Happy Halloween!

We hope you have a wonderful Halloween full of lots of magic, make-believe and not too scary frights!

The Queen of Everything!

I have adopted my mother's philosophy and at least for today, my birthday, I am the queen of everything! (Tomorrow I go back to cleaning toliets and doing laundry!)

**thanks again Miss Vanessa for giving me pretend pink hair!

Happy Birthday Circe!!!

I just got back from lunch with my girls, well actually just three of them who could get away quickly today. I am so happy to be back were I can so easily hang out with my friends from childhood. Today we were having lunch to celebrate three of us having birthdays. I am really lucky, one of my best friends Circe and I almost share a birthday. Hers is today and mine is tomorrow. We have been sharing our birthdays since we were about nine. I don't know about her, but I have always felt like it made my birthday better and last longer. I think there were probably a few scheduling tricks when we were kids but I don't really remember them. I just know I have always loved being birthday "twins" with her. She is such an amazing friend. I love the laid back way she juggles five kids, teaches ballet, supervises the music and other lessons of her kids and just has a ball doing it. Blogging has added to our friendship I think. I never knew what a great writer she is. She is so funny and profound. So if you are looking for a fun new place to link to, go on over and wish my "birthday twin" Happy Birthday

A New Pippi Longstocking!!

Yes you read right, there is a new edition of Pippi Longstocking! Okay, it isn't really that new, it came out last year but it was new to us. The best part is that one of our favorite illustrators was involved and this edition is so full of funny, wonderful Lauren Child creations it will make you do the happy dance. Or at least give you a big ole smile! I am actually not that big a fan of Pippi, but I loved this book!

The Lovely Miss Eveline

I just have to show you the amazing new friend that was waiting for me when I arrived at my parents house! I signed up for a couple of Halloween swaps before I knew my life was going to blow up. I am so glad now that I did! Look at the amazing doll I received from Amelia from Sweetbfolkart.blogspot.com. She is so amazing! My mom and I are both in love with her. I think her name is Eveline. She is very refined, and just adores a good Halloween ball. She is dressed so beautifully in a Halloween ballgown. I just adore her Amelia! Thank you so much! I had to borrow Amelia's picture because my camera cable is somewhere in a warehouse because I failed to keep it out of the packers path.

**In moving news, we are pretty well settled at my amazingly generous parents' home. Lucky for us they have enough bedrooms in their basement for us and my kids sleep better here than anywhere on earth. I got them started in their old school yesterday and it did feel a lot like coming home. They both managed to get in the same classes as old friends so that is helping the adjustment a lot. Joshua is having a ball in my mom's playroom and out on her patio. Matthew has been playing with neighbor boys every night, something he never had in CA. He doesn't understand why we have to move at all, why can't we just stay here?

We just lowered the price on the house, and are hoping with the slightly more stable Stock Market we will sell it soon. We have had some fun looking around at houses here though. I am hoping to make more regular rounds in blogland now that the kids are in school and I have figured out how to work William's laptop! Oh, and I ordered a new camera cable so hopefully there will be pictures again soon!

I love Doris Day!

Okay, here is a bit of a confession for you. I love to read celebrity autobiographies on occasion. I don't know why I am a tad bit embarrassed by this guilty pleasure, I guess somehow I am afraid it lumps me with the supporters of the paparazzi. I do prefer autobiographies, my rational is that if they wrote about their lives they are basically inviting me in, right? Although I must honestly admit that I will on occasion read a biography too, but I always feel like I more accurately get to understand a person when they are the contributor. Probably more accurate too. My very favorites are actors and actresses from Hollywood's golden age. I adored Katherine Hepburn and Audrey Hepburn's books. I really enjoyed this one too. I have always loved Doris Day, Pillow Talk is a major fixture of my growing up memories. She definitely one of the actresses responsible for my love of old movies. I really enjoyed her book too. I was written about thirty years ago. She was very honest and frank I felt, not trying to glitz up her "image", a word she says she hates. Somehow it is always a bit of a comfort to remember that everyone, even beautiful, funny, lovely Hollywood people have problems. Sometimes lots of them. But what I enjoyed was that this wasn't a "woe -is-me" book. It really was about surviving some really awful things, sometimes having a terrible time getting through them, and then still staying that lovely, lite-up lady that was so fun to watch!

Vanessa's Halloween Party!

The wonderful, beautiful and magical Miss Vanessa is hosting a wonderful Halloween soiree today in blogland! Be sure not to miss it, she throws the best parties! Because I am sort of in limbo I thought it might be okay to re-post a couple of my favorite things from last year.

My kids and I had a great time making a Halloween tree. This is just a couple of branches that were vitims of Fall pruning that I tied together and spray painted silver then stuck in a pot with a couple of bricks for support.

Then the kids and I made loads of ornaments. We hope to do this again next year.

This is a fun tradition my kids love. Every year I add new pictures of them in their Halloween costumes. It is lots of fun to see how they have changed and remember all the fun we have had with other costumes.

Now go eat some candy over at Vanessa's and have a wonderful Halloween this year!

Our little Puppy!

Mr. Joshua, the puppy! Joshua loves to pretend to be a puppy, it is really amazing how good he is at it considering he is really not around dogs at all. So we thought it would be perfect to dress him up like a puppy this year. Unfortunately convincing a two year old to do anything that is not on their personal agenda is never easy.



This is the perfect picture though. Can't you just hear him howling?



What a cute pup!



How did we get him to participate happily? Lots of brown (puppy colored) skittles!



Oh look Marie Antoinette has a new dog!

Goodbye Bay Area!

Goodbye you lovely place! We have so enjoyed our time here!
We will miss your lovely bridges.

And your blue skies.

We have had such great adventures exploring your forests

And your beautiful beaches.

We have met some wonderful creatures and people too.

Oh, we will miss you!

Watch out Utah, here we come!

Little Boy Heaven

Is there anything better for a two year old boy than getting to watch one of these pull up to your house?!

Do you want your own Spider-man?

This is one of the kids favorite, messy activities. I give them a ball of yarn and the make a web up and down the staircase.




Good fun!

Last Year's Halloween

Our California Friendds

We are almost outta here!

So this is what our house looks like now!

Hope the kids don't have nightmares about the box monster getting them!

Don't you like what we have done with the family room?

Look how big my closet is now!

**For those of you I may not have told, we are heading out of here even though the house has not sold (let's hope the financial world straightens around soon!). William's new job starts Monday and we decided it would be easier to sell an empty, always-clean house. We will be staying with the best grandparents ever until either the house sells or we find something to rent. Thanks for all the good thoughts and prayers!

Watch out for Count Dracula!

Here is Matthew in his costume this year! This is really our first attempt at something scary. He has always been a super-hero of some sort in the past. I was pretty okay with Count Dracula, I mean at least he is a Count and that is sort of classy.
He had very specific needs for this costume. The hair had to be black and he had to have black eyebrows too. And there had to be blood coming from his mouth. Aaah, the wonder of colored hairspray!

Can you believe this fierce creature is ...

This sweet boy?

Watch out! He is after Marie Antoinette!

Halloween Swaps

Okay, so I realize there are about a hundred things that I should be doing that are more important than blogging but I just can't give it up yet! I am afraid I will definitely slow down on my posts after the move next week. We are going to stay with my parents while we are in between houses or until we find a rental and I won't have my computer. So I will probably visit a lot still but it will harder for me to post since the parents don't have high speed and I don't want to clog their computer up with my pictures. So it is blog while you can around here! I may do some predated post though. Anyway, after that long explanation, I thought I would show the swaps I signed up for without imagining that my life would explode into chaos in October. I am glad I did them though, they were lots of fun. I haven't received mine yet, I had my partners send them to my parents so I could still enjoy them without having to pack them.

She was for a Halloween doll swap

Another for a Halloween doll swap. She got to go to Australia lucky girl.

And this was for a Autumn swap.
I am too brain dead to link you to the hosts, just trust me that they were lovely girls and really created a lot of Fall fun!

Creating Marie Antoinette

Okay, say you are moving in less than a week. Just exactly what would you spend your day doing? Well, crazy person that I am I spent the day turning Brittany into Marie Antoinette. Yep, my nine year old had the ultimate in big hair. Here is what happened. We love Halloween around here. Every year I make the kids costumes, take their pictures and then send out Halloween cards to all our friends and family. It is one of my favorite traditions. And the fact that we are moving smack in the middle of one of my favorite months just doesn't seem like a good enough reason to abandon the tradition this year. Now, coming up with the plan to do Marie Antoinette may not have been my smartest move but I have to say, I think this is my favorite costume I have ever made and that includes the year she was a rosebud. You have to admit the hair absolutely makes the whole thing and is probably the reason I am blogging about this now. I was too proud of myself to wait until the actual holiday. Thank you tutorial on Youtube. I do realize that Marie may not have worn this dark a shade of purple but you have to allow a nine year old a little license. I am going to add a bigger slip after the move I think too.

What do you think? Anybody having a costume contest? I really think she could win! Oh, and just wait until you see the other two!

Shop Closing

The Ginghamworld Etsy Shop will be closing on Thursday October 11 at 3 p.m. I hope to open it sometime before Christmas but it will depend on when I am able to have access to my inventory again. Thanks so much for your support this year, it has been so fun!

Sunday Update

Okay, brace yourselves this is a long post!


So yesterday we had to be out of the house so it could spend the day showing its pretty self off to prospective new owners. Since this is probably our last weekend to do something fun we decided to strike out an head for Monterey Bay. It is about two hours from us but we have really wanted to see the big Aquarium there. Boy are we glad we did!

This is what my kids would look like if they were the children of King Tritan (doesn't this remind you of the scene in the Little Mermaid where the sisters are singing?)

This is what they would look like if they hatched like turtles.



Watch out there is a wave crashing over my kids!






Don't worry, we didn't let the killer whale eat Matthew!


Brittany loved the cute sea otters and I think this one like her too, it kept coming right by the glass.

These are the close ups of the little creatures I couldn't resist taking. The ones of the large tanks were too dark to turn out well.



I can't remember what this kind of anemone was called but I thought they were so lovely.






Did you have any idea this is what sand dollars look like when they are still alive? Purple! Who knew?






Of course I had to try and capture all the pinks.






If you look really close you can see the little sea horses!






Beautiful jelly fish! Oh, how I wish I could have a wall of these in my house. They were so calming to watch, my kids could hardly tear themselves away.



After the rather pricey aquarium we went here.





This place was FREE and my kids went nuts. I think they liked it at least as well as the aquarium but were kind enough to pretend otherwise.





I can't remember for sure but I think the creator of Dennis the Menace was from Monterey and that is why they have this park. It was pretty funny, William has always said both our boys have certain resemblance to Dennis. What do you think?





It was an amazing park with an old train engine to climb on.







An enormous bridge, mazes and loads of playground equipment.



It was a lovely day and a grand last adventure for our family here in the Bay area.
Boy are we going to miss this!