halloween 2012. vampires and mummies and ghosts. oh my!

we've been feeling a little spooky around these parts.  

brady begged me to decorate their bedroom with spookiness.  he likes all of that creepy, crazy stuff...until it's time for bed and lights out.  he can often be caught swapping scary stories with grandpa graf, and it has resulted in his deciding to share a room instead of having his own.  

i saw that glint in his eye and said okay- as long as it wasn't TOO scary.  nothing gross.  nothing bloody.  no zombies or decapitations.  he did manage to get away with a few vampires before i drew the line there too...

it all started with the door.  he and liv began coloring halloween-themed pictures and doing activities at school.  mind you, it wasn't even october yet.

                 

in case you can't read this.  it's actually quite funny. apparently, brady really didn't want anyone who wasn't invited to come into their room!

do not enter

or zombies will attack

or spiders

or mummies

or bats

or aliens

or vampires

or werewolves

or ghosts

or goblins

so do not enter. and if you do, you will not believe it.

once the door was covered it creeped into the bedroom, wound it's bony fingers around their bunk bed and exploded, lasting until a few days after the actual All Hallow'd Eve, when i finally reclaimed their bedroom to normalcy.  

i am sure zach is grateful.  i wonder what he thought peering into the darkness every night.

and olivia- she promised that she LOVED it.  but every night she sneakily crawled into bed with me and wrapped her monkey arms and legs tight to my back.

of course once we decorated their room their cowboy pillowcases just looked plain silly.  mommy was also plain silly when she suggested to brady and olivia that we could go to the fabric store and pick out halloween fabric to make special pillow cases.  this was especially silly because mommy had a million other things she was supposed to be doing.

the look on two kiddos faces when they woke up the next morning to these on the couch was worth it though...

Olivia's: 

Brady's:

the backs:

and who can have a spooky room, and spooky pillowcases but not a spooky outfit?

thank you Pinterest, for giving me the idea of how i could do a mummy.  i didn't particularly like the one that i saw online so instead of gauze i used some scrap white felt and scrap green fabric.  i already had the googly eyes and a leftover "boo" from liv's pillowcase.  i decided to make the whole body of the mummy, and not just the face like what was online.  we used one of brady's play shirts turned inside out.

olivia's shirt came out SO cute.  I had bought her some striped tights and a black tu-tu imagining that i was going to make her such a shirt as this.  i will toot my own horn, in that this was entirely my own creation- made with scraps of felt and pillowcase fabric!

zach's outfit was a lucky find at my favorite thrift store for the kids- Once Upon a Child.  it was EXACTLY what i had been wanting to make, so imagine my thrill when i saw it just waiting for me on a rack and for only $3!!!  It matched Olivia's tights perfectly and saved me a LOT of time!

we got LOTS of use out of these outfits.  i made them the 2nd week of the month so Brady wore his shirt about two times each week to school.  he said other kids thought it was "the coolest." {yes, i am still a cool mom who can make cool things!!!}  Olivia wore her tu-tu and striped tights every chance she got.  and when she did i coordinated zach with her as well.  so whether or not he liked his, he sported it often as well.  

some more art work:

(thanks to my friend, Charlotte for giving me the idea to upload and do digi scrapbooks of the kids artwork!  No more binders and bins full of crumpled papers!  instead they get to feel so special seeing their artwork on the computer and later on i'll surprise them with their very own books full of their best works of art!

Brady's-

 


               

Olivia's-

olivia did some of the scary faces above in brady's section, but i'm not sure which ones.  she also did most of the papers on their door...

pumpkins-

we didn't get a picture of the pumpkins that they carved but they were adorable.  chris carved with the kids while i was at a young women's activity and i got to come home to a surprise waiting for me on the doorstep! they had lit the candles inside of their jack-o-lanterns and had them waiting for me!

these silly pumpkins were also inside waiting on the counter! they gave me quite a laugh!  brady's is on the left and olivia's is on the right.

projects.

the kids have been up to lots of crafts.  they had earned some things from the general conference store, if you recall.  they spent hours for days making these melty bead animals.  it was great having them consumed with creativity.

i taught brady how to use the iron, which was also a useful thing to learn

brady created a marble run/ habitat for his imprisoned {i mean, pet} praying mantis, who sadly died {starved to death} after brady couldn't catch enough flies to feed it.  we later learned, while doing a little research that praying mantis never eat dead insects.  oops.  next time we'll remember that and let them remain free on our lawn.

he was very proud of his creation, and now we have a petrified praying mantis.  

grammie morgan brought these projects with her when she came to visit in June and we proudly displayed them for several months until we began packing.

brady brings home these large pieces of paper from school and we like to try and do projects with them.  grammie had also brought these holographic sparkly space stickers with her so i divided them among the two kids and let them go to town creating their own galaxies!

brady's:

brady's was complete with earthlings in a rainstorm

olivia's:

i was quite impressed with her drawings.  she did have a little help from brady from time to time...(alien)

the rocket and  rapunzel towel were entirely her creations

and at the end we found a worthy place to hang them!  it brightened up their closet, and they were able to continue drawing and coloring them from time to time when the whim hit!

i had bought olivia a really cute snow white book at goodwill in montana last year.  we kept it in the car for road trips and over the course of a few trips she managed to tear several pages out and rip them to bits when she was mad about something.  not wanting to just throw the book away, we tore out the rest of the pages and went to town cutting out different objects to create a special house for snow white to live in.  olivia wanted lots of help with this part, but when it came time to create and glue she wanted to be all by herself.  she was quite proud of what she came up with and even though we ended up tossing more than half of our little bits it was still a cute little way to use her book instead of just throwing it away!

did i mention that i like to decorate for fall?

now that fall is over.....

this isn't my decoration, or even my picture for that matter.  in fact i "blog-lifted" it from my friend Rachel's blog.  i do admire her eye for photography...i hope she doesn't mind....

purple sunday.

i've been waiting to post this since july.  because somehow brady got dressed into play clothes before i could snag his picture.  i've been meaning ever since to get one of him alone in his outfit...but i don't think it's going to happen and i am updating my blog.  and i want to be done.

when i look back at these pictures it makes me realize that the 20 lbs. i've lost so far have made a difference!  I totally notice especially in my face, neck and shoulders.

i also realize how much longer liv'y hair has grown!

move #10...

this post is WAY overdue-  i tend to do this every time we move!  I don't get around to posting about someplace that we live until we're about ready to move again.

YES, that's right...we are MOVING AGAIN!  But, more about that later.......

we moved again back in mid-april!  We needed more space than our little rental house and found a great opportunity in Rigby.  that's right, Rigby.  a little town just off the highway between Idaho Falls and Rexburg...who knew we would ever live here!

the apartment is actually a daylight basement apartment with natural light from two sides and full-sized windows.  It's in a four-year-old home and was just recently finished.  we are the first to live here and it has been a great decision for our family.  brady had to change schools and we had to change wards again, but we were able to save several hundred dollars a month in rent/utilities and actually have MORE space even though we've downsized to two bedrooms.

all three kiddos were in one bedroom at our rental in IF anyways...so we figured we might as well do this and save money/continue to pay off debt while they are young.  this is was by no means a long-term situation for us, but we have made it work.

our landlords have become good friends to us and our children.  having them live over us creates a unique situation.  it is often noisy, but i think we have been blessed enough that it's easier to overlook the inconveniences for the conveniences.  it is super easy to borrow a missing dinner ingredient or some milk, swap babysitting and have built-in friends for a movie night or bonfire!  more people should live this way...at least for a little while!

they have three little boys, and our kids have loved it!

want the tour?

master bedroom- looks about the same as it always has...

i am very excited to have a larger master bedroom.  even in our house in twin falls we've always had a smaller space.  our new master will have PLENTY of room on both sides of the bed and double HIS & HERS closets!  yeah, no more shoebox bedroom!

bathroom-
the master bedroom led into a jack-and-jill bathroom...
the basement apartment was actually quite light and airy because the space was so large and open and the windows are full windows above ground

the bathroom counter tops are granite and the shower is tiled.  first time having such nice finishes

off the bathroom was a gigantic 520 sq. foot kitchen.  yeah, this is what sold me on the place.  after having a tiny kitchen at our last rental this kitchen has been nothing short of A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!!!  first time having stainless appliances too...

kitchen-




dining area-

the kitchen and dining area used to be a dance studio- hence the size.  there was going to be a water fountain where this built-in is.  it was a cute little nook to decorate the dining area.

                   

                   

the door to the left is the laundry, and this wall was kind of command central with our family goals and daily contributions chart

the left side of the kitchen was just one big open space.  we splurged a little at Lowe's and got individual cabinet pieces and put them together to look like one unit.  this housed our pantry items and food storage.  in the next place it will be craft storage heaven..i can't wait to organize!

laundry room

                

i hope i never have to a creepy crawly laundry room again.  eek. this laundry room was perfect for our needs, and warm and easy to get to.  when i was pregnant all last year with zach it was up and down those steep stairs constantly.

                 

living room-

the living room was also really large and had nice fluffy carpet.  i don't ever want to live in another place that is wooded floors in all the main areas of living- it's just not warm and cozy to me- and it's awful when you have wee ones crawling around

we finally got some new couches when we moved here.  they are slate gray/blue and much stiffer, more modern, clean lines than anything we've had before...but i really like them.(the red ottoman is a leftover from the last thrift couch set we had in the family room...it will get recovered someday in a beautiful gold or green fabric...)

we had an office area in the living room on the far wall as well...but that has already been dismantled.  this little nook was another perfect place to house books and decor.

i didn't get around to taking a nice picture of the kids' bedroom.  it looks pretty much the same as it has for the last 4 years anyway.  but we're about to change that up!  after 4 years of sharing a bedroom with boys, olivia is finally going to have her own princess-girly-vintage-frilly room that i have been dreaming about.  i'm sure she's been dreaming about it too- even though she doesn't even know it!

brady has opted to share a room with zach and we've got some fun plans for that as well!

bye-bye cowboy/cowgirl decor...we're tired of you!

they did have a pretty amazing closet though...

stay tuned for the update on our new home...coming in approximately 5 blog posts.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!