bows, bows, and more bows!

so instead of going to bed at 8 o'clock (as i should have) i stayed up hot gluing bows... a lot of them! my fingertips are killing me, but they are really damn cute!here are some of the christmas-y bows

and here are a bunch of different ones... i have a bunch more to make. i HAD to finally go to bed though... hopefully chippy will sleep tonight.

tomorrow i will (hopefully) be attempting the traveling art show pattern that i bought from josie at mr monkeysuit. i'm REALLY excited to give it a try... good night ya'll

oh yeah, and i just want to give a shout out to my schmidty... ps, you're an ass! :)

for real...

so i'm still going on virtually NO sleep... but i'm NOT complaining anymore. i am NOT going to complain about the fact that the steroids that carter is on to help him breathe at night is also keeping him up all night... i'm NOT complaining.

instead, i'm sharing this picture... "Anti Monkey Butt Powder". seriously, this is real stuff! i saw it yesterday in rite aid as carter and i wandered around waiting for his anti sleep medication... i mean breathing medication. it made me giggle... and continues to do so. so tonight when i'm still up at 2:30 with a kid who is WIDE AWAKE from his medicine, i will think of the anti monkey butt powder and (hopefully) giggle. :)

things happen in 3s :(

so this post is very atypical, i need to bitch for minute. although i have been doing a bit of sewing (mostly wallets and checkbook covers) i have no pictures at this point in time. it has been a CRAZY week!

first let me say that the ellicottville beer and wine fest was great! it was more spread out this year and i enjoyed a plethora of delicious beers! the only negative was the cup. yeah, i said cup. the past 3 years that we have gone, you got a sweet glass to use for tastings, and then bring home and remind you of your fun all year long. this year, you got a cheap little plastic cup... it was so lame!

then there was veteran's day... like a moron, i scheduled carter's 2 year check up, an eye dr appointment for me, and clay's dentist appointment. i ended up running around all day like a chicken with her head lopped off. then my sister called because my brother in law had an accident and hit his head in the garage... i then acquired her kids for a bit (which TOTALLY fires clay up!) he's fine, but it was a little hairy for a while there.

school was crazy yesterday... a LOT of substitute teachers= crazy kids! then last night carter had a little cough... which once he went to bed developed into a NASTY croup. yeah, so we ended up in the emergency room until 2am while he got a shot of steroids and a breathing treatment.

then, clay missed his bus this morning... WILL IT EVER END??? which brings me to this weekend... opening weekend for shotgun. UGH! all i know is that gerry better get a BIG deer this weekend and make it worth while!

ok, i'm sorry... i'm done complaining. but things happen in 3s... i'm just wondering if clay missing the bus was the 3rd thing, or if i should be looking out for something else! :(

quite possibly the worst pictures ever... but i'm too excited! and this post is ALL OVER THE PLACE!!!

so i discovered a new project... check book covers! after picking carter up from the baby sitter's house today, we went to get him a haircut. seriously, i LOVE when his hair is longer... he has such fabulous curls. but he really looked like a mad scientist! his hair was completely out of control!

anyhoo, after his haircut, he and i went on a dinner date. he was so good... he had a hot dog, i had a burger and some delicious french onion soup. ps, i LOVE french onion soup and have decided that i have to give it a whirl and try to make my own (one of these days!) well after dinner, we were a hop skip and a jump (and a 47 second car ride) from tina's house. so i called her (as i pulled in the driveway) to see if she wanted visitors...

so after carter and i sat at the dinner table with them as they ate their dinner (which i was too busy to ask exactly what it was... you never know at their house, andrew cooks up some interesting stuff sometimes!) i took a stroll into tina's craft room. i drooled... a lot! fabric... bags... little girl's dresses... bibs... key fobs... and check book covers to name a few. well, the check book cover seemed far to easy... so i had to check it out.

tina emailed me a link to a tutorial... really i just needed the measurements- they are THAT easy!!! so what did i do? i came home and made 5 of them! these pictures suck (gerry has the real camera with him at our property JUST IN CASE he gets another deer) but you get the idea. i'm so happy with them... they are easy, and i think really damn cute! so then i (obsessively) cut out 6 more, along with 12 matching/coordinating wallets.

by the way... i'm going to be selling my stuff at an event at my former high school in december. sunday december 14th (the day after my mom's 59th birthday!) there will be family fun day held at frontier high school. they are having games, movies, crafts for kids to do, food, and vendors! my sister (selling jewelry), tina and i are all going to be vendors there... it is to benefit buffalo for africa. check out buffalo for africa, and stayed tuned for more details about the family fun day... i need to go to bed now.

here is chippy after his haircut... he looks so old with short hair!!!

oh yeah, and tomorrow is the ellicottville beer and wine festival... yeah, needless to say, i'm SUPER excited! :)

crappy pictures... and who has NOT seen pulp fiction???

so last night was a hoot... but do you know how many people have not seen pulp fiction? i had no idea! the people who have seen pulp fiction knew my costume right away and gave me big time props... other people would say, "what are you?" when i told them they would say, "oh i never saw pulp fiction" to which i replied "seriously? who HASN'T seen pulp fiction?"

anyhoo, how creepy am i in black hair? and lipstick??? i am SO NOT a lipstick wearer... it was a strange and annoying feeling. so yeah, i got a sweet wig from "that hair store on bailey" thatso many of my students told me to go to. it was actually a pretty good wig, people thought i had dyed my hair! yikes!!! it was definately a strange feeling though... i can't imagine wearing those things all the time!

my favorite part (and the favorite part of people who knew what the hell i was) was the red marker spot and the syringe. i used one of the syringes that i use for the kid's medicine that you get from the pharmacy... i had intended on gluing it to my chest, but didn't think super glue was a good idea- nothing else would hold. so i just crammed it in my... storage compartment. :)

these are our friends greg and dave (really brothers) as the blues brothers... ps that is greg's real hair on those chops... you can't see them too good in these pictures, but they were hysterical!

and here are my sister (a gothic fairy) and sister in law (a red devil) whooping it up on the dance floor... my pictures suck because they are from my phone. i will post better pictures if any of my peeps have any...

and then on a completely different note, here is clay. he was out at our property hunting with his dad and his poppy. he got all camo-ed up to go in poppy's treestand...

just as a footnote: if you notice how flippin fat my face looks in that top picture, just know that it is NOT just the camera!!! i am right now at my lifetime highest weight... EEKS!!! and tomorrow starts the big fight. diet and exercise start tomorrow... for real! i plan on losing 10 pounds before my birthday (novemeber 26th). i'm serious... it's getting disgusting! so, from here on out if my posts seem a little crabby, that's why... i'm crabby when i'm hungry! :)

a mummy and a giraffe

so trick or treating went very well tonight!!! last year, clay was totally overstimulated and didn't want to trick or treat AT ALL! what ended up happening was that gerry and i got thoroughly aggravated and practically dragged him house to house. last year's halloween=NO fun!
then there was this year... the boys were so excited and loved every minute of it! since we live in the boonies, we drove into town, parked the cars, and walked around. clay was loving it so much he actually said "this is great! i wasn't thinking with my brain last year!" he is too funny sometimes...

here is his mummy costume... it looked awesome when he went to school today. then he jacked it all up at their "dance party" and took all his cheesecloth wrappings off... and left them in his desk! thank goodness i had bought a bit more yesterday "just in case". so his mummy wrappings are not what they were supposed to be, but oh well... i need to learn to relax a bit.
chippy was a giraffe... a costume my mom made for my nephews a few years ago. he was too funny... he would run up to the houses, get his candy, turn and show me what he got, and exclaim "lookit mom mom!" he would then run back to his stroller, climb in and wave bye to the people who just gave candy. it was so flippin cute!!!grace was a lady bug... too cute! she wasn't a huge fan of trick or treating... she went through spurts of excitement, followed by fits of rage. but she looked so damn cute! can you even stand the pigtails? i LOVE them!

oh yeah, and notice the candy bag? i made it in 13 minutes before we left because i realized that i had never gotten/made them bags! duh!

well, tomorrow night is the night... all i have to do now is find a white button down and figure out how the heck i'm going to get my needle to stick to my chest. oh yeah, my anonymous commenter was right... mrs mia wallace... pulp fiction. :) just wait til you get a load of me tomorrow!!!

why is 97% of everything that happens in my life chaotic???

so eveything started out great... clay and carter were helping dig out the guts of the pumpkin and everyone was loving life.i went to work on our pumpkin... a silly face, a spider and a bat. all was great in the stead household.and then we put the (fake, battery operated) candle in and turned off all the lights... and carter started crying. by no means is he afraid of the dark, if that's what you're thinking. he just took one look at the pumpkin and started crying... hard! i'm not sure what the issue was... and clay must have found it amusing because he kept saying "look at the pumpkin carter! look!" and carter just cried louder and harder. i don't get it...

so here it is... our pumpkin and my crazy (shirtless) kids!

***FYI- an anonymous commenter guessed correctly... i'm rockin the pulp fiction costume. and by the way, i look SO FLIPPIN CREEPY with black hair! good call commenter! nice work! :)