halloween - just a little late

halloween has come & gone. we went to trick-or-treat on the square in 50 mph wind gusts. olivia kept losing her hat. rachel cried that she was cold. we were half way around the square & olivia asked if we could leave. she is officially the only kid in the history of the world that doesn't like getting free candy for wearing a costume. i made her finish out the square. she griped the entire rest of the time. and i turned into the mom that was all "this is supposed to be fun. i don't want to do this, you want to do this" and i'm leading the way for my girls. every other kid there is running a good 10 feet in front of their parents & i am dragging mine. awesome, friends. just awesome.

when finished on the square we went home to wait for daddy. the girls suckered me into carving pumpkins - which i detest. the smell. the mess. all around disgusting-ness. i didn't have any templates or the carving kit things because, as i said, i don't dig carving pumpkins. so i'm left to my own devices. old-school. a black sharpie & my wolfgang puck knife set. they turned out alright. but i only had 2 actual candles. (sidenote: i don't have candles anymore because scentsy is my new kryptonite.) so in the 2 smaller pumpkins are birthday candles bundled together with teeny rubberbands sitting in shot glasses. which is now my very own hint from heloise. you're welcome. funny that i don't have 4 candles in my house, but i had 6 shot glasses.



(left to right) rachel's, jar's, mine, & olivia's - but really all mine because it did them all. by myself.



we did pictures outside after dark because i felt like we had to. it was fuh-reezing! they wouldn't really cooperate. they were cold. it was windy. halloweentown was on inside & they wanted to go back inside to watch the movie.

olivia said "it's halloween, i should do crazy eyes". mission accomplished, my dear.

and rachel's crazy eyes are courtesy of my camera flash & i didn't even fix the red-eye. happy halloween!

my favorite thing about halloween - my mantle. i love it. (but i'm ready to get those corn stalks off there & put up my christmas stuff.)

when jar got home, we went trick-or-treating at his mom & dad's - where rachel was scared out of her mind. and screamed bloody murder for a solid 5 minutes. this girl is scared of her own shadow. but in her defense, vanessa does go all out for halloween - it was a bit scary. probably super scary for a 5 year old little prim & proper lady.

we hit up my mom & dad's too. they were exhausted. but were super happy to show off their costumes (which everyone had seen already at rachel's birthday party 3 days earlier)

we didn't eat dinner that night. we just ate candy. and i feel like i have eaten candy every single day since. tis the season to put on that extra weight.

there you have it. oh what fun we had on halloween night!

Rachel's Birthday Halloween Bash

the party, as predicted, was indeed a stone cold blast. i really don't mean to toot my own horn, but come on. a halloween themed birthday party for our little girl was probably one of my very best ideas. we never get to see all the kids in their costumes because we are out trick-or-treating. 

we had her party Sunday afternoon. which lead her to believe it was her birthday all weekend long.

my very proud little witchy girl!

 some of the decor from the party. and little witch hat cookies i made - thank you, pinterest.

 presents, presents & more presents. our girl is definitely loved & set for barbie dolls from now until the end of time.

singing happy birthday, she is looking at her big sister right here.

speaking of big sister. Olivia was Medusa.

here are those crazy brownies.

party people. rachel with her best friends. and a pic of my best friends together.

the kiddos (clockwise) - emma, karlie, aubrey, walker, keller, & ellis

we had a wonderful time. thank you to all of my family & friends who obviously love my little Rachel so very much. happy 5th birthday, Rachel! we love you so much!

Picnik is Fun

Do you use picnik?

Well, I do. I love it. It's perfect for editing your photos, adding text, frames, collages, etc...

I noticed last week when I was there, they have a whole section dedicated to Halloween-ish edits. I typically am not into that sort of thing. But I thought, what the heck, I will just see what I can do. And in the process, I completely grossed myself out.

On one hand, I am utterly offended that I editted a picture of my dear sweet Olivia in such a manner. But on the other hand, it's pretty stinkin' cool.

I started with this silly little photo. It's hard to take a decent self portrait of myself with either of the girls. This is the result probably 90% of the time - Olivia acting all goofy for a picture, then I figure if you can't beat em, join em! And a side note - I would like to say that I used picnik to add all of the lovely gray/white hairs on my head, but as you can see that is not the case! BAH!

I won't show the little dear this picture, chances are it would freak her out. But here is the end result after I tinkered with it in picnik. I ghoulified our eyes (yuck), zombified both of us (double yuck), added a full moon & lightning, and a ghost for good measure. Oh yea, I also added the lovely stitches on my cheek (I just couldn't bring myself to add a wound to Olivia). HA! Pretty spooky if you ask me. And I feel much more in the mood for Halloween now!

Try it, it's good for a laugh or scream! HA!