Sugar high

I definitely need to step away from the candy. The girls each hauled in a pumpkin full (of mostly chocolate) and I may or may not have bought 4 or so bags of chocolate just for hubby and I. Between that and the leftover frosting from the two cakes I made this past week, I think I put on about five lbs. Ouch. Time to get re-acquainted with Jillian and the treadmill.

Not much going on around here after the big sugar fest. Neither one of the girls have school on Friday due to parent/teacher conferences so I'm trying to decide what to do. We may either go visit my parents or maybe go to the science center. We'll see.

Leah wins the "most improved" trick-or-treater award. Last year she went to about four houses and was done. This years she was out for 2 hours straight and didn't want to go home. She was so cute--she would report what she got as soon as she turned away from the door. She even had a running tally of how many of each type of candy. This was the first time I went out with the girls; usually hubby takes them out. I did the leave the bowl full of goodies on the front step thing and ran back home to re-fill it one time. I should've thrown everything we had in there because it was empty when we came back home.

Emma also survived her first sleepover party. There were reports that some of the girls started falling asleep after 10pm, and the last ones nodded off somewhere after midnight. I'm sure Emma was closer to the latter. I told hubby that these sleepovers when they are young are probably better than the ones when girls get a bit older--you remember what we used to do. Talk about those who fell asleep first, try to freeze (training) bras, put sleeping people's hands in water to try and make made them pee, fart on people's pillows. The seven year old crowd is pretty innocent still. Emma did come home having learned how to do the "Sprinkler" dance move and had some rhyme about "Kirby Puckett stepped in a bucket, what color was his poop". Huh?

Off to parent teacher conferences. Leah's is today and Emma's is tomorrow night. Hoping for good reports! :)

Happy Halloween!

I took the girls to an event last Sunday called "Spirits in the Garden". There is a local garden affiliated with the university that we love to visit, and for the event they had games, crafts, snacks, and trick-or-treating with various mascots. Here are the girls after navigating the hay maze.
Our local Harley Davidson shop has a mascot named Chopper. Emma just liked him because he was a dog. ;)

This woodland fairy was Leah's favorite. Emma didn't like her because she had a tail. She actually creeped me out a bit, too.

Last year when it came time to carve pumkins I pulled out a kit I had bought years ago at 50% after Halloween. It had a book full of patterns and last year we did a spider and a cute jack-o-lantern winking. Don't ask me why, but I decided to do the fancy pumpkins again this year. It was in no way a child participation activity. Emma had already said she didn't want to take out the guts, so I started while she was at school and Leah was napping. Halfway through I was calling myself all kinds of crazy for doing these. Although I will admit they turned out pretty cute. I mean spooky and scary.

Emma hasn't really had a costume with full make up, unless you count the year I tried to paint her face green to be Yoda. I pulled her hair back and spray painted it black, then did her face white and added the widow's peak and eyebrows in black. The finishing touch was blood dripping from her mouth. She loved the final look and couldn't pass a shiny surface in the house without looking at herself. There was much posing:

When I was in a seasonal costume shop at the mall, I was asking if they had fangs that would fit a child. I bought some fangs for Emma that are too big and was hoping to find something smaller. I tell the high-school aged girl that my daughter is going to be a vampire and she says, "Oh, that's cool. So does she like Twilight and stuff?" Um, no. She is six and a half and has no clue who Edward and Bella are. Besides, she looks nothing like Edward, does she?
(I still haven't seen the movie--the DVD has been sitting in a drawer for the past six or seven months)

The pumpkins have fallen

Back in September I saw a cute fall decorating idea and decided it was totally within my realm of ability, since I do not have much decorating flair. I went in search of the perfect six pumpkins to precariously stack on top of each other (well, 2 stacks of three really) which is not easy to do in the imperfect world of pumpkins. Next was a quick stop at JoAnn's where I bought some fall foliage and some Spanish moss because nothing says "Martha" like some Spanish moss.

After an hour of construction, I came up with this


I was very impressed with myself and thought they turned out very nice looking. Only after I had them up and was patting myself on the back did I re-read the site I got the idea from that said "This will last approximately 5 days". Of course, why didn't I think of that? You are poking holes in pumpkins and eventually they are going to rot. Five days? Seriously? It was only about the third week of September.

Well my pumpkins hung on. I had to shimmy the one on the right a few times with well placed rocks, but they held. That was until this morning when I went out and found the great wall of pumpkins had finally fallen.

It was nice while it lasted. Yes, I could've used fake pumpkins but that just wouldn't have had the same feel. And at the time, real pumpkins were cheaper than fake. Those hallow plastic pieces of orange styrofoam go for $20-$40 a piece! Crazy! Even getting them 50% off they would've cost a lot.

This week I will go in search of the great pumpkin(s) again. I promised the girls we would carve some for Halloween and my time is running out.

Not a Winner, Once Again

So thinking it was maybe karma when I posted about my losing streak and then one of the blogs I follow had a give away, I was sure I would win (ha!). No such luck.

And last night when we went to the ISU volleyball game, they were giving out raffle tickets if you wore pink since it was their "Dig Pink" match for breast cancer awareness. The girls and I wore our pink and got three raffle tickets. The person right after me was one of the winners. :(

I guess I'll keep at it, the odds have to go in my favor one day, right? That type of perseverance was rewarded this week when the ISU volleyball team won for the first time ever in Lincoln, NE beating the #4 Huskers. And then the Cyclone football team beat Nebraska at Memorial Stadium for the first time since 1977. Sweet victory. Go Cyclones!

Unplugged

Last night we were watching a show about the evolution of electronics such as the cell phone, VCR, Walkman, and video games. As Emma watched about Atari (I always wanted one, never had one) we said that is what Mom and Dad had to play with when they were little. Disbelief.

After awhile she says, "Mom, I didn't play anything electronic today!" Gasp! Let's see, what did you do? Worked on a story, traced and colored a picture, did some homework, took a bath---and you survived.

Sorry, you are not a winner

Emma has such youthful optimism when she sees a contest on a food item, only to be greeted with "Sorry, not a winner." Don't you remember doing that as a kid, just sure that you had won that trip to Disneyland? I never knew how it would work because prizes were always for families of four, and we were five. I guess we would've just left the youngest at home, right Kari? ;)

Now with the age of blogs and internet giveaways, I still feel a bit of optimism when I leave a comment. I just know that random generator is going to pick my number. Um, yeah . . . not so much. Most are just small blog giveaways--$50 Target gift card, a free Martha Stewart book, credit at online stores. I persevere, but no winner yet. It doesn't seem to matter if I am one of 3,278 comments (no lie) or one of 12 comments, I still can't win.

I've tried to think of my own blog giveaway to try and entice more readers to come and visit, but I can't come up with much. I don't think anyone would like to win a $5 expired K-Mart give card or some used tissue possibly laced with H1N1. Other than that, I don't have much to giveaway that isn't random crap I have laying around.

I will say I did win something this year--a free pair of shoes. I didn't even know I was "entered" into that drawing, but it was from the 5K race my sister and I ran this summer. They chose 17 entrants at random, and I was one of them. Maybe I will keep these forever as a reminder of my one lucky day:

I recently read this book

This woman supported her family of 10 on her prize winnings from contests in the 1950's and 60's. Just when they would find a great need, she would win a prize to help keep them going. One of her last big prizes was being the 1st place winner of a Dr. Pepper contest to be able to pay off the bank for their 2nd mortgage (the alcoholic husband took it out without her knowledge). This was all back in the day when contests were looking for new slogans or testimonials, not just random comments on the internet. There were books and social groups dedicated to "contesting". If they knew who the judges were for the contest, they knew how to write to please those particular judges. She would send in multiple entries for contests under all variations of her name--she could come up with at least 50--and also entered under her husband and kids' names. She would often win small prizes, all which were used by the family in some way or another. One year she stashed all her prizes in a closet that was off-limits to the kids and was able to provide a wonderful Christmas for 8 kids on winnings alone.

I don't necessarily want to win enough to support my family, all I'm asking for is a win more than once every ten years. Wish me luck!

ETA: So after I wrote this, I did my normal blog stalk walk through my daily sites and came across a giveaway from Clemson Girl and the Coach. She is so much fun to read and along with some of her favorite bloggers have me intrigued by the Southern lifestyle. Which is way different than things are up here in the North, I tell you. Anyway, go check out Clemson Girl (but don't necessarily comment for the give away, that would only lower my chances of winning) ;) Off to see what I can find on Little Birds Boutique.

I "Heart" Mom

Today is my Mom's birthday and all I can say is my Mom rocks. I know not everyone has a good relationship with their mom, and I'll admit during my teenage years she probably wasn't my favorite person. But now as an adult I appreciate her and there isn't a week that goes by that I don't talk to her at least three or four times.

Mom is always there to help with the new babies. She came to our house to babysit Emma when she was just a few weeks old so hubby and I could go to the Dixie Chicks concert. Here she is snuggling with Emma.


And when Leah was born, Mom was the first person to be there. She had come down to watch Emma for what we thought would be a night or two in the hospital. Little did we know she would stay the next two weeks with Emma while Leah was in the NICU. She did get to come and visit Leah as well.


These are my Mom's 5 younger grandchildren, whom she will babysit whenever we ask. Just last night she had four of the five. Our girls have barely had a babysitter who wasn't a grandparent.


Have I mentioned that my mom sews? She has been sewing for many, many years and is always there to help make whatever we come up with. She helped make the curtains for Emma's nursery and also some wicker baset liners.

She has also helped make various parts of many Halloween costumes including a black kitty, a vet, and a dog. When she was here this past weekend, she whipped up a vampire vest for Emma--she just makes it look too easy.

She also makes things like bridesmaid dresses. These were for my younger sister's wedding (all the other dresses she made were pre-digital camera and I don't have a scanner). Let's just say that among three girls she has sewn dresses for 4 weddings.

My mom also made at least one of my prom dresses and other formal dresses when I was in high school. Because of her I can sew, although I don't like to do it without her there to guide me.

I can also trace my cake madness back to her. When I was getting ready to make Emma's 1st birthday cake, she loaned me her frosting decorator and tips. Needless to say, she hasn't gotten them back from 6 years ago.

She was a Home Ec teacher and I am always calling her with questions like "How long should I microwave a squash?" or "If I forgot to put my eggs away six hours ago, are they still good?" She always seems to know the answer.


I could go on and on about my Mom. I only hope my girls think of me the same way when they are moms themselves.


And I can't forget to say Happy Birthday to my mother-in-law as well. I lucked out in that department as well. Happy Birthday, Betty!