Leaves and Halloween

Earlier this week (at the beginning of the kids virul/pnemonia sicknesses) we went for a walk to do a little 'Leaf Peeping'.

Last year we tried making collages with the leaves we had collected, but realized that after a day or two the leaves dried up and soon started to crumble and fall off of the papers they were glued to, leaving a mess on the floor.

So this year, I became a little more creative, and took a cleaner approach.

Contact paper. It's a little tricky trying to get all of the 'bubbles' out... but it looks like stained glass when hung in the window and the sun is shining through! I've even sent a smaller verson via snail mail to New York. That'll be the real test I suppose. Here's T admiring our work. (I didnt even ask her for a pose like this... she really is admiring it!)

*place a piece a contact paper -sticky side up- on the table. Place leaves (either all brighter side up, or all brighter side down) onto the sticky-ness. Then cover with another piece of contact paper, smooth out the bubbles (it's easiest to start in the middle and work your way to the outside) and then cut off the excess edges with scissors. Easy, mess-free, and quick!*

And onto Halloween. A night of tricks and treats. (thankfully, only treats around this area... it's a really small town!)

Every year I spend it 'downtown' at a family members house helping to be a candy-hand'er-out'er. And to help take credit for the amazing decorations. Though really, I can only claim just one jack-o-lantern:

I call it "in honor of the week I had with two sick children".

The rest are all done by family, each doing a few every night.

*Sorry for the out of order photos... I can't figure out this photo uploading for the life of me!*

And Finally: after freezing for 2 hours during trick'or'treat time... I caught up with some friends and was able to get a pic of me with this sweet lil one! (the first time I saw her I was sick so I wasnt able to get too close...) isn't she just precious?!

Pumpkin Time!

It's that time of year....
The air is cooler.
The ground is covered in a blanket of leaves (soon to be snow).
The stores are filled with costumes and candy galore.
Pumpkins are making their way out of gardens and onto porch steps. (and some into pies!)
Here's ours for this year.
(the kids', that is. I'll be posting pics of my fam's 30+ pun'kins soon. YES, you read that right... Living in a restaurant business family means never taking any holiday lightly!

What you can't see here... is that the kids were already dressed in their pajamas when I put coats and hats on them to go outside for our ritual of pictures with our pumpkins. G happens to be in shorts. I think this is his shivering pose? lol

Thanks to Martha Stewert for the Christmas light/Jar idea! It works great!

Let's see how this works...

I've been wanting to try this out for a while now... I have a lot of photos that I think would be great to share with those outside of my F*acebook world (which is where I've previously been putting all of my albums for friends to see). This week I had a couple of really good fall days with the wee ones, and thought "why not start now?". So, here it is. Photo Blog #1! (maybe eventually I'll figure out how to make this thing all pretty like the rest of you bloggy people? any input would be great! *hint hint*) All of these were taken with my iPhone. Not too shabby, eh? A few blurry spots (I think I need to take a q-tip to the lens maybe?), but overall I'm impressed with my new techy gadget!
Disclaimer - One of the wee ones is missing from this shoot due to being at school during the second day of hiking, and was fighting against having his picture taken during the previous days' hiking adventure. He would have rather have been at home. "I just want to go to bed!" How often do you hear that out of a 6y.o?


I've been calling this album:
Fall(ing) is Like This...