Team Francks

on the night before Halloween...

on the eve of Halloween I'm sharing with you one of my favorite things ever... a Witches Lunch!! 

This year, because I'm insane and don't have enough going on right now... I decided to throw in a big witches luncheon the week before Halloween.

A couple of years ago I did a very small witches lunch with three of the women that I visit teach.  This year I decided to go big and invited seven friends...

I emailed out invitations (I was going to mail or hand deliver... neither of which happened... so email it was!)... asked everyone to come dressed up... made food assignments... and decorated fun and festive.

It was so much fun.  And with people helping with food its a fairly easy party to throw.

I looooved the decorations... they turned out so fun... the pictures don't really do it justice... but I went with black and purple and lots of candles and it really came together.

Other details:

I used mismatched crystal goblets which looked way better than matching crystal.

White china w/witches napkins that I bought on clearance last year (the napkins... not the china!)

A candelabra I got on clearance at hobby lobby

A food table that was way too small... but I couldn't carry the big long table by myself... so I had to settle for the smaller table.

A separate kids meal of mummys and spider eggs (tots)

I had a kids Halloween movie going... the kids luncheon was a little bit more chaotic than I had planned on... I feel bad about that... next time I'll plan to have an activity or something for the kids.

I had a little witches boot ornament for each guest... I'm going to hang mine from my mirror in my car.

Each guest left with a bottle of "witches brew"... my friend Liberty made the labels... and I wrapped them around bottles of soda pop... I'll have to ask her if she's sharing the labels... if so I'll link them.

I took individual pictures of each guest... I won't post those here... but I love all the individual pictures of everyone.

It was so fun to have everyone come... and enjoy of fun Halloween activity with good friends!

(and remember it really did look better than the pictures show!)

(I didn't know my camera was on portrait mode for the group shot and and the people in the back came out blurry... boo!)

 

It was such a fun event... and sadly Halloween is almost over... but tomorrow is trick or treating with a very excited three year old... which is totally going to be the highlight of the whole season... costume pictures coming soon!

Check out my Halloween board on Pinterest for more fun Halloween ideas!

on the second night before Halloween...

On the second night before Halloween I share with you a Halloween Book Basket!

I soooo love this idea!  We love reading.  We love Halloween.  Perfect combination!

I originally saw the idea on one of my favorite blogs Brown Paper Packages.

The concept is to count down the 31 days to Halloween--starting with October 1st.  Read a FUN (not gory or gross) Halloween book every night until Halloween.

The original Halloween Book Basket is so so so cute.  I TOTALLY recognize that mine is not nearly as cute (and my terrible picture does nothing to help my cause!)

BUT

I ran in to several problems when I went to make mine... I couldn't find the big black tub she used for hers (even though I've seen them at Target for the last million Halloweens)... AND I didn't have nearly the collection of Halloween books.  And since I was limited on time and funds this year I decided to improvise. 

Here's my version of our Halloween Book Basket:

 

I got the "basket" for $1 in the Halloween section at Albertson's (it alreaady had the ghosts on it)... and I filled it with the Halloween books that we already had.  I added two new small books this year and thought it would be fun to buy a few new ones over the year and then supplement each year with Library books... (I did score a few new-to-us Halloween books at a consignment sale after this picture was already taken).

The basket has been a hit and every night Buddy brings me a few Halloween books and we read together.  Makes this mama very happy!

Another fun and easy project!  Thanks Kierste @ Brown Paper Packages!

And maybe next year I'll be able to find the cute Target bucket!

Here's the original posters list of 31 books: (most of these books are targeted for ages 3-8)

1. Too Many Pumpkins, Linda White
2. Pumpkin Soup, Helen Cooper
3. The Biggest Pumpkin Ever, Steven Kroll
4. Pumpkin Circle: The Story of a Garden, George Levenson
5. How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?, Margaret McNamara
6. Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Jeanne Titherington
7. In the Haunted House, Eve Bunting
8. Room on the Broom, Julie Donaldson
9. The Little Old Lady Who Wasn’t Afraid of Anything, Linda Williams
10. The Night Before Halloween, Natasha Wing
11. The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat, Stan & Jan Berenstain
12. The Big Pumpkin, Erica Silverman
13. The Vanishing Pumpkin, Tomie dePaola
14. Humbug Witch, Lorna Balian
15. Bug That Go Bump in the Night, David A. Carter
16. Five Little Pumpkins, Iris Van Rynbach
17. Scary, Scary, Halloween, Eve Bunting
18. Peek-A-Booooo!, Marie Torres Cimarusti
19. Mrs. McMurphy’s Pumpkin, Rick Walton
20. It’s Halloween!, Jack Prelutsky
21. Thirteen Nights of Halloween, Rebecca Dickinson
22. Miss Fiona’s Stupendous Pumpkin Pies, Mark Kimball Moulton
23. Ten Timid Ghosts, Jennifer O’ Connell
24. The Bumpy Little Pumpkin, Margery Cuyler
25. Halloween Night, Arden Druce
26. Haunted Castle on Hallows’ Eve, Mary Pope Osborne
27. All Hallow’s Eve – The Story of the Halloween Fairy, Lisa S. Johnson
28. Pumpkin Hill, Elizabeth Spurr
29. Skeleton Hiccups, Margery Cuyler
30. The Ugly Pumpkin, Dave Horowitz
31. Trick or Treat Countdown, Patricia Hubbard

 

I'd love to hear if you have any favorite Halloween books!

on the third night before Halloween...

On the third night before Halloween I share with you Mummy jars.

Another project I saw on Pinterest... I have to admit this is one of my very favorite projects... I absolutely love them! 

A friend invited me over for an afternoon to make these... and despite all the distractions (kids) we knocked out a ton of these in two hours.

sooooooooo easy!!!  seriously.  and so cheap.
i could have made 100 of them!
just old canning jars
or whatever you have on hand
and sterile medical gauze
that you can buy at walmart (in the pharmacy section)
and then you paint modge podge
all over the bottle
start at the top
and start wrapping
you'll need to put
modge podge between the layers of gauze
you only do one layer of gauze
but slightly overlap each layer
and then when its all how you like it
you paint a layer of modge podge on top of the whole thing really quick
and then glue on googly eyes with even more modge podged.

that's it. 

easy peasy.

we liked the really really big googly eyes for the big bottles (i think the really big eyes come in a pack of 12)... but the other size works great too... these would be super cute with baby food jars too.

p.s. If my instructions don't make any sense... just google mummy jars and I'm sure there are more detailed tutorials out there!

p.p.s.  outside I just put regular tealight candles in them... inside I'm using battery operated candles.

Oh, and they make fun neighbor gifts too... not the best picture... but you get the idea.

Happy Halloween!!!

on the fourth night before Halloween...

On the fourth night before Halloween I share with you vinyl spiders.

Saw this pin on Pinterest and knew they would be so fun... lucky for me I have a Silhouette machine gathering dust in my craft closet.

Downloaded the spider from Silhouette and got busy cutting... little sspiders hanging in the kitchen and dining room.  My little man LOVES them!  Every day he points out all the "piders" to me. 

Cute and so easy!

 

over the front door.

over the door way in to the kitchen... I know you're jealous of my 1970's cabinets and trim. awesome.

 

Hanging from the cabinets in the kitchen

 

hanging from the holiday shelf.

You can buy vinyl spiders at craft stores... on Silhouettes site... or if you have the cricut cartridge... fun fun!

on the fifth night before Halloween...

As I've shared many times before... I loooooove Halloween. Loooooooooooooooove.

And Halloween wouldn't be complete with a little crafty... and despite an insanely busy month I managed to squeeze in a tiny bit of crafting... mostly at two in the morning... but a little bit of crafting nonetheless.

Thanks to Pinterest my holiday crafting has taken on a whole new level!

Over the next five days I'm going to count down to Halloween with a few favorite projects this Halloween season! 

On the fifth night before Halloween I share with you my Googly Eye Frame:

I loved the original project on Pinterest... but I didn't have a square frame... and I wanted to use what I had on hand...  so I just improvised.

I love googly eyes. Love.  And I usually have a large stash on hand.  I found non-adhesive worked best on this project.

 

Spread modge podge... I found it was easiest to work on one side at a time... otherwise the modge podge starts drying and gets too hard to work with.

place googly eyes in wet modge podge... no rhyme or reason... just whatever you like.

move on to the next section of the frame... spread w/modge podge.  place googly eyes.  repeat.

 

I promise it looks much better in real life without the glare of the camera flash... in real life you can't see all the flash induced flaws.

 

I like some areas better than others... but thats what happens when you go willy nilly with modge podge and googly eye.

Super fun.  Super cheap.  Super easy. 

The Katybug 5k...

Yesterday I got to be involved in one of the neatest things I've ever been a part of... its ranks up in my top three service experiences.

There's a little girl (who I don't know and hadn't met until yesterday) in the little town next to us who just turned five and has had a severe form of Leukemia for over a year... as you can imagine her family is drowning in medical bills.

My neighbor (and friend from church) teaches at the school where this little girl attends and wanted to help the family out.

So she organized a charity 5k run for their family... she asked me a few months ago to take pictures at the event... I said sure.. not knowing really what I was getting involved in.

I had no clue.... and no clue it would touch me so much.  I was teary from the moment I pulled in to the parking lot and saw the masses of people there in support.

People came from all over the place to participate. 

All different denominations of churches were there to support.

Entire families ran (and walked) together.

All ages from the very very young to the not so young.

Local restaurants gave a portion of their proceeds to the event.

The fire station was there in support.

The police department.

All the cross country teams from all the neighboring schools ran in support.

It was so incredibly overwhelming and so amazing to get to be a small part of something so great.

The thing I'm learning about service... Life would have gone on if I hadn't said yes... I wouldn't have even known what I was missing out on.  But thankfully I said yes... and my life is better because of it.  Mental note: DO MORE SERVICE!

p.s. their original goal was the raise $4,000 for the family... as of yesterday they've raised over $17,000. 

 

Friends from church... the one next to me is the friend that organized the event... the three of us in black were staff.

I loved these guys... orange is the color of leukemia.. .they ran the whole race like this... in honor of leukemia... poor guys were so hot... its still pretty warm here.

The star of the day... she was feeling sad that she had boy hair (growing back from the chemo)... so they got her ears pierced the day before the race so that she would feel more feminine... i thought that was so cute.

Kids race... so funny!

 

The three of us worked together for years in Young Women's at church... such great women.  It was fun to work with them again at this event.

National Anthem

Prayer by a local pastor... it was so cool to have so many churches come together for this event.

 

Part of the check presented to the family... they have to start paying taxes on any "gift" over $13,000... so the check is for $12,999.99... they'll receive the rest of the money on January 1st.   It was incredibly emotional watching the family be presented the check.

There really are great people everywhere. 

monday musings...

1.  this is not a real post.  the real posts are sitting in my draft folder waiting for pictures.  it's been a long couple of weeks... and putting pictures with posts is turning out to be way harder than it should be.

I just feel bad that you have to keep looking at the pumpkin bread.

2.  This post will not have any pictures.  Otherwise it would never ever get posted.

3.  It rained all day yesterday.  That makes my heart so happy.

3.  We've been knocked down by a horrible nasty flu.  On Thursday I had to go to Labor and Delivery because I was having contractions and it had been over 13 hours since I'd been able to keep anything down.  Including water.  And just in case you're wondering... its way too early for me to be having contractions.  I called the nurse to find out what I should do since I couldn't keep water down and she said to get myself to the hospital and get monitored and get an IV.  So I did.

which is harder to arrange when your husband lives out of town.  But I have a great neighbor.  So we managed.  And then my husband showed up at the hospital, we got discharged about 1am and then he headed back to work bright and early the next morning.  what a guy.  I'm feeling mostly better today... so here's hoping we can get back to real life soon.

4.  Buddy then got the same nasty flu over the weekend.  poor little thing.  and I won't even go in to the gross things I've had to deal with this weekend.  But its been hard on my recovering system.  He's still having a rough go of it. 

The nurse on call last night made me take him to the hospital to be monitored for dehydration... we're not really ER kind of people... so we've definitely had our share for the next couple of years.

5.  Juggling work while you have  a sick child is really really hard.  I give huge props to real single moms.  It is not fun.  At all.

6.  We've had Panera soup for the past four days.  You can buy it in a quart and it comes with a loaf of bread.  They have a drive thru so I don't even have to get out of the car.  Its been heavenly to our sickly home.  Blessings be upon the Panera soup. 

7.   We've watched so so many episodes of Ni Hao Kai Lan in the last week.  So so so many episodes.  I don't think there are words adequate enough to express how tired I am of Kai Lan.  But the sick child loves Kai Lan.  And keeps requesting it.  Over. And over. And over.  Heaven help me.

8.  I hate the new facebook format.  Just in case you were wondering. 

9.  General Conference was absolutely wonderful.  As always.  I so love it.

10.  I now have a three year old.  sniff sniff.  But due to sickness our birthday festivities have been postponed until next week.  You can do that when they're little and they don't know their days or weeks.   Birthday palooza coming soon. 

Here's hoping to a better week!