Giving Thanks

It's a little early, but really, when is it not appropriate to count our blessings? I give thanks today for my lovely little family. Especially for this little guy. Holy crap, is he cute or what?!

Overheard at Golden Corral

My lovely sister, who I don't get to see nearly enough, graced us with her presence for a few days this past week. She lives out in the boonies of Virginia. No point in telling you exactly where because I assure you, you've never heard of it.

Every time she is in town we end up eating at Golden Corral. This is because my grandfather will only come along if we agree to go there. I don't think anyone else especially enjoys the dining out experience it provides. It's basically over-priced cafeteria food and other than the mashed potatoes and macaroni, the food is pretty bland. And lets face it, how hard is it to screw up those two?  If it weren't for the all you can eat ice cream, I think I'd have a pretty hard time getting the hubby to agree to going. As it is, he likes to refer to it as "The Trough." ha!

Anyway, on to the point of this post. Other than the ice cream, the only saving grace GC has is the entertainment the patrons tend to provide. My sister was busy filling her plate full of starches when she overheard the following conversation:

Classy Woman #1: Oooh, girl! Here go da broccoli and brussel sprouts. Gonna get you sum?
Classy Woman #2: I ain't gettin no brussel sprouts!
Classy Woman #1: Why? They good fo you!
Classy Woman #2: Cause when I gots brussel sprouts in my mouth it taste like someone pooted in der!

Man, I can't wait to go back!

Flower Power

You guys! I am totally obsessed with the plethora of tutorials that can be found on the blogosphere. Lately, I have been printing them off and sticking them in a binder at home. It is already overflowing with all the projects I'd love to someday try, and yet I find myself printing off probably two or three more each week. I need to stop printing and start crafting! This would be so much easier if they'd let me do this at work...

At the moment I am addicted to all the flower-related tuts, whether it be felt/organza hair clips, pins or just plain (but still gorgeous) ol' paper flowers. So far, the tissue paper carnations have been an epic FAIL, however, I am hoping it might just be the fact that I had super cheap (super thin) tissue. Mine came out looking more like a wrinkled up ball of tissue paper rather than an actual carnation.

What does seem to be working for me are the felt/organza hair clips and pins. I can usually churn out three or four of these in an hour's time. They aren't perfect by any means (homemade isn't supposed to be, right? riiiight?!), but I've already got a few friends asking me to make them some, so I'm pretty proud! I must warn you though, although I didn't singe my bangs with the lighter, I did burn the crap out of my fingers with the glue gun. I'm not sure I have much of a fingerprint left on my right index finger. Oh, and I may or may not have accidentally punched myself in the eye at one point. Don't ask. Just be careful!

Here are the results! And please excuse the craptastic photos. My house is basically a cave.

The off-white and pink flowers are pins. I sent one to my Chemo Angel last week. The rest are all hair clips. I can't wait to try my hand at a headband for my sweet little niece. What do you guys think?

Steppin' Out: Halloween Edition

A Halloween Edition:

Me: Nothing exciting here. Everything except for the seriously seen better days Converse is from Target. Oh, and the $5 kitty costume from Wally World.

Haeden: Pajamas/ skeletoddler costume also from Wally World.

Halloween is a toughie in Florida. Most costumes are seriously hot and you never really know what the weather is going to be around here. Sometimes it's 85 degrees and sometimes it's 65 degrees. Last year it was the former and poor Haeden was rather crabby about his getup:

And he wasn't any happier with this one:

So, with that in mind, we decided that this year we would simplify. Plus, we already knew that there was no way in hell he would keep anything on his head for more than 2.5 seconds and that really limits choices these days. We found this year's costume while grocery shopping at money-saving soul-sucking Walmart. It's really just a pair of pajamas that glow in the dark, but we were sold on the fact that it would be worn more than once and still passed as a costume. We also planned to spike his hair and add a little makeup to his face, but someone wasn't cooperating. Imagine that!

As for the rest of us, we really tried to plan ahead this year. We tried, but we failed. Since we were strapped for cash, we didn't even consider the local costume shops and since we only have the boys every other weekend and they had no idea what they wanted to be, we didn't have the opportunity to thrift shop hop either . In the end, we found ourselves once again at Walmart two days before Halloween, picking through what little was left over. I tried to get the boys to go as fairies, Disney princesses or flappers but they just weren't having it. All things considered, we didn't do too bad. Patrick, the Woopie Cushion*, was a pretty big hit, as was Daniel's mustache! Ole'!



* I totally just realized looking at the pictures that Woopie is spelled wrong! Guess that is how you get around the trademarks! Ha!