and add more pepperoni.

so im not sure why we make such a big deal out of it...

dizz knee land!

yup-this is where we are headed!

and, it turns out my friends heather and megan are too!

sad, they wont let me embed it, so click here if you remember the song and want to sing along.

(or if you are you are like my brother patrick and don't even remember it, you can hear it for the first time.)

so we will see you all soon!

once a princess, always a princess!

for the past few years i have been a princess at halloween. one year i was sleeping beauty (with a big long black wig...goo!), last year i was peincess leia so this year i'm...

an indian princess!

not really pocahontas, as i dont show that much boob. or belly.

usually.

and this is a way way simple costume. you will need 2 tshirts (whatever size fits. i used a large) and some beads. i bet you can use the colorful plastic ones,  but i used wood ones that i spray painted.

(and this was the ONLY photo out of 40 that i could use of my kids in the shirts)

i sewed the shirts together at the bottom, right sides together, then cut one off right at the arm pits of the shirt.

i strung the wood beads onto a string as a necklace.

pretty much that is all.

i re cut the bottom on an angle to be a bit more cooler. and i cut some fringe on the arms.

with what was left of the cut shirt, i made a little belt and strung some beads on it.

so watch out john smith-there is a new pocahontas in town!

balls with an 'S'

look at what i found in the dollar bins at michaels!

yup-more balls.

i love cupcakes!

but i hate bath and body works.

well, not really.

i used to work there years ago (awesome 40% off discount!).

and they show me love when they send me coupons for free stuff.

so today i went to get my free travel size of whatever.

and walked out with these...

little hand sanitizers that smell like cupcakes! yummy!

they were 5 for $5, plus i had a 20% off coupon, so really 80 cents each.

then i told the cashier my plans for these little things. she totally hooked me up!

she gave me 5 little gift bags with ribbon and tags, but i only ended up using the bags.

i put glitter and little die cut butterflies in the bags with a candle.

get it-a cupcake and a candle for your birthday!

isn't that adorable!

(yes, some of the glitter says 'over the hill'. got a problem with that?)

makes you wish it was your birthday doesn't it?

oh, only 191 days until mine!

crazy sean and her monkey balls

my jazzercise instructor, crazy sean*, makes THE WORLDS BEST monkey balls cake thingy.

honestly, i have tried many and this is our favorite.

20 frozen rolls

1 package of butterscotch non-instant pudding

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup butter (NO MARGARINE)

2 t cinnamon

spray bundt pan with non-stick spray. cut each frozen roll into quarters and rolling in pudding. place in bundt pan. melt butter in pan and mix in brown sugar and wait until it is dissolved and bubbly. pour over rolls and plastic wrap over bundt pan. let rise until doubled.

bake at 350 for 30 minutes covered in foil. take foil off and bake 5 more minutes.

yup-the kids got to it before i had time to take a photo!

*she is called 'crazy sean' by my kids. when they would go to jazzercise and be in the daycare, they could hear sean saying funny things (like 'arm up' and 'let me see you sweat'. you know, crazy people talk.). she was also wearing a microphone, so it was nice and loud.
so why wouldn't you naturally call her crazy sean.

teacher halloween gift

back in may, i made my friend, gram, some cute cards for mothers day.

they were so easy and just useful, i thought i'd make some for nate's teacher this year.

**you see, i have this 'thing' about giving teachers more candy. really, what adult needs more candy?**

nate says, 'my other teachers liked us, but ms. ames LOVES us!'. how could you not just adore a teacher like that?

i started with this fabric, it is a little grandma-y, but ms. ames is a grandma. she will like it.

then, i just did what i did before with the the underwonder and the sewing machine.

i even used a really really fancy stitch!

and here is the finished project! i got the envelopes at savers for 75 cents for the pack. so way thrifty too!

and before you think 'thrifty ba-you are just so on the ball with getting your teacher halloween gift done!', let me say that my kids go on break thursday and won't be back until the 2nd week in november. so i HAD to get it done now.

but you can still think i'm on the ball. i won't complain.

pumpkin crisp

when i said that i loved this pumpkin cake, i wasn't joking.

but then when i was looking in my recipe book, i found the pumpkin crisp.

i only made this 2 times last year, and it was a new recipe so i forgot how yummy it was.

until now!

1, 15oz can of pumpkin mush

1 cup evaporated milk

1 cup sugar

1t vanilla extract

1/2t ground cinnamon

1 package of butter flavored yellow cake mix

1 cup chopped pecans

1 cup melted butter

stir together the first 5 ingredients. pour into 9x13 greased pan. sprinkle cake mix over the top evenly. then sprinkle pecans. drizzle butter over the whole thing.

bake at 350 for 1 hour. remove from oven and let stand 10 minutes before serving.

serve warm or at room temperature with cool whip or ice cream

i take after nana!

so my nana (below, on the boardwalk in atlantic city) took up painting in her late 50s. no real reason, she just thought it would be fun.

of course, i thought she was the most wonderful artist in the world.

for my high school graduation gift, i received this amazing painting.

on the right hand side, in about the middle of the painting you can see me (in blue) and my cousin cheryl (red) picking up seashells. this was suppose to be of our beach in brigantine.

i always put this painting up in the summer.

this painting nana made my brother patrick for his graduation.

see-she was an awesome artist!

(and an even better person.)

this weekend i was doing my fall/halloween decorating (it was interrupted for a few weeks due to strep) and while sorting thru all the boxes i wanted something new for the bathroom.

and i decided i wanted to paint it.

nana used to oil paint, but since i didn't have any i just used some acrylic paints. some of them were goopy so in some places it has that heavy, oil paint look.

i got these two little canvases from di (originally from target) for 50 cents each.

i primed them with a spray primer then sprayed them with krylon saddle tan.

i didn't really know HOW to paint pumpkins.

my only real experience painting was parkers wall.

so here is my end result! im pretty geeked about it!

on my bathroom wall!

and up close!

im pretty proud of my paint job! i might just have to take a class in oil painting!

nana would be so proud!