Happy Halloween!

Hello everyone. I hope you are all staying warm and having a happy, spooky Halloween.

This year, {K} & {E} are going as the most original costumes ever... wait for it... Elsa and Anna from Frozen. I know you're shocked. But they love that movie so much and it's what they wanted and with the plethora of available gowns, I didn't have to sew anything so a win for me as well.

Without further ado, I hereby present Queen Elsa and Princess Anna of Arendelle!

I actually took the photos above a few days ago when we had beautiful weather instead of the snow flurries we're having today.

The pictures below are from this morning. {K} didn't want to wear a wig so we braided her hair and used a can of gold hair paint to try and make it look a bit more like Elsa's.

This is from the parade at her school:

I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween and stay warm! I think we'll hit one or two houses of nearby friends and then go to the library for indoor trick or treating. Brrr!

Halloween Fun and Deals

Hi! Things are rockin' right along here at JAKES Place. We had a great Halloween and hope you and your family did as well.

A & K carved the pumpkin that K picked out from her preschool field trip to the pumpkin patch. She colored all over it and then she and Daddy drew a face on it together. A helped her by making pilot holes and with a little bit of guidance, K carved the pumpkin mostly all on her own. Previous to that, she decorated another pumpkin with a Hello Kitty kit where she painted it black and then used foam sticker pieces for the face. I think she enjoyed both pumpkins and was proud of her creations.

E really liked her pumpkins too.

K was also in a Halloween parade at her preschool and it was adorable watching her waving to everyone and smiling at every parent who was taking pictures or videos.

I loved seeing all of the kids dressed up together. Poor Mr. Incredible wasn't too happy though.

Like last year, I hit a few stores for After Halloween Deals. I didn't get nearly as much but I did score a few cute things at 50-75% off.

The dragon costume is for E and K decided next year she wants
to be a princess. Not surprisingly, she chose a blue dress.

The cat pajamas and the Happy Halloween shirt are for E for
next year, and the monster vinyl wall decals and monster eggs
are for her third birthday party. Trust me, when I see a deal that
fits into one of my birthday themes, I snatch it up no matter how
far away that birthday is!

Lastly, E is standing constantly. My mom thinks she'll be walking by next month. I'm not so sure but if she keeps this up, she might be right!

Well that's all for now. From our home to yours, we hope you are all doing well and enjoying this hectic but awesome time of year.

After Halloween Deals

One of my favorite blogs does a "Thrifty Finds" feature where she shows you the cool things she found at various thrift stores in her area. Well, this is kind of like my version of that but it's from big chain stores and it's After-Halloween deals instead of cool thrift store finds. I waited until today to go to the stores so there was very little left but I still found some neat things that I thought would be fun to share with you.

(Sorry, it's not the best picture)

From left to right, top row: Carter's 2-piece Ladybug costume for New Baby $5.50 (down from $22.00). "Itsy Bitsy Spider" onesie for New Baby $1.25 (down from $5.00). "Here Comes Trouble" witch t-shirt for K $1.25 (down from $5.00). Cute spider knee-high socks for me $0.99 (down from $3.99).

From left to right, bottom row: Stiffened felt die-cut jack-o-lantern placemats $0.49 each (down from $1.99 each). I got three of them to stitch together to make a table runner. I'm copying off my Mom who did something similar with snowflakes for Christmas. Skeleton fake Crocs for K $1.74 (down from $6.99). Jack-o-lantern and owl glasses $0.99 each (down from $3.99 each). Glitter 3-D die-cut candelabra $1.24 (down from $4.99). I've seen these in blogland in pink and thought they were cute but I like the green a little better because it looks more "Halloween-y" to me.

Total savings from Meijer: $46.50


Animated singing/dancing puppy for K $10.49 (down from $34.99). She fell in love with this puppy the first time she saw it at the beginning of Oct. but there was no way I was spending $35.00 on it. So when we saw it again today for 70% off, I decided it was a good enough deal. The only problem with it is I've heard the same small segment of the song Bad to the Bone that it plays about 100 times today. It's really cute though. Its head moves back and forth and its ears flap up and down while it plays the music.

Total savings from Jo-Ann Fabric: $24.50


4-in-1 Carving Tool $0.59 each (down from $1.99). I bought four. Flickering pumpkin LED lights $0.89 each (down from $2.99 each). I bought four. 350 Halloween stickers $0.99 (down from $1.99). Pumpkin Scraper Scoop $2.09 (down from $6.99). I bought two.

Total savings from Michaels: $24.80


All in all I'd say it was a pretty impressive days worth of savings. Now arguably someone could say that if I didn't buy anything that I would have saved even more but what's the fun in that?!? Besides, I would have missed this little Goofball hugging her new puppy all day.

Happy Halloween!

Hello and Happy Halloween :)  This year the Bear went dressed up as Sheriff Woody from the Toy Story movies. She had a Toy Story themed third birthday party so I was able to reuse a few of the costume pieces I had bought or made for that (the vest, boots, and hat). It was actually a fairly easy costume to make and we got many compliments on it tonight. I made the holster from felt and foam craft, the belt buckle is painted cardboard, the jeans and yellow shirt were from Once Upon A Child and the red bandanna was left over from her birthday party. Unfortunately all three of us are pretty darn sick so we hit maybe a dozen houses. That still took us close to 45 minutes and it was getting pretty chilly when the sun went down. All in all though I'd say it was a successful Halloween and Bear seemed to really enjoy herself and filling her bucket.

Harvest Jamboree and StoryWalk

This past weekend we had the pleasure of taking advantage of two very fun and FREE Fall events. First up was the Harvest Jamboree that consisted of pumpkin decorating, wagon rides, kiddie mover, games, storyteller and animals for petting. K really enjoyed all of the attractions. I was hoping maybe she'd do the pony ride but no dice. However, normally K is terrified of feeding goats (and I have to say I don't blame her. They have crazy bug eyes.) But they had the sweetest most docile billy goat there and she just loved him. I even petted him too and while you would think his coat would be coarse it was actually quite soft. Who knew?

Top lt: Sitting on a big ol' pumpkin. Top rt: After decorating her own pumpkin.
Bot lt: Riding in the Kiddie Mover. Bot rt: On the wagon hayride with Daddy.

Top lt: Petting Billy the Goat. Top rt: Jumping off a rock (she'll jump off anything if given the chance.)
Bot lt: Petting a duck. Bot rt: Somebody had too much fun but Daddy provides very comfy transportation.

The next fun event we did was called StoryWalk. The local Rec Center posted pages of a book along the walking path and K would listen as we read a page and then RUN to the next page and plop down on the ground waiting for us to catch up. Along the way there were rocks to jump off, giant hills to run down and Daddy showed K how to break open Locust seed pods and then throw the seeds into the pond.

Top lt: Oh how I love that mischievous face! Top rt: Jumping off rocks.
Bot lt: Waiting for us to catch up and read to her. Bot rt: Darting off to find the next page of the book.

Top lt: Finding her own stash of Locust seed pods to throw in the pond. Top rt: Throwing the seeds into the pond.
Bot lt: My two little peas (or seeds in this case) in a pod. Bot rt: Heading home with Daddy and her new Brobee.

I'm always very impressed with how many truly fun things this town offers for FREE if only you look for them (or have a Social Event Coordinator friend like Sandy ;)

JAK's Fall Family Fun Day

On Saturday we had Fall Family Fun Day which involved going out to breakfast, picking out pumpkins, Daddy making gingerbread cookies, Mommy making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and decorating/carving the pumpkins. We were going to make caramel apples too but ended up running out of time. Maybe tomorrow...

K-Bear did really great this year. Like last year we let her use permanent markers to draw on her pumpkin but UNLIKE last year, I put the markers away immediately after she was done with them. To fill in anyone who didn't hear the story of the permanent markers from last year, I failed to put them away after she was done decorating and the next day, while A and I were upstairs hanging curtains, she managed to get the red Sharpie off the table and drew all over her face, hands, Lilly (her once-white stuffed lamb), a changing table we had disassembled to donate, and of course, the flat screen TV. Thank goodness baby wipes and dry erase markers get permanent marker off almost any non-cloth surface. It was almost a heart attack moment but like I said, thankfully we were able to get it off of pretty much everything. But this year I made sure not to repeat that mistake!

She also did much better this year at using the safety carver and actually doing a bit of carving on her pumpkin herself. She started by just making holes but then after Daddy carved some eyes and a nice toothy grin for her, she decided that I was the tooth fairy and she hacked out all of the teeth with the carving saw. I was having flash backs to Steve Martin as the Dentist in Little Shop of Horrors. I tried making my pumpkin a bit more scary this year because I always have the cute happy one but my pumpkin is nothing compared to the hacked out mouth of K's! Lol =D

Seriously concentrating on her work

Daddy adding a few drawings of his own.

Adding stickers.

She was very happy and proud of her pumpkin.

Daddy's, K's and my pumpkins.

With no flash to see their true nature.

What a kid can do in 5 minutes and Trick or Treating

Yesterday was one of those days...

A was being super awesome and hanging curtain rods in the Bear's room and playroom and had a question about length or some such thing so I left her downstairs watching Toy Story 2 for about 10 minutes max. When I came back downstairs to check on her she had gotten the red PERMANENT marker that we used on the pumpkins off of the table and proceeded to draw on EVERYTHING - the TV screen, changing table, TV trays, her trampoline, sippy cup, not to mention Lilly and herself. She didn't miss one inch on both of her hands. They were completely red on both sides as was the area above and under her lips. My mouth dropped in horror as I yelled, "Oh my gosh!" A. came running down the stairs to see what happened, thinking the worst of course. And while this wasn't "the worst" it felt pretty darn close to it. Thankfully she wasn't hurt and hadn't gotten a hold of a knife or scissors or something but I was just like "K, what did you do?!?" to which she answered, "Sorry Mommy, sorry." and gave me a kiss. I could see the tears start welling up in her eyes. I mean, really how can I be too mad at that? Hearing her say "sorry" just about breaks my heart every time. Thank goodness A. acted fast and was able to get the marker off of almost everything. Baby wipes are a wonderful invention! The only things that still show evidence of the marker massacre are poor Lilly and the underside of the shelves from the changing table (it was in pieces from having been moved).

Then, to top off that excitement, our Buddy Pal came over to play and fell down the first half of our stairs. The poor kid was already having a bad day from his flu shot and then to fall down the stairs was just the kicker. We had the gate up but I took it down to bring K's Halloween costume upstairs and just forgot to put it back up. I swear, I think I was having the worst Mommy day ever!

We ended the day going trick or treating. We went with our other friends and their two kids so that was nice to hang out with them. Unfortunately K was scared of the animated decorations and wanted to be carried the whole time after house #2 and let me tell you, she is no spring chicken. As A. commented, she is like a sack of concrete. Both of our backs and shoulders were hurting by the end of the night but she looked adorable so it was all worth it. What a kid!

Our Buddy Pal as Yoda, before taking a header down our stairs.

Minnie Mouse trick or treating with Daddy

Minnie Mouse

Our Buddy as Buzz Lightyear (K loved his costume)

Our Baby Pal as a cute kitty

Trick or treating. She preferred taking the candy in her hand and then put it in her basket herself.

It was a beautiful sunset.

Kisses for Buzz at the end of the night.

Pumpkins and some things I made

We carved pumpkins a few nights back and I forgot to post pictures of it. We let K draw on them first with (gasp!) permanent markers and she did REALLY good. We were very proud of her. I don't have any pictures of the completed pumpkins but believe me when I say, they are very crazy looking. They have black and red scribbles all over them and the face on A's has already caved in making it look a bit prune-y and mine is a cat that only really looks like a cat when the lights are off and there is a candle inside. Anyway, enough lead up, here are the pictures.

Coloring on the second pumpkin.

Proud Daddy looking on as she colors.

Mommy was there to supervise.

She definitely enjoyed coloring with markers.

She even did some carving with those 'safe' pumpkin cutting tools.

So I've had a bit of time these last two days to make/alter a few things around the house. I love having a calendar hanging somewhere conspicuous to remind me of important dates, appointments, etc. but this house didn't really seem to have that exact right spot to hang a paper calendar so I decided to make a dry erase one based off of one I had seen on the Target website.

This was my inspiration.

This is what I already had. I was using it as a hanging jewelry organizer but decided I'd rather have a place to hang my keys, store mail, and keep track of important dates.

And this is how it turned out. I may end up using my handy-dandy label maker for the days of the week since my handwriting got kind of messy at the top there.

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out and it seems to be doing the job. I'll still keep a small paper calendar somewhere so I can use it to transfer the info from year to year but for the day to day, this seems to work out quite nicely. However, you may be wondering what I did with my jewelry now that I no longer have an organizer for it all? Never fear, I came up with a solution for that as well!

New jewelry box from Target.

For my necklaces, which is what I have the most of, I got these brushed nickel robe hooks.

Two of these

and two of these.

The other thing I made is a Potty Chart for K. I've been telling her that when she goes pee pee and poopies in the potty all of the time and no more in her diapers then she'll get a Thomas Train Table. She does a really great job going at night before bed but I think she (and I) have a harder time remembering to try during the day while we're playing or out and about. This potty thing is as much on my shoulders as it is hers since I need to remind her and so far, I'm not doing such a great job at that. I know it will be easier and cheaper when she no longer needs diapers but I just don't have the super motivation that I need to be on top of it yet. I figure this chart (and the fact that she is now wearing Pull-Ups) might help remind me to ask her. Currently I have it hanging in her bathroom but I think I will move it and bring it with us to whichever room we are in to remind the both of us to try more often. And in case you are wondering, no, I'm not really going to get her an actual Thomas the Train table because those are incredibly expensive. I just call it that because she associates all trains with Thomas because of the Thomas table they have at the Barnes and Noble out here.

She will put a sticker (either a star or Toy Story) in each space whenever she goes on the potty. I found some cool Thomas stickers in the scrapbook section at Michael's. The Toy Story stickers came in the box of Pull Ups. I buy the "boy" version of Pull Ups because they are Toy Story and she is CRAZY about Buzz and Woody.