Throwback Thursday

Tonight's Throwback Thursday features my Little Wildcat...who is not so little anymore!  

She's four now and loves her Wildcats almost as much as her Mom does!  Makes me so happy to hear her singing along to the K-State fight song!

EMAW! 

Homemade Halloween Costumes

Since today is Halloween (as of 30 minutes ago), I thought I would go ahead and post pictures of the kids' costumes this year. 

Since the kids were born, I've always made their Halloween costumes. I really enjoy coming up with a creative idea and seeing it move from idea to reality.  

Hannah was just a month old for her first Halloween and she went as a lobster.

It was really cute.  I put her in a big stock pot (around blankets of course) and labeled it as 'Tonight's Special'.  I threw on a chef (aka lab) coat and made a chef's hat out of posterboard and tissue paper. It was so fun to put together. She won first place at the costume contest at our town's annual Halloween event.  And after that, I was hooked. It was fun to make the costume...and even more fun for my kiddo to win!  

Since then, she's been an owl...

...a cupcake...

 ...and 'raining cats and dogs' (last year).

 Super cute, right?!

This year, after always choosing for her - and trying to pick the most creative costume I could come up with - I let her pick her costume. It wasn't as 'homemade' as I usually go - but it's what she wanted, so we had fun piecing it together. 

She chose to go as Doc McStuffins.  Cute, adorable doctor of toys and stuff animals. 

Isn't she cute?!

It was hard to find a simple purple and white stripped shirt, so I settled on one from Old Navy with a little pink in it.  I bought a cute pink skirt from Kohls and created my own purple, white and pink leggings with heat transfer vinyl cut on my Silhouette.

I ordered her a lab coat off of Amazon, as well as the official Doc McStuffins doctor kit. I could have let her use the one she had at home or made her something from scratch, but I was being realistic in thinking 1) It would be nice to have two doctor kits since my kids seem to fight over everything right now and 2) I'd rather spend money on something she could use over and over versus a stethoscope made from a yarn and a headband that would fall apart while trick or treating. 

Finally, I picked up the perfect headband at Children's Place, which made my daughter one happy little gal. 

I missed taking a photo of just her shoes...but you can see them below. They are glitter swirled purple Toms. A-dorable! 

Now, onto Lucas.  Since he is only one, Momma still gets to choose for him. :)  Last year (his first) he was a burrito. He always loved to be swaddled up so tight, so we made lettuce, tomato, bacon, meat, cheese, etc out of felt and used brown-ish colored felt for the burrito. Adorable. 

This year, he went as an old man.  I had found the idea on Pinterest right after Halloween last year, and as soon as I saw it, I knew that's what I wanted Luke to dress as. 

Isn't he cute?!  

I had the cordoroy pants already, and then I purchased a grey sweater at Old Navy and borrowed a bow tie from a friend.  I ordered his little glasses on Amazon and they were adorable. And he REFUSED to wear them of course....he's one.  So we tied a little chain on them and hung them around his neck. 

The hubby made the walker out of PVC pipe.

Ha-ignore my messy basement in the background. 

The wheels are actual walker wheels and the tennis balls just make it even more realistic. :)

I sewed the little walker bag and threw in a sippy cup and a remote - a one-year-old's most important accessories!  I didn't have a pattern - just kinda threw it together. If I could do it over, I would make it wider. I miscalculated when I measured how wide I could make it.

So...here's hoping they are well-behaved for trick or treating tonight. 

Feel free to share your best homemade Halloween costumes! 

Linking up to:  Sugar Bee Craft's Take-A-Look Tuesday, A Bowl Full of Lemons' One Project At A Time and the Creative Connection at Wait Until Your Father Gets Home.

1,200 Page Views + Thank You

"We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog posts to bring you this Announcement."

Thank You.

My blog post on the DIY Rag Quilt I made for my niece has has more than 1,200 views. Yes, you read that right: 1,200 views!

Only a few of my friends and family know about my blog...it's kind of a quiet, therapeutic thing for me right now. So that means that more than 1,200 strangers have viewed my lowly little blog. And that makes me smile. And makes me realize that this 'whole blogging thing' can be very fun...especially in the era of Pinterest! :)

So, thank you to all who have stopped by! For anyone that stops by and reads that post or any other, I'd love it if you'd say hello! 

Cheers!

Halloween Flag & Fall Front Porch

I'm a little behind in decorating for Halloween and for the fall season.  Between chasing after the two kiddos, K-State games every Saturday, the craziness of work and other commitments, I've barely done a thing to show the change from summer to fall. 

So last night, I decided I wanted to change that. We went to the pumpkin patch last weekend, so my porch had been given a little facelift but I wanted something more Halloween-y to add to it. 

And this is what I came up with:

Isn't it cute? 

It's my first layered vinyl project...as well as the first true thing I've made for myself with my Silhouette.

I thought it was a nice little addition next to the pumpkins. 

And here's a few shots of the front porch. Pardon the shadows - I should have taken photos closer to noon. 

My mums aren't the best...but I guess that's what you get when you buy $1.99 mums from Wal-Mart!  Wish we had a nice greenhouse closer to home! 

The porch (well the entire front exterior) is something we haven't touched since we moved in last summer. It is a large project on my to-do list, and probably one of the most expensive.  I can't wait to re-do the crumbling brick, rickety handrails, dated door, and need-to-be-painted shutters, and create an amazing entryway into our house. We have so much space, which means so much potential!   

Happy Fall Ya'll! 

Throwback Thursday

Today's Throwback Thursday is in honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday.

Not sure what year this is from...I am guessing about 1993-ish. 

Check out my loving family:

There is so much I love about this photo, including my adorable little bro.  

Ya'll have any TBT Halloween photos you want to share? 

Throwback Thursday

For a long time, I've thought that it would be fun to do the Throwback Thursday photo that the rest of social media seems to participate in.....

So without further ado and with the risk of humiliating myself and my husband (though I don't think he reads this blog... in fact, not sure that anyone reads this blog...lol) here is my very first Throwback Thursday photo:

March 2004.

We'd been dating about a month when my Grandma passed away. It was a very difficult time for me, and Joe was by my side the entire time, traveling home with me and meeting my very large extended (and often crazy) family for the first time. I'm talking like more than 100 people in three days. That weekend, I decided that if Joe could voluntarily throw himself into that craziness just to support me after only dating for one month, that he was the guy for me. 

I know, I know...cheesy story.  I'll try and go for a funny one next week. :)

Any other Throwback Thursday-ers out there?  Anyone?  Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Hannah's 4th Birthday Art Party

I have quite the little artist at my house. Seriously, this girl would paint or color all day, every day if she could.  So when we talked about what she wanted to do for her fourth birthday, we decided that we go with an art theme. 

Per my usual fashion, I went Pinterest crazy on decorations, food, etc.  It was really fun to put together, so here are some highlights from the party:

The hubs always makes the kiddos special Mickey Mouse pancakes on their birthday!

A little vinyl always jazzes things up!

Welcome to the pARTy! 

Our backdrop.

Loved the tablecloths for the backdrop (and so great that I can re-use them) and the balloon banner was so cute!  If I can find the link of the tutorial I used, I will update the post. I want to be sure to give credit - all the guests loved it!

We had a little mini birthday photo-shoot.  :)

I made her that shirt with printable heat transfer vinyl.  Truthfully it was a total fail and didn't transfer correctly, but I actually kinda liked the 'faded' look and I figured since it didn't really turn out as planned, it wasn't a big deal if she got paint on it. 

I set the tables up in the garage so that it wouldn't be a big deal if they made a mess on the floor. We just used washable kids' paint from Michaels. 

Each kid had a personalized smock, canvas (aka foam board) paintbrush, palette and cup to rinse their brush.

Rainbow colored fruit.  

And I used crayons, colored pencils and paint brushes in mason jars as decorations on the tables. 

My 'palette' of cupcakes. Don't mind that there are only three purple cupcakes - apparently I'm not very good at math. The hubs cut the palette out of carboard. 

My favorite creation for the party:  rice krispee paintbrushes dipped in 'paint' (aka frosting).  DELICIOUS!

I will be so sad when chevron goes out of style. I LOVE it!

Some 'creative juice' to inspire the kiddos. 

 

My little artist.

I think the parents thought I was nuts for inviting 12 kids over to paint, but it turned out really well! I was so glad some of the moms stuck around to help - it was nice having extra hands to combat the messy paint! :)

All the kids' art.

I also took photos of each kiddo painting and with their final artwork and am planning on throwing them in Hannah's thank you cards.

\

My supplies - included a large number of paper towels and baby wipes! :)

I had planned some additional 'activities' - making a group piece of art using the big roll of paper on the right, and then just letting them color on the plain paper on the left, but it was such a nice day and the kiddos just wanted to play outside on this:

My hubby had just finished it the night before as a birthday present for Hannah.  The kids were all over it.  I am surprised we were able to get them to stand for a photo. Maybe we bribed them with cupcakes - I can't remember.  ;)

Love that grin.  Pure joy right there. 

I am going to try and remember to take a final photo in this same spot each year at the kiddos' birthday parties! Will be nice to see how they change each year!

Happy 4th Birthday Boo!

Linking up to:  Sugar Bee Craft's Take-A-Look Tuesday and A Bowl Full of Lemons One Project At A Time.