Halloween 2014 | Traditional Layout

I have a scrappy confession to make: I don't create themed/holiday layouts very often. Or ever. I prefer to create "everyday" layouts rather than the major holidays. When I pulled out the frames from Studio Calico's Calypso kit, I instantly thought of this photo of Jack and Evan wearing their Halloween costumes. The boys were Steve and a Creeper, from Minecraft, and wore matching Minecraft tshirts while we trick-or-treated. I'm so happy with how my layout turned out, and I can add this page to my very thin "holiday" section in my albums.

I used a bunch of older Studio Calico kits and products on my layout, combining them to create a bright (and very non-Halloween) themed layout.

The red alphabet that I used for the title, and the black numbers for "2014", are part of an Ali Edwards alphabet sticker pack that I picked up a few months ago, and I've used them a lot already. They are a great size for traditional layouts and pocket style pages.

Now I need to tackle about ten years of Christmas, Thanksgiving, and birthday party photos to get all caught up. Thanks for stopping by and have a great week! 

Happy Halloween!

Evan decided a few weeks ago he wanted to be a robot, and I asked Mark to create an awesome robot costume for him. I would say Mark was successful. He received a ton of compliments & Evan loved it. The red LED lights were great, too!

Evan picked out the color for Mark to paint his robot:

How cute is that?!? We already had the silver basketball shorts & a gray t-shirt. Evan slipped the robot over his head and stuck his arms out the side. He was a bit of a hazard because he couldn't see where he was walking, but I helped guide him down the sidewalk.

My little monkey, Jack, thought Ev's costume was "very silly". Evan is sitting inside the robot... he could fit his whole body in there!

I love this picture b/c all that is visible of Evan is his left hand:

Before trick or treating around our neighborhood, we did a little trick or treating at Publix. I was expecting there to be a lot of kids, but we were the only ones.

The LED lights on Evan's costume were really bright at night. I still can't believe mark put this costume together... I am so proud of him! It looked awesome, and more than one parent said they would love to be able to create such an amazing costume.

I need to hide the candy before the kids find it in the morning... they both ate a ton of it tonight! Jack kept asking Daddy for "another treat?" and "another treat?". He is a big fan of Halloween!

Have a wonderful week!

A Monkey and a Big Brother

When I started thinking about the kids' Halloween costumes this year, and I knew I wanted Jack to be a monkey. Evan was a monkey when he was two, but he hated wearing costumes & had it on for only 10 or 15 minutes. We didn't even go door to door to trick or treat... he just wanted that darn costume off. So I put it away and figured we would use it when we had another baby. I pulled the costume out of storage last week and washed it, and today I put in on Jack just to make sure it fits. It is a perfect fit & unlike his big brother, Jack loves wearing costumes and thought being a monkey was pretty neat. He especially liked the felt banana in his pocket.

And I can't forget about this guy:

I can't get enough of those eyes and his 5-year-old smile, and how much he loves his baby brother.

Halloween 2010

We had a wonderful day on Sunday as we celebrated Halloween with some family friends. For the last two months Evan has talked non-stop about his Police Officer costume, and he was super excited to finally get to wear it trick-or-treating. I found an adorable puppy costume at Gymboree for Jack, who loved going door to door with the bid kids. He wasn't interested in holding his treat bucket or collecting candy, but he loved walking from house to house & smiling at the adults passing out candy.



















I love this picture of the boys. This was taken at a local park & it was the first time I had two fully mobile kids to look after. I realized that I can't be in two places at once & keeping track of both Ev and Jack was hard! Luckily Evan likes to play with Jack, so they were together for some of the time.



Evan had a spirit day at school today & had to wear his spirit shirt for the spirit assembly. He loves spirit day & talked my ear off about it on the drive home.






And this little guy loves going to school and dropping off/picking up Evan. He smiles at Mrs. Metz, talks to the other kids, and loves to walk the halls while we wait.

Karla Dudley is releasing a new kit tomorrow called Our Story (sold at Design House Digital). The papers are so beautiful & I love the flower sitckers and brushes.


(Supplies - Patterned paper: Our Story. White stitching: Digi Essentials. Tape: Digi Essentials 3
"Everyday" brush: Our Story. Flower sticker: Our Story. Vellum flowers: Our Story. Font: Georgia.)

Good night!

Happy Halloween!

I know I'm a little late, but we had a great Halloween & I know the Grandparents want a photo:

A Dragon & A Tiger.

My sister works for Old Navy on the West side, and she got an amazing deal on the kid's costumes this year. Evan decided to be a dragon, and Abby thought the tiger costume would be great for Jack. When Jack was born, he screeched a lot & everyone said he sounded like a tiger cub, so I agreed the costume would be perfect for him.

I wanted to do a test run to make sure everything fit & that Evan would actually wear his costume. Last year he was a monkey & hated it, so I don't have any pictures! He wore it for about 20 minutes before crying and asking to take it off.

This year, he is much happier & seems to like that his dragon has wings and can fly:

I had a couple of extra minutes yesterday before Evan needed to be picked up from pre-school, and Jack was so cute while playing with him puppy on the couch:

It has been so much fun watching Evan & Jack interact & play together the last month to 6 weeks. Jack is starting to respond to Evan & laugh when Evan laughs. It is also nice that Evan can keep Jack entertained when I need to make dinner or check on the laundry. I am trying hard to cultivate a good relationship between the boys, built on love and respect:

And a couple photos just because I think he is cute :-)

Have a blessed Sunday, friends.

Carved Pumpkin.

After the kids went to bed last night, Mark worked on carving one of our pumpkins. I wasn't surprised when he decided to carve a motorcycle:

Tonight he is going to carve our other pumpkin... on this one he is carving an airplane dropping bombs. I am so, so outnumbered in my house! My ideas of spooky houses and ghosts were vetoed and replaced with motorcycles and bomb-dropping airplanes. Oh well... at least our hamster is a girl.