Thanksgiving Catch Up

25 Days of Christmas
8. What's on the top of your tree?
A peacock!  He's very festive.  Isn't he awesome?!  Gilding the lily perhaps...

In the midst of all the Christmas Craziness, I just wanted to do a quick catch up on Thanksgiving.  We had dinner at our house - only 9 of us.  As I mentioned earlier, Chicken Little and I managed to get the Christmas decorations up before everyone arrived, and I was so VERY, VERY THANKFUL for that!

The table was lovely - I kept it simple and kind of rustic.

As you can see, I did wait until the next day to decorate the table for Christmas.

The food was awesome, and way too much - of course!

And the company was fabulous!

LOVE! 

We finished the day off by venturing into the insanity that was Black Friday (on Thursday) at Walmart.  But there is a super secret Wally World by my house (no, I'm not telling you where), and we were able to get in at 9:30, grab our loot at 10:00 on the dot, and get out by 10:30!!!  No shoving, scratching or pepper spray involved - Woo Hooo!!!

Minimalism

For a really long time, I've lived my life with a "more is more" mind set.  In some areas, this isn't so bad.  In others (like food and shopping!), it's not such a good thing.

So, last year some of you may remember the Halloween House, and all the decorating I did. If not, you can check it out here. 

This year I've adopted a new approach.  I've been decorated since the end of August...

Isn't he cute?!  That's my nod to Halloween. I bought him right before I took Chicken Little back to school, and he's been on display ever since.  (I was just too lazy to put him away.)

The card is from CL.  Give a hoot, cause it's so cute.  (LOL - ugh!)  CL has also been prepared for Halloween for quite a while because she made all of these cards while she was home this summer.  Give her credit - she did wait to send it until just a few weeks ago. 

So, that's pretty much it, except for the mantle.

I kinda like it. 

AND when it comes time to switch it out for Thanksgiving.... BAM!  I'm done.  :-)

I think I could really begin to embrace this whole minimalist thing.

Gratitude Friday

I know I'm a little late to the Fall party, but that's just how we roll 'round these parts.  The trees are finally hitting their stride with their full color display.  This will last about 32 minutes.  There will be a hard freeze soon and all of these leaves will immediately drop to the ground.  Contrary to popular belief, we do have four seasons in Texas: Summer, Summer, Summer, and Winter.  Winter will be here soon.  Look at that gorgeous blue sky!

(Ooops - I just noticed that one picture is repeated twice. Oh well, I guess I liked that one.  I took all of these with my phone.  I may or may not have been driving at the same time...just sayin'.) 

This week I'm grateful for:

1.  Quiet
2.  Rt. 44 sized diet cherry limeade at the happy hour price
3.  Taking the day off tomorrow
4.  Stretchy pants
5.  The Christmas tree is "done"

Have a great weekend!

Punkin' Eater

While she was home last week, Chicken Little asked me if I had ever heard of squirrels eating pumpkins.  "No way," I said, "squirrels eat nuts." We've put out pumpkins for 20 years and have never had evidence of squirrel pillaging. 

Hmmm.... 

We have a yard full of acorns, but apparently pumpkin is a squirrel delicacy.  Who knew? 

On a different note, I've been absent for a few days because I've been so busy!  I still have a bit of decorating to finish for Christmas, but hopefully by the end of the weekend I'll be done and then I can share.  :-) 

Finally!

Brrr!  It's gotten chilly here in the last few days.  It really feels like Fall, and... FINALLY it's starting to look like Fall.

The mums are finally on all out GO!  They've just fully exploded this week.  I'm going to have to take it all in quickly because they don't last very long.  They are so flashy - love all the color!

Yea!!  I LOVE pretty!

Happy Halloween!

In celebration of the day, I just thought I'd share some of my favorite costumes through the last (too many) years...

Yep, that's me.  I think I was 13.  This is my version of "punk" at the time. This foreshadows something that I find much, much more frightening (you will see). 

Chicken Little's second Halloween.  The first year she was Tinkerbell and we squeezed her into a lime green leotard with wings (she looked like a big booger).  It was hysterical, but I can't find any pictures.  This particular Halloween, the temperature dropped from 80 to 40 overnight, so we had to quickly rethink the angel outfit and she became a cowgirl - much warmer!  Many years followed where any costume was good as long as it involved some sort of face paint or make-up - and always she was "workin' it".

Remember the first picture, this is where it gets scary.  This is CL - same age - same general idea!  For those of you about to enter this time, remember it is a phase and it will pass!

High school: wigs, trips to Goodwill, and much angst over having a cool costume.

So, now she is at college and still Halloween is a big deal.  She's posting her costumes now on her own blog.  But we are not left out this year - we get the pleasure of just enjoying the end product with grand babies.  A pirate and his parrot! 



Happy Halloween everybody!  Be safe and get lots of candy!

Wordle

Is anyone else hooked on making word clouds at Wordle.net? I found this website through Maryann at Domestically Speaking, and have spent so much time there making these super cool pictures! Love them!!

This is the first one that I did using words that remind me of Fall. I totally stole this idea from Maryann. The trick is the more times you use the words, the bigger they will show up in your "cloud".

Then, I made this one using words that remind me of Chicken Little and sent it to her. I knew that she would love this site better than anyone. Of course, she promptly went and made her own pictures and posted them on her blog.

I think maybe I need to cut down on the number of words I use. That would probably make them a little more graphic because they wouldn't be so busy. It's free, so you can experiment like crazy until you get it just the way you like it. You can also change the colors to fit the theme. FUN STUFF!

You could literally spend HOURS (and maybe I have) playing around here. I'm sitting here thinking I need to go and create something for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and then Valentine's Day. Also, wouldn't these be fun to create as birthday presents for all your kids, nieces, nephews, etc.?

I Wanna Win!

I promise, this will be my last Fall decoration post...at least from my house.

I'm LOVING the pumpkins I put on the porch and in the yard the best of all. We have a Yard of the Month contest in the neighborhood, and I. Want. To. Win!

I just hope that they do the judging when all of the mums are blooming. There aren't any pictures of those because they haven't opened yet. I think by next weekend they should be out in all their glory. I know, I know, I shouldn't care that much, but I just can't help it. I've seen those other winners and they are not anywhere near as pretty as mine... ahem...in my humble opinion. :-)

Anyway, here's the porch...

I just love my shiny pumpkins. I'm hoping that the Mop 'n' Glo helps preserve them as well as shining them up. (If you want shiny pumpkins, read here for how to do it.)

So that was my little tiny porch, and then I put these pumpkins in the corner of one of the front flower beds. The other side has the mums that are about to open, so no room for pumpkins over there. The mums on this side didn't fare as well - the ones in the picture are the only ones that came back this year.

Hmmm... looking at this last one, I'm thinking we need to put down fresh mulch...maybe that's what the judges are looking for. And if they don't pick our yard this year, then it will be painfully obvious that they have no taste at all. ;-)

And the Fall Love Continues...

Ok - so now I admit that I'm being a little self-indulgent at this point, but I've got a just a few more pictures of my Fall decorating. These pics are from the kitchen table and island.

Same decorations, but I took the picture from opposite ends of the table - gotta get both viewpoints, right?

I LOVE this pumpkin. I think it was called Long Island Cheese (or something like that), or I could be WAY off - doesn't really matter, I just really love the squatty-ness of it and the color is great.

And one more angle.... I'm ready to paint the kitchen. It's a deep eggplant, and I still like it, but I think I'm ready for something a little lighter.

I just put this bowl of gourds on the island. I wanted to keep it simple and easy to move out of the way.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Halloween House

When is the right time to put out Halloween decorations? In September I want to decorate for Fall, but that seems too early for Halloween. The problem is, I don't want to “do” Fall, then take it down and do Halloween, then take that down and do Fall/Thanksgiving again.

This year I think I came to a happy compromise. I started by putting out a few pumpkins in mid-September so it would at least start to feel like Fall. The last week of September, I put out the inside decorations and went straight to Halloween. Still too early?

I’ve confined Halloween to the kitchen and dining room. In the dining room, I decided to stick with a black and white theme (except the one green glittery skull).

These birds didn't photograph that well, but they really creep me out!

After Halloween, I will swap the birds and witches with Pilgrims and Indians - the white pumpkins will probably stay where they are.

In the kitchen, I piled EVERYTHING onto this one cabinet. Old and new, homemade and store bought - a little bit of everything! More is more…

Here we go with glitter season - I will be the disco queen from now until January with glitter in my hair and on my face and hands constantly. I love these cat candles!!! I cannot bring myself to actually burn them.

Do you deck the halls for Halloween? Do you love answering the door, or do you cower in the dark hiding from the princesses and pirates?

I'm linking to the Halloween Party at Polish the Stars.

Halloween Crafting

I was looking for a quick Halloween crafting project, and after going through some old magazines and books, I got inspired to paint these three little wooden plaques that I had laying around.

I used acrylic paint, and painted directly onto the wood. Once I finished the main images, I put coat of water-based satin finish varnish on them. I tinted the varnish with a bit of light brown paint to give them a little bit of “age.”

I love the color of the sun and the sky on this one.

I really like the way the owl turned out. I like the simplicity of the silhouette.

After they were dry, I added some picture hangers to the back because I didn’t know what I was going to do with them. Instead of hanging them, I ended up just tucking them into my Halloween decorations, but I also think they would have been cute hanging in a row on a wall.

Lots of Halloween inspiration out there in blog-land. I'm linking to a couple of Link Parties - check them out:

1. The Power of Paint at Domestically Speaking

2. The Halloween Link Party at Polish the Stars