My Halloween Fancies

In what has to be latest blogger Halloween house show-off, I'm finally here with my Halloween house pizazz. I kept thinking I would add cutesy things here and there but I never got around to it and boom, tomorrow is Halloween. So here is this year's set-up...

Since becoming a parent and having the control of my house's appearance ripped from my grip, I've had to change the way I decorate. I now focus on the dining room. This is a no-toy room for the most part. It's always neat and clean. I can decorate with the fancies in here and no one bugs them. Since I have no money for extraneous Halloween decor these days, I went the free printable label route. I searched for free halloween printables on Pinterest and found a plethora. These were my fave.

A few labels, some double sided tape and my normal jars and cloches = instacreepy tablescape.

My little dry sink is always fun yet challenging to decorate. I decided to make a little bar-set up with more bottles and labels then put a cloche on a bird and called it a day.

This is sort of where my plans fell flat. I found these anatomical images online, printed them up and taped them to the old window I used in Gabe's birthday dessert table. I love how it looks. But I think it would look better if I had some beakers and test tubes and other creepy scientific things, right? Maybe some old books and spiderwebs? I guess there's always next year.

For the back of the house, I went pretty darn minimal. Another printable banner on the oft-neglected chalkboard wall...

I also made a few black buffalo check pillow covers to add to my new Target herringbone pillows. Ten bucks on clearance yo.

  

I added a couple little white pumpkins to the mini stool I bought at Michael's gift shoppe. These are Gabe's fave. And my Boo sign that I mistake for Bod every single time I look at it. Then I think of that terrible men's cologne spray, Bod. The one they show at Christmas? I don't know why I keep putting out the Bod sign.

 

Then there's our back step, which is our main entrance. I threw up a dollar store spiderweb, some undecorated (you hear that Pinterest?!? UNDECORATED) craft pumpkins and a cauldron filled with dollar store goodies, inspired by this one. A pot of purple mums and my mom's angel statue, who now looks creepy, rounds out my outdoor decor.

 

As much as I love this holiday, I'll never be the insane, over the top but awesome family that does the whole coffin in the front yard or haunted house thing. Plus, I took Gabe to the costume store this past weekend and the poor lil guy was so scared. Those terrifying animatronic severed heads all over the place had him clinging to me so tight. I'll obviously be keeping the decor kid friendly and sparse for awhile. Maybe some day, we'll do it up Dunphy style.

Avoid the Clap

Finally, after taking a lame two years off from dressing up, we were back at it again this year for my friend Lisa's Halloween party. John and I obviously went two different directions here...

My friend Adrienne and I whipped up some Rockford Peach costumes so that we could be Doris and All the Way Mae from A League of Their Own. We lobbied really hard for John to be Stillwell Angel but it was a no-go. He would rather dress as the Heat Miser. Of course, after these pictures, he took off the nose. Of course, the rest of the night I would yell drunkenly across the room "Put your effing nose on!". He loved that, I'm sure of it.

I had really hoped to sing "We're the members of the All American team..." more than twice but apparently people would rather hear impressions of Marla Hooch, doing "It Had to be You". Which really, is just effing funny. 

And of course, my friends bring it. Because they always do. 

A little Under Pressure with David Bowie and Freddie Mercury!

The Morton Salt girl!

The Naked Cowboy!

70's Prom Couple with traveling background!

They're all so freakin creative, I love it.

But guess who walked away with Best Costume? These girls! *points to picture above*

I was shocked. And drunk on sweet tea vodka and water, my new fave. But mostly shocked.  See, you can buy a LOTO costume from any costume shoppe but apparently all the reviews say that the dresses are bubble gum pink. And that just wouldn't do. They were peaches for cripes sake! So we bought white cotton and dyed yards and yards of it to get the perfect shade of peach. Worth it.

Oh, thanks for putting your effing nose on ;)

I had the best time hanging out with all my friends again, drinking too much, acting like a loon, having the world's smallest dance party and finally getting back into the best part of the holiday, the freaking costumes. Now if this g-damn hurricane can get in and get out without too much damage, we can move on to Halloween day so Gabe can rock his costume without a rain-out. Word on the street is that Sandy is going to be way worse than last summer's Irene so I have a feeling I'm going to be internet-less without power for a bit. If you're in Sandy's path, be safe!

Also, big Happy Birthdays to my milky ha-white Mae, Adrienne!

Random Words Surrounding Pics I Like of Myself

Honestly is the best policy.

Life has been a bit boring lately. Not not busy but the things that are keeping me occupied aren't overly interesting. Things like...

- my most favorite dentist, the Hot Jesus-look-alike, has decided to stop taking our insurance. So I need to find a new dentist. This is the most boring task ever. And I know I'll never find another pony-tailed, hippie dentist so I don't want to even try.

- Halloween costume hunting. It's essentially awesome but the running here and there to pick up random things gets a little tiresome. But we've got some good costumes going and I just want Halloween to get here so we can put them to use.

- forced fall activities. You know, the pumpkin patch, the parade, the cider drinking, all of those photo ops waiting to happen. I know I'll never regret getting my ass together, maybe slapping on some eyeliner and getting out the door. But man, sometimes I just wanna wear my pj's until 2pm like I used to.

Oh yeah, insert pumpkin patch picture here...

I think Gabe would have rather we stayed home too. Not the happiest punkin picker on the farm.

- thinking and overthinking my blog. I want to put more into it. I want content other than the kiddo. It just keeps getting pushed lower on the priority list. I don't think people realize how much work it takes to do projects, photograph them, edit them, blog them and then promote them. And man, it just doesn't pay me enough to get my full focus, ya know? And I'm a full-fledged victim of Pinterest. I get paralyzed by feeling like I don't have good enough crafts/recipes/ideas/whatever to blog about. If I don't have a fancy pinnable picture to slap a fancy font on, then what's the point? Plus, everything's been done before. Do we really need more? Then I realize that of course we do, we always need more, right? So I'll still try to keep doing it.

- getting out on a date night here and there. We headed to a Halloween party sans costumes because darn it, they weren't ready! And I'm not about to half-ass it. So we went as lame. Or as fruit stripe gum. Whichever.

 - I also headed out to my uncle's yearly charity benefit. He is the President of the Blind Relief Fund of Philadelphia and they put on a fantastic party each year. My mom always takes me as her date but we never seem to get any pictures before we're sloppy drunk. Luckily, an Instagram filter gave me self confidence before I arrived.

So I think that's about it. What are your thoughts on these matters? Feel free to express your condolences on my breakup with Dr. Hot Jesus-look-alike.

I Don't Think People Believe Me...

when I tell them I really did just throw this together. This stuff is literally hanging out in my kitchen/pantry and why put chips and salsa in a designated chip/salsa bowl when you can make that shizz cute in an apple basket. Ok, I'm lying a bit, I did put in a tad bit of effort for Gabe's first bonfire because we invited our neighbors, whose children are the middle-schoolers that Gabe hangs with. We are just getting to know these peeps and everyone knows that my strong suit is not mature conversation skills. My skill is making shizz cute.

 

 

I really do have such a hard time having normal conversations, especially with people that are older than me. My go-to is being stupid or attempting to be funny, which a lot of times ends with me being stupid. And if I'm sober? Forget about it. Send me over to the tween section, that's where I belong.

Since we're new to this whole parenting gig, I don't know all the rules that go along with having a kid with grown ass friends, ya know? Like, I told the one friend he could come to the pumpkin patch with us and he got all excited but it wasn't until I woke up that morning did I think that maybe I should call his mom and ask her? I have to do these things now? Luckily I warned them that they are my trial and error parent friends and not to hold it against me.

So we grabbed some hard cider, some marshmallows and some hot dogs and invited the kids and their parents over. And although I spent most of the time following Gabe around and keeping him 36 feet from the fire, we managed to have a fantastic night around the firepit.

 

Oh, did you meet my own tween? This is Gabe.

And these are his friends. Funny, clever boys who give me hope that not all middle school boys are the devil's spawn. Because I seriously thought they were. So thanks dudes. And thanks for thinking my toddler is the bees knees.

 

Just chillin with mah friends Ma.

Big Kid Birthday

Since we're not members of any organized mom groups, preschools or things like that (meaning we have no big groups of tiny friends), we're not yet jaded by the inevitable constant birthday party loop. The constant last minute buying of presents The spending your Saturdays eating crappy pizza and drinking fruit punch out of tiny paper cups. The mingling with other parents that you don't know but trade pleasantries with just because they're there. We know it's coming but we're just getting started. In fact, Gabe went to his first outside-the-home big kid birthday party this weekend. We all went because it was for John's bff's daughter. And thank jeebs, John went too, because I was achy and miserable so he got to be the one to get Gabe used to the big inflatable slides.

Sometimes I think he belongs in a JC Penney ad.

Maybe John too. Especially in this pose.

 

In no time, he was an old pro. I, on the other hand, have to duct tape my mouth shut so I don't go off children that aren't my own that don't know how to go down a slide without taking out 3 other kids.

Pause here to witness me dying.

Of the cuteness. Oh man.

 

This kid ran himself ragged. So ragged that his cheeks for all red and everyone commented that he sure would nap well. Well he didn't nap at all so thanks for jinxing us, a-holes.

Pizza's good, Mom.

This was just the start of our weekend full of fall family fun. Or is it family fall fun? Either way, I'm sure you haven't gotten your fill of kids in pumpkin patches yet. I'm sure your FB feed isn't full of them. Stay tuned for one more.

Oh and the winner of the Shutterfly giveaway was announced here!

Fall Blog Sale! Woot!

In the annual summer to fall closet-pick-through, I realized I have a lot of shit I don't want. I have this serious problem of buying things, wearing them once or twice and casting them aside. I think this is why I don't actually mind shopping at Old Navy and Target. The "experts" always tell you to invest in classic ($$$) pieces and spend less on trends. Well that's no fun. What if I get bored of my classic pieces? I like variety in my clothes and wouldn't wear the same khaki trench or pair of trouser jeans or a LBD every season if my life depended on it. All of those things are things women's magazines tell you that you must own, right? Usually in cute little collages surrounding a cute little cartoon gal about town. Well I'm no gal about town so I'll keep buying cheap crap, wearing it once then hoping you want to buy it. Deal?

Same deal as last time, if you want an item, you MUST send me an email telling me so & let me know EXACTLY which item(s) you want, along with a paypal email address to ohshannanigans at gmail.com. I will then send you an invoice (from my Bottle Pop account FYI) and mark the item as sale pending. Items must be paid for within 24 hours or the item will go to the next person in line. I'll ship once a week until everything is sold. Shipping will be a flat $5. Sales are final. I will combine shipping & will only raise costs if the items need to be shipped in a bigger box, which increases postal fees. I prefer to ship within the U.S. only. Apologies to my international readers. Also, apologies for my lack of ironing.

SOLD

I wore this dress to Gabe's Baptism, so technically it's blessed. And holy. And in no way makes you look like you have Muppet boobs.

SOLD

SOLD

SOLD

 I wore this sweater above with the skirt below and thought it was an adorbs little outfit. You will too.

SOLD

SOLD

SOLD

I wore this sparkly light sweater to one of my most favorite dinners that ever did happen.

SOLD

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SOLD

 I got drunk in this sweater vest on the first night of Always Bloggy in Phildelphia, around the campfire. It's a very campfire type vest, doncha think?

SOLD

SOLD

And now the part that makes me happy to finally get rid of and yet sad because it was Gabe's first nursh...In the end, my fear of hoarding wins out.

If you have one on the way or know someone who wants a cute little birdie theme, here's a darn good start. This is a one shot deal, I won't split up the items. The Three Little Birds Nursery package includes (clockwise):

- Set of 3 DIY Canvas Wall Hangings

-Vinyl Bird Decals in Red and Orange, never used

- White Storage Bin with aqua liner

- Red Birdcage Wall Hook

- DIY garland

- DIY felt bird pillow cover (12 x 12) insert not included

- 2 Anthro Polka Dot Drawer Pulls

- Not Shown (Fabric I used for crib skirt) 

See all close-ups and details in the nursh posts here. If you're interested, make me a reasonable offer!

Thanks guys!