Tim Burton Halloween Party

I'll admit that this took months to assemble. However, we did have our new daughter arrive back in July so that has a huge factor for everything taking 3 times as long as it should have.

Wonderland Scene

Supplies:

1. Plywood

2. Poster Board

3. Jig Saw

4. Acrylic Paint - Assorted Fluorescent Colors

5. Paintbrushes

6. Hot Glue

7. Hand Made Wood Flowers that I found at Target

8. 24" Black Light Fixture (We purchased 2 of these)

While I personally have no talent in the drawing department, my daughter does, so she drew templates on the poster board. My father-in-law cut the pieces out with the jig saw, but honestly I would have been able to do it if I needed to. Then just paint the boards. I made the mistake of getting the little bottles of acrylic paint from Michael's and ended up needing 4 sets of 6 to paint everything. It would have been a lot less expensive if I'd just bought the 1 pint set I included the link for. Finally, I just hot glued the pieces together in order to really create the 3D effect you see there.

Nightmare Before Christmas Candle Holders

Oogie was a gift from my daughters. They know how much I love The Nightmare Before Christmas, but it worked out perfectly for the party theme. 

Supplies:

1. Glass Mason Jar - I just saved the Bertolli jars when I made chicken alfredo.

2. Textured silver paint

3. Free Printable Nightmare Before Christmas Labels

Just clean and spray paint the outside of the jars. I used Modge Podge to attach the labels I printed, but regular glue would work just fine too I'm sure.

Photo Corner

Supplies:

1. Halloween Fabric purchased from Hobby Lobby as a background

2. Dollar Store Toys for Dress Up

3. Selfie Stick

This was super easy with all the kids having cell phones these day, but they had a blast with it. 

Drink Station

Supplies:

We ordered the black light responsive party-ware from Amazon.

1.  Party Essentials Hard Plastic 6-Inch Round Party/Dessert Plates, Assorted Neon, 40-Count

2. Party Essentials Hard Plastic Cutlery Combo Pack, Knives/Forks/Spoons, 48 Place Setting-Count,

3. Assorted Neon Party Essentials Hard Plastic 10-Ounce Party Cups/Tumblers, 50-Count, Assorted

4. Neon Party Essentials 2-Ply Paper Dinner Napkins, Assorted Neon Brights, 24-Count

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Candy Table

My mother is a Goodwill junkie, so she had all the apothecary glassware already from her various "treasure hunts." We're lucky enough that Albanese Candy Factory is only about a half hour from our house, so I was able to get classic confectionery candies. 

Upelkuchen Cakes

This was mine... Yes, sad I know.

These are my sisters... I learned the secret to making cake pops is to crumble them and add in a couple spoonfuls of icing before shaping them. 

The Rest Was Just Fun

Gee, Thanks Mother Nature...

Well, Mother Nature decided that she didn't like Northwest Indiana all that much yesterday. She decided she was going to pour down rain all over the place and several of the towns in our area rescheduled Halloween for today. I'm not entirely sure how you decide to move a holiday, but they did.

We refused to be detoured from celebrating though and headed off to the mall over in Merrillville because they were offering a Trick-Or-Treat for kids 12 and under at several of the stores. Problem is... So did about a 1000 other families...

Trick-Or-Treat started at 5pm and we arrived at 5:15pm. By that time literally almost every single store was out of treats. I had no idea that it would take less than 15 minutes for them to run out. Given that there were not many options, we decided to go get some ice cream instead. 

The lady at TCBY told us that people had started lining up at about 4pm. Lena wasn't too heart broken though. She's heading to trick-or-treat tonight instead and there's nothing a little ice cream and an awesome aunt can't fix!

I'm So Unreasonable Friday Link Up #3

It doesn't matter if your child or children are toddlers, tweens, or full fledged teenagers at some point (or many points) your darling little demons angels will think your wisdom is meant to torment them and snuff out their independence.

Last week, I failed to post the link up... I had the very rare opportunity to be kid free and go on a date with my hunnie, so I did. 

This week, I have been unreasonable for the following reasons:

1. Lena spent last weekend at my parent's house. When Sunday rolled around and it was time to come home, she really didn't want to. She insisted that she would much rather live with Gramma. I get this, who wouldn't want to live with their Gramma? They are so much more fun than a boring old mommy who makes you do things like eat healthy food for breakfast, shower, and go to bed on time. However, I still feel strongly that she belongs here with me, at least until she's ready to head off to college. I'm so unreasonable!

2. I made her put away her clean laundry before heading to her friend's house. "Again mom? You're just going to have to wash it later anyway!" While this is certainly an inevitable fact of not allowing her to go naked to school, Anne's lower bunk is not meant to be used as a dresser during the week when she's not here. Yes, my dear, it belongs in the closet. I'm so unreasonable!

3. I wanted to take her picture while we decorated the yard for Halloween. I recall a point in time where she would smile very big for me whenever I pulled out the camera... Now she runs away screaming as if I had a hot poker in my hand that I was trying to jab her in the eye with. This was the best I could get of her because she would only allow me to capture the moment if her face was covered. Heaven forbid I wanted an actual picture of my child smiling and hanging bloody spiderweb as we decked out for our favorite holiday . I'm so unreasonable!

4. This is my final day of the crazy eliminate overtime schedule and I don't have to be to work until 9am. In the interest of not sitting in my work parking lot for an hour (like I did on Tuesday) I refused to drive her into school and made her take the bus. I robbed her of extra kitty time, because selfishly I wanted to enjoy my extra hour and not get out of my jammie's until forced. That being said... I took her to the bus stop... Dressed like this <-------. Oh yes folks, I arrived at the bus stop in all my polka dotted, slip on dress shoes, disheveled hair, fleecy hoodie, no-bra yet glory. She may actually have me with this one. I'm so unreasonable!

How unreasonable where you this week? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Grab the button and link up!

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Halloween is Here!

I have been trying since the end of September to get the Halloween decorations up, but the weather was not cooperating. Courtesy of my screwed up schedule this week and my early release today, we finally accomplished my goal!

Finally taking down the Christmas lights to hang the Halloween.

All Lite Up

Bloody Spiderweb Zombie

Peaceful Morning

Saturday mornings are by far my favorite. The girls typically sleep in, which means that we get a blissful hour or two to sit and enjoy our coffee. Usually we sit out in the garage, at least while it's still nice out. We're both smokers (yes, I know, shame on us) and we don't smoke in the house. Since the garage isn't really big enough to put a car in, instead we have a mini makeshift living room out in the garage and I love leaving the door open, feeling the breeze, and watching some of my early bird neighbors go on their weekend morning walks. People around here are pretty friendly and they usually stop and wave, which is just kind of comforting.

There's really not much to our little town, so I was excited last night to see that the grocery store finally had stocked up on the Pumpkin Spice CoffeeMate. I wait all year for the seasonal creamers and the amount of joy it brings me to see them on the cooler shelf is nothing short of a kid in a candy store.

This morning is beautiful and I'm really looking forward to putting up all the Halloween decorations later. We have to run to the store in a little bit out in Merrillville, but when we get home it will be time to pull down the buckets and unleash the fall festivities.

I have amassed a decent collection, though I don't feel you can ever really have enough. I've got creepy trees, pumpkin lanterns, strings of Halloween lights for the house, glowing signs, and howling ghouls. Even though we're really the only house around that goes all out, when October rolls around, I'm ready!