not so dreary deery

battling the case of the sickies here in our house. had time to make this card this morning while brandon was back in school. he missed school monday. he had a fever thursday-friday. then he was ok saturday & sunday. sunday night, he had a hard time sleeping----he was wheezy & starting to cough. took him to the pediatrician monday and waited most of the morning there for our appointment. still dunno what he has exactly---comes & goes. but the MD gave him the go ahead to return to school tuesday. apparently, whatever he has is not contagious. i hope it just goes. now, i have the case of the sniffles and bryan is telling me his tummy hurts. hate this time of year...............

happy halloween

loving the pics of the boys from the pumpkin farm! such a beautiful backdrop!

so here are my cards i made for brandon's kinder class----ALL 35! like my cupcake holder? funny---i don't think i'll ever really use it for cupcakes since i don't really like to cook/bake. don't get me wrong, i'll never turn down a yummy cupcake! but thanks to my hubs for getting me this perfect cupcake holder! :-)

these were very quick & easy to do---really. even to my non-crafty friends, these were fast & easy to make.

cards and halloween treat bags all ready for brandon's class.

more of those treat jars filled with halloween colored M&M's, regular candy corn (boring) and caramel candy corn (fun). bryan has his eyes set on the M&M's. i still have some left over so he may just get lucky if he's a good boy!

happy halloween to all! brandon broke out in a high fever (103) thursday night. hope he isn't going to be sick. poor thing keeps waking up, tossing & turning. hard to see your baby sick.........

***some of you emailed & asked what was in the treat bag & the paper used***

besides the pencil, halloween card & bat/spider rings, a little individual fun dip was inside. (one of my fave candy growing up except i really didn't care for the flavored powder sugar---i liked the stick the best!) the mini cards fit perfectly hanging outside each treat bag.

paper used were from the dollar section from target. treat bags were also from there.

die cuts from K&Co.

s m i l e

just sharing some crafty things that i've been up to in between school, work, swimming, play dates, housework, naptime and staying up late :-)
love bryan's smile----i can tell him to say cheese and it'll still be a natural smile (unlike big bro's!).

some treat jars for teachers, the crossing guard, swim teacher and friends. looks familiar? it's a starbucks frappachino bottle recyclyed & run through the dishwasher. the lables on those bottles come off so easily! i drink waaay to many of those on days i cannot get a "real" coffee! i made a few others that i will post later. this one is filled entirely of M&Ms---almost a whole big bag (9oz.). that was the 1st one i did. the next ones i did were filled with other candies--candy corn as a filler. i got these caramel candy corn because they were all out of the regular candy corn [go figure] but those caramel ones are actually VERY yummy!

some mass produced halloween cards. they are mini sized, quick & easy!

a lolli flower thank you card

this is a birthday card for brandon's kinder teacher. her birthday s on oct. 30th.

back with more halloween goodness friday maybe?? i'll see if i get around to it!

pumpkin patch

sharing some pictures from the beginning of the month when we went to visit a farm. the kids got to pick their own pumpkins right off the vine! such a huge place! below is a picture of brandon picking carrots. there are areas there where you can pick your own vegetables.

here, the boys are picking string beans.

here is an oinion......

fun cutouts of veggies

nice big splat of bird poo on that poor pumpkin. obviously, we passed on that one!

brandon thought the faces on veggies he eats were hilarious!

his signature silly face!

here are the pumpkins we chose. i talked brandon into picking a pumpkin with a little green in it like mine. it ws so pretty with swirly designs. little did i know-----the green disappeared a week after we got it home. :-(

look at bryan's itty bitty pumpkin!

such a fun day! look at the endless sea of pumpkins! this was just a small area we were at. we were too lazy to walk to the other patches of pumpkins.

the boys enjoyed running around the farm. brandon is happily holding his bag of veggies while i was not happily juggling 3 pumpkins.

brandon's 5th birthday

i cannot believe brandon turned the "big 5"! he's been so excited weeks before his birthday. the morning of the party, he got dressed all by himself. i had something i had set aside for him to wear BUT he insisted that he wanted to wear what he had picked out by himself. such a big boy now! he had a great time! we had his party on 10/10 (his actual birthday is 10/11). i had a dilema on which friends of his to invite now that he is in school. if i invite a few friends from his class, i potentially can hurt feelings when word gets around to the kids that weren't invited. so i just invited his friends from preschool and that was enough to make his party special. below is a picture of the boys.

do you recognize this guy? his wife went to school with eddie. they have the cutest family---twin girls that are 7 (or 6?) and another set of twins, a boy & a girl, almost 1 yrs old. incidently, there were a lot of twins at this party---my BIL, half of a twin and one of brandon's friend had little twin brothers there too.

(click photo for a larger view)

we had a caricature artist come to draw pictures of all the guests. fun drawings came out. i should have taken pictures of everybody's caricature but was too busy running around that i forgot. i will at least take pics of ours to show at a later blog post. great idea for something to give in place of the usual goodie bag.

thanks to my family who flew in from SF to help celebrate and my cousins for securing the park for us.

9 layer flower

made this card for someone very special who shall remain nameless...........just turned 40! love this paper from sassafras! made a 9 layer lolliflower!

raining here. kinda like taking my time when the weather is like this. just time to sit back & relax a little after a busy few weeks.

busy busy busy

it's been a while since i last posted. it has been so busy here. since brandon started school, it's been working on homework & reading daily. he's having fun in kindergarten but having the attention span of a kindergartner when we work on his writing and worksheets.

i had him help me me with this layout........his writing has improved dramatically since the start of school.

some cards i've made. i've given up a huge chunk of my craft time to work with brandon. i miss it but i know in the long run, it'll be so beneficial in his many years of school.

love this picture of him from the 1st day of school.this is brandon from halloween night 2006 (he had just turned 2) some tags made from vintage children's books

no---nothing happened to bryan. we didn't have a real emergency that he needed to ride the ambulance. last weekend, we got to go to the OC fire authority open house. what a treat for the boys! they got to ride on a fire truck, sit in different trucks, hop on fire ambulances, climb on them, press lots of noisy buttons, get to spray a fire hose, pick up lots of goodies (AKA junk to mom) and have a free lunch there. we are pretty lucky that we live 5 minutes from this place. all the firemen were so nice and took their time talking to the boys & showing them their equipment. here where we live, fires are so present during the end of summer months and throughout october. we really appreciate these firefighters risking their lives everyday for us. thank you! (click onto the picture collage for a larger view and ladies, you can thank my hubby whom i made go back to take a picture of the hunky fireman for me, um, i mean for you :-)

it'll be a busy weekend for us again. it's brandon's 5th birthday this sunday (10/11) and i have my mom & dad, sister & BIL flying in to help us celebrate! we have his party on saturday and i've been busy planning that too. so stressful planning a party this year. first, it was debating if i should invite brandon's whole kinder class but then, that'll be A LOT of kiddos so i decided not to. i selected a handful of friends of his that we have playdates with and also some of his preschool buddies. then i was stressing over food, decorations, cake or no cake, time, place, etc........ you moms know what i'm talking about! cross your fingers that all goes well this weekend!