Halloween 2008

Uh oh. I think I just found a new addiction.
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Flashback Friday

1978

Bluebirds Troop

All dressed up for a Father/Daughter Tea

(And yes, I'm the "gorgeous" one on the top left)

A friend's altered clipboards...

Check out these WAY cute clipboards my friend, Jennifer, made for her kids. They used them when they went to Disney to get autographs from the characters. Kinda puts mine to shame ;-)

More "Altered Clipboards"

I made a few more altered clipboards tonight. They are so fun and easy to make!

The girls even made their own clipboards, too!

"M's" clipboard

"A's clipboard

I wonder what my family will be getting for Christmas this year?!?!

What did you do today?

We had a busy but fun day today...

Got my bootie kicked in kick-boxing

Did school with the girls. Daddy's on vacation so he helped, too ;-)

Baked some bread - from scratch even, not from a box!!!

"BOO-ed" some friends (oops - they're not supposed to know it was us!!!)

Went to the pumpkin patch

Took "A" to dance class

Carved our pumpkin

Watched "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"

And made more "altered clipboards".

Please don't tell me that stay-at-home-moms only stay at home and homeschool kids never get out ;-)

Carrie Underwood in concert

My friend, Brandi, is a free-lance photographer by trade and she got to take pics of Carrie Underwood in concert last night. She says Carrie's so pretty that she's easy to make look good in pictures, but Brandi is really quite gifted in that area & has a good eye for great shots. Here's a slideshow of pictures she took for the Daily Oklahoman. Yea, Brandi ;-)

Boo!

I've been BOO-ed by my friend, Jen! How fun is it to "Boo!" all my blog friends!? Here are the instructions that come with the Blogging Boo: Go to as many friends as you want and tell them they've been "B00-ed". Have them link back to your blog to pick up their Halloween Treat (picture) and tell them to Boo their friends. Then put the picture in your side bar so everyone knows that you've already been "boo-ed" and to send the picture to someone else.

I am off to Boo! Maybe I will find you!

BTW, if you just read this blog, you have now been BOO-ed!

Wordless Wednesday - Forest Fire

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L.E. Portraits

My amazingly gifted photographer friend, Leslie, took our family's picture yesterday at Dover Pond, a beautiful park area in a beautiful neighborhood. These are pictures she took of our family 2 years ago at the same location...





I can't wait to see how the pictures turn out! These are just a few snapshots I took of the girls after our photo shoot but it's amazing to see how much they've changed in just two years!

Shepherd's Cross Pumpkin Patch

Our homeschool Co-Op went to the Shepherd's Cross Pumpkin Patch in Claremore on Friday. We had such a great time playing pumpkin games, petting the animals, listening to story time and shopping for the perfect pumpkins. We stayed almost an hour after everyone left because we met the Patch's facepainter/clown who speaks Spanish and is from Puerto Rico. The girls of course had to get their face painted, but they had so much fun trying out some of the Spanish that they've been learning with her. We also enjoyed talking with the owner of Shepherd's Cross, who also homeschools. It's such a great place to visit with your family or with a group of friends and I can't wait to go back in December for their "Living Nativity and Pecan Festival"!

A HUGE thank you goes to my friend, Leslie, for taking the first three pics of the girls for me! Unfortunately my camera battery was dead & I didn't know it until we got to the Patch! That will teach me to carry an extra battery with me at all times!!!

Flashback Friday

Fall '96
Aunt Jeanette (mom's sister from Washington); my sister, Angie (from OKC), me & Steve; my mom (from OKC)
Taken in Norman, OK - the change of the seasons is so pretty there because they have such beautiful, big trees!

Wordless Wednesday - are these circles moving or are they just an illusion?

Altered Clipboards

The moms from our Homeschool Co-Op got together last night and had a craft night get-together. We had a great time creating "pretties", eating & chatting. Some of us made these cute little "altered clipboards". I think they've been out for a while now but living in Oklahoma - you know how it takes a while for trends to finally arrive here! These are two that I made and I plan on making lots more! A shop in our town is currently selling these for about $18, but you can make them for about $4. They're really very simple and fun to make. Here's a few websites with instructions of how to make them & they give fun ideas on how to decorate them, too. Try it yourself! You'll be hooked!

Creating Altered Clipboards

Creating Altered Clipboards using Stamps

Making Altered Clipboards with Scrapbooking Printables

Creating Mini Altered Clipboards

Altered Clipboards by Get Inked

Gallery of Altered Clipboards

Love to shop garage sales - hate having them!

We had a garage sale this past Thursday and Friday with two other families. Mark my words - this is my last garage sale EVER and please remind me of this next year when I'm caught in a lie and am thinking of having another one. While I had a great time hanging out with my girlfriends that I had the sale with and enjoyed chatting with friends that stopped by - it is just WAY too much work for very little pay. I'm thinkin' donations are the way to go from now on.

The kids even got into it, too. They made signs and were holding them up as cars drove by. They also yelled things like, "Garage Sale! We've got real cheap stuff! Come to our garage sale!" I was a little afraid they were going to scare people away but we actually had some people stop because they saw our kids holding up signs. There's nothing like free advertising!

Classroom Corner

My new favorite store in town is a new "teacher" store that just recently opened called Classroom Corner. We needed an educational store so badly! Of course, our town has lots of private and public school teachers, but there is a huge homeschooling community here, as well, that will really benefit from having an educational supply store close at hand! It's also a great place for parents to purchase educational games & workbooks for their kids to work on at home. And they even sell toys and teacher gifts, although I found a few things I'd like to have for myself ;-) They also offer special Art & Science classes for elementary aged children, storytime for preschoolers & will eventually add classes for teachers & homeschool parents! Can you tell I'm a little excited?

I also have to thank Shelly & Jennifer at Classroom Corner for the AWESOME gift basket I won on their opening day! And most of the items I won was for a first grader - which I have ;-) What a blessing and a nice surprise! I'm sure I'll be spending lots of time in their store - hmmm, maybe I should look into getting a part-time job. Oh - that's right, I already have a part-time job painting. Well, maybe I should look into getting a second part-time job! Oh, yeah - I have no more time to spare. Maybe I'll win the lottery - oh yeah, I don't play the lottery. Anyone need some furniture or walls painted to support my habit? :-)

Just monkeying around

Our homeschool Co-Op had a blast playing on all of the equipment at Elite Gymnastics last Friday. The girls favorite thing to do is to climb the rope. The kids climb this LONG rope & if they make it to the very top, they get to "ring the bell" - you can see "M" doing this in the video below. "A" almost made it to the top on the video but got tired and had to come back down. She tried again later & made it to the top - unfortunately, I didn't get it on video. Those girls are little monkeys & are constantly climbing on things - furniture, the trim around our doorways, and of course the tree in front of our house! I guess it's good exercise and knock on wood, we haven't had any broken limbs, YET!

Flashback Friday - Old friends ;-)

A and her Mom's Club playgroup

December '02

M at a tea party with friends

July '03

Wordless Wednesday - Autumn in Red

Wild About Stripes

Check out this bathroom I just painted for a friend of mine. Is it crazy or what?! My friend is a super hip/super cool mom and is really into zebra stripes and animal prints, in general, as you can tell ;-) She's probably the only person I know that could pull this look off in her house!