Happy Halloween!

Pre-K Halloween Party

Wednesday was Ben's Pre-K Halloween Party at school! It was a very hectic day and to make matters worse I was feeling very sick! I had managed to dress up, I bought this Halloween costume a couple years ago and LOVE wearing it!

I figured that other parents would be dressed up....but guess what? I was the only one! Talk about embarrassing! But it was worth the gasps that I got from the kids as I walked into the room! It was special to them, and that's all that matters!

Don't you just love the shoes!
Here is a photo of me and my superheroes!

Since it was raining that day, they had their "parade" inside and walked through each classroom and received candy. Here they are lined up and ready! Alex isn't in school yet, but they let him participate in the parties and everything! That is really special to him!

Here is a group photo of the boys in his class! Ben and Alex are on the end! The two Darth Vadars make me laugh! They look identical and oh so cute!

Here is the whole group with the girls included.

These two costumes were my favorite, of course! Don't you just love that bumble bee costume and that cute little cupcake!?

Here's everyone in the cafeteria for their party! They had all kinds of good snacks and had a lot of fun!

I'm still feeling really sick. Tomorrow is Halloween and I at least plan to take the boys trick or treating around the block! Have a safe and Happy Halloween! And I'll post trick or treating photos tomorrow!

Pumpkin Cookies and Treats Bags-OH MY!

Benjamin's Halloween party is tomorrow, so yesterday I volunteered to bake sugar cookies! Why I always volunteer to make something that is complicated is beyond me! I mean it may not be complicated to some people, but with two toddlers, and coming down with a virus myself, it was way too much for me to handle!

So after I dropped Ben off for school yesterday, I went to the store and bought my baking supplies. I proceeded to make the dough and then bake the cookies. I baked at least three dozen cookies and then I had to go pick Ben up from school. On my way to pick him up, it popped into my head that I didn't add the salt to the recipe! And I had used unsalted butter! When I came home ,I tasted them, and they tasted "ok" but left a weird after taste! Ben said they were good of course, but you know how kids are....they find sand and dirt delicious! lol

So I looked at the recipe, and I realized that I left out the baking powder too! Where is my mind?!! I blame it on the Nyquil that I had the night before, but my friend had referred to it as "mom haze!" So I threw that batch in the garbage and started over again! By this time I was feeling really sick! My throat was raw and my body ached! But I knew I had to continue, because I may feel worse the following day!

Finally at 11:45 last night I was finally finished decorating them! This is only my second time working with royal icing, so they're not perfect! But I'm sure any 4 year-old will love them!

Today I woke up feeling even more sick! I could barely talk, my throat is still raw, and I have a bad cough! I'm just praying that I don't get a fever so I could go to Ben's Halloween party tomorrow!

Today I put together his little treat bags for his classmates. I'm not really big into giving my kids candy, so I wanted a treat free alternative! I decided to give each child a container of playdoh and a Halloween cookie cutter! I wanted to personalize the playdoh, so I put our own label on each container! At first I tried putting one on top of the playdoh label, but it looked like crap! I then decided to peel off each label...which was a huge PAIN! But here is what they look like 24 containers later! :)

A huge stack of playdoh fun!

Here is what the treat bags looked like with the cookie cutter inside! I really think they turned out cute!

Tomorrow is his party and I will try to post the photos either tomorrow or on Thursday! I'm very excited! If I'm feeling better, I will be dressing up! But I'm not telling what I'm wearing...you'll have to come back and see for yourself! Have a great night!

Make Some Art Monday

Today is "Make Some Art Monday" over at Chrissie Grace! Chrissie is a wonderful and inspirational artist! I just love her work! She decided to have an art blog party, and I just had to join in!

Unfortunately, I just found out about it a couple of days ago, so I had to brainstorm for an idea. The theme was "favorite quotes" and I knew if I was doing a mosaic...I needed a short quote. So I love the quote "Love is patient, Love is kind..." Here is what I came up with.

Please keep in mind that I need to grout in some areas again, plus I need to seal it and shine it up! I used a wooden cross that I had with an inset, part of a vintage rose plate, and some glass that I purchased from Youghiogheny Glass. I am very lucky that they make this wonderful glass right here in my town! If I'm ever in need of a certain color I drive on over, and get my choice of glass! It's great! This was soo fun to make! Hope you enjoy!

Here's a closeup of the saying! I used alphabet beads for the quote!

Have a wonderful Monday!
-Ruth Ann

Fun At The Pumpkin Patch

Today was Ben's field trip to Triple B Pumpkin Patch! It was such a beautiful Fall day here in South Western PA. It was in the 60's and very sunny! It was very special because my husband and other son Alex came along too! We all had a great time! Here's the little pumpkin patch where all the kids are given a bag, and are allowed to pick one pumpkin to take home! The adults were allowed too! What fun! It's hard to find that perfect pumpkin! Most kids chose an orange pumpkin....only a kid or two out of the group picked a green one!
And here are even more pumpkins! They had tons and tons! I just love the color orange!

Here is Alex and Ben at a fun little sign! Don't you just love these? I know I do! It was a very rushed day....if we the time, I would have loved to get each of our heads inside this sign! That would have been cute! Oh and they had tons of these signs! Each one was creative and cute! Not very kid friendly though. Toddlers and even bigger kids were too short to stick their heads through the sign...they needed an adult to hold them up from behind (notice my husband's head)! lol Isn't this little white goat precious? I just wanted to take her home with me!
These goats are trained to pull a rope attached to the pulley in order to get treats! I never knew goats were this smart! Poor things....even when the crowds left, they were still trying to pull the rope....I guess they aren't that smart afterall!

Here is Ben and Alex on a huge haystack!

They had this cute little playground area for the kids. They have this barn that the kids can play in with stairs. The stairs led to this cool little slide! All the kids seemed to love this!

They also had this tractor that the kids were allowed to climb on! It never sat empty! All the kids loved this as well! Here is Ben (on the right) with a bunch of other kids!

Here are my boys on the hayride!

Time to pick the perfect pumpkin! Here are their choices!

Here is a bunch of the boys in our group with their pumpkins! Ben is first in the photo, and Alex is second. It was very very hard to get everyone's attention at the pumpkin patch. There was way too much excitement going on!

They also had a Farm Market there as well! It had all kinds of goodies inside, like farm grown apples, homemade pies, sweets, and ciders. Yummy!

Look at this cool slide! Looks like a lot of fun! Unfortunately, we didn't get to ride this. Maybe next time! Actually....definitely next time!

Here's Ben (in the third window) after a long and exhausting day at the pumpkin patch! It was his first trip on a school bus, and he and all the kids were very excited!

Also, one of the coolest things on this farm is the huge displays that they have of popular kid's movies and nursery rhymes. There are way too many to include in my blog post, so I decided to upload a slideshow so it doesn't bog down your computer with photo overload! lol Enjoy! And if you put your cursor over each photo in the slideshow it will tell you the particular pumpkin display! They were very very creative with this! Enjoy!

Photo Wall Collage

I love photos! I love looking at photos, and I especially LOVE taking them! I even collect old black and white photography! It doesn't matter if I know the person in the photo or not...I still collect them! Photos to me tell a story...it doesn't matter who or what is in the photo, it's the story that the photo tells...the emotion that is captured in that split second! That's what's important!

Anyway, back to my photo wall! Awhile back, I came across a wonderful photography blog, and found this awesome photo wall collage! You can read about it here. I loved the idea, it made such a statement in that room! I just knew that I had to do it!

And this is what I came up with. My kitchen colors are aqua and pink, so I spray painted the outer frames in aqua and the inner frame in pink. The frames are actually cheap metal scrapbooking frames that I found at Michaels. They measure 12"x12" and when on sale you can get them for $5 each! Now that's a bargain! Hanging them however proved to be a pain....just ask my wonderful husband! :)

So you can get an idea of how large this collage is, here is a photo of my toddler standing next to it! Please ignore the cow pants! He's worn them for the last two days, and refuses to take them off! :) And keep in mind that we are nearing the end of our remodel. We have yet to add trim and other accessories, so right now it looks kind of plain!

Here's another view of the wall!

And yet another angle!

One tip if you plan to try this at home. We discovered that the hangers on the back are pretty much useless, and a royal pain! Since there are hangers in several places on the back, it's much easier to string each frame with wire and then hang it on the wall.

I hope you enjoyed seeing photos of my wall collage! So far it is my favorite thing in the entire house! When company comes over it's one of the first things that catches their eye! And we have received many compliments on it!

For me it shows the story of my family's past year and the many good times that we had! I plan to change it out each year to share our family's story with each guest that walks through our door!

To see other fantastic ideas, please go over to Kimba's linky party and join in the fun!

Play-Doh & Richard Gere?!

Well OK, Play-Doh & Richard Gere have nothing in common! But I'm going to talk about them both tonight anyway! Tonight we played with Play-Doh and made lots of letters using the letter stamps! I use to go crazy when the colors got mixed together, but now I don't care! It's not the end of the world!

Alex likes playing with his playmobil figures in the Play-Doh! Here is his figure with a big glob of Play-Doh on it's head!
Here is a little fun with the alphabet stamps! "Alex" of course!
Here's Ben rolling out the dough.

And here's Ben's creation! I found this little figured buried inside the Play-Doh container! Alex likes putting them inside and he'll say: "Ahhh, you're sinking!"
Here she is after I discovered her and pulled her out! Good thing the Play-Doh comes right off! Alex also likes to pop their hair off, and replace it with Play-Doh!
We really had a great time creating tonight! I forgot how much fun Play-Doh is!

OK, so I mentioned "Richard Gere!" I was online tonight and found out that he will be in Washington D.C. next Friday for a conference on "The Convergance of Science and Spirituality"! I live about 3 hours away from DC! The general cost of tickets to the event is $150. But for $500 you can attend a private cocktail party with him before the conference! I saw that and my eyes almost popped out of my head! I have always wanted to meet him, and this is my chance...or so I thought! You can read about the details here!

Anyway, my anniversary is coming up on November 1st, so I forwarded the information to my husband at work saying that it would make the best anniversary gift EVER!

He called a few hours later, and this was our conversation:

Me: "Did you get the e-mail that I sent you."

The Husband: "Yes."

Me: "I want to go so badly!"

The Husband: "Who are you planning on going with?"

Me: "Myself."

The Husband: "How do you plan on getting there?"

Me: "Drive. I have GPS, plus it's only 3 hours away!"

Me: "It would make a great anniversary gift. You love me, right?"

The Husband: "HA, HA, HA, HA!"

So I guess I'm not going to meet Richard Gere next week! But a girl can dream can't she?!

My husband has been on Richard Gere overload over the past week. He's been off work and after the kids are in bed we'll watch a movie. I only give him choices of movies that Richard Gere is in! lol

Plus, my husband is soo sick of hearing me ask him to dye his hair grey and to get glasses! LOL

I ask him all the time! :)

In my opinion he's like a fine wine....the more aged he gets-the better he is! :)