A cute, but very scary, Bat... and the Cat in the Hat

Once upon a time, in a crazy out-of-control household, there lived two funny little men...

the "very scary", but actually very cute, Bat...

And the Cat in the Hat. (who was actually meant to be a robot, but decided he'd rather be a cat) :)

The Bat imagined he looked like this....and that he was, in fact, the reason that people were scared in the Haunted House.

When in actual fact, he looked a lot more like this :)

Or this....cheeky little bat!

And then there was this little guy. In a costume that's about 4 sizes too big. And loving it!

Seriously....who wouldn't smile when they saw this little creature coming to their door? ;)

It gets even better when the elastic in your costume happens to tuck in nicely behind your double chin :)

The very scary Bat had his dental surgery yesterday morning, and is recovering really well. He's starting to get his energy and appetite back, thank goodness :) And my nerves appear to be getting slightly calmer. It was definitely up there as one of the most stressful days I've ever had.

Thank you for all your thoughts.

Hope you all have a fun Halloween!

The Halloween party that didn't happen...

Our Halloween is being somewhat hijacked this year.

Poor little Toby has dental surgery tomorrow morning :(

Which, by the way, is NOT helping my already-annoying anxiety problems. (but that's another story for another day)

Long story short, instead of getting ready for a Halloween party like we've done for the past few years, we're going to be spending the day in a surgical centre with one small boy.

I ordered these fun tissue paper balls/flowers, etc. in anticipation of decorating for a party, and we decided to just go ahead and do it up regardless. No sense in wasting them, right? ;)

And call me silly, but I love getting dressed up for Halloween. It somehow sparks that same little bit of excitement in me that it did when I was little :)

So what if I was the only mom dressed up at playgroup this morning, right? 

Besides...being a "baby tiger cub" (as Toby named me) is a pretty low-effort costume. All you need is a cheap little set of cat ears/tail (yes..I had a tail), an all black outfit (leggings and a long-ish black cardigan for me), and some eyeliner.

Just a short little post to get you in the mood for Halloween :)

Wish us luck tomorrow! My nerves are going to need it!

xo

A 'Goodnight Moon' Birthday Party for Finn

I simply cannot believe that my baby has turned two! 

Why does time go so fast? 

*snif*

But he is a wonderful little man.....so full of joy and fun....and the smallest little chatterbox you'll ever meet :) 

In fact, this whole 'Goodnight Moon' idea was his.....I asked him what type of party he'd like, giving him a few suggestions like "A very hungry caterpillar" party, or some of his favourite animals.... and then he piped up..."How bout a 'goodnight room' pahty, mama" :) 

So there you have it.....Goodnight Moon it was! 

Definitely Finny's most-loved little story. So simple and perfect. 

I had a lot of fun crafting away in the evenings, after the boys had gone to bed :)

We are a sort of "early to bed, early to rise" type of family these days, and I really do cherish the quiet evenings. The 6 am start is a bit exhausting, but the evenings really do make it all worth it!

I hung three cork boards on the wall, and pinned up some poster board to make it look like a window.

(I'm keeping these pin boards here so that I can switch up the living room wall without too much hassle...you know how I'm into switching things up all.the.time ) :)

 And all this for this little man.

How could I resist him?? seriously.

I had fun making the invitations. I used a 'Goodnight Moon' image that I found online, and edited in Photoshop. I added a green and yellow striped felt curtain to make it look like the great green room :)

And hiding behind the curtain was Finn! 

He loved this so much.....just couldn't believe that he was in the great green room!

I found a big piece of green wool felt at the thrift shop, and stapled it to a large canvas. I did a very "grade-school" painting of the 'Cow jumping over the moon', and attached it to the canvas, on top of a poster-board frame. The clock was not my favourite "feature", but I made it really quickly one night, and it was just going to have to do. I cut out a little white 'young mouse', and hung up a pair of mittens and socks on a ribbon.  The 'two little kittens' were playing with a ball of yarn, and the 'quiet old lady' was knitting away :)  The 'little toy house' was actually a birthday gift from us to Finn, which he LOVES.

Another somewhat awful painting of the 'three little bears, sitting on chairs' graced our wall.

I made the Finn banner out of poster board (as you can see, poster board was my main decorating supply..so handy that it comes in the perfect colours)!  The striped fabric was found online for under $2/yard, so of course I ordered 9 yards and put it everywhere :) The colour scheme worked well with the book colours.

Not my best work ;)

haha....

whatever. I didn't feel like springing for two cans of spray paint in colours that I'll never use again, so I decided to try my hand at duct taping a lamp. hah. 

Obviously a success. obviously.

I was inspired by this party, and decided to turn our table into a bed for the little bunny. I felt a little strange "tucking" him in, I'll admit :)

And no...this is not all the food we served. haha...bunny food!

I decided to go "old-school" and serve up a roast beef dinner. Believe it or not, it's actually one of the easier meals to make for a crowd. And everyone seemed to enjoy the comfort food :)

The cupcakes were very simple. I sort of ran out of "oomph" after all that crafting! So....I just made a few little toppers, and some white cupcakes with white icing. Done. 

My poor kiddos are on a very strict diet right now (trying to heal Toby's tummy), so I made some very healthy cupcakes for them using bananas, ground almonds, eggs, vanilla and raw honey...and used cream cheese sweetened with honey for the icing.  They LOVED it!! 

Good thing Finny found the "healthy" icing to sneak ;)

I didn't get a chance to take very many pictures during the party, but I just had to include this one of Finny's little friend Hannah because she looks so darn cute.

Finn was completely spoiled with all sorts of very fun gifts. Thank you so much everyone!!

For the favours, I decided to make a pair of mittens for each of Finny's friends to take home.

I know...I know....I'm a glutton for punishment ;)

Surprisingly enough, they were really easy to make.

I bought about 4 wool sweaters at the thrift store, and "felted" them in a hot water wash and hot dryer, to thicken them up, and close the weave of the wool so it wouldn't unravel at the edges.  I cut out mitten shapes in different sizes, then cut out a few little applique designs, and sewed them on the fronts of the mittens. Then I just sewed them together.  Easy peasy....as Finny would say ;)

I put them in my Giggle Sweets boxes, which happened to fit perfectly, and tied them with green twine topped with a monogrammed tag.

This Goodnight Moon banner was all made with poster board as well.....took a little while to make since I had to cut out all of the red stripes (thank goodness for my handy little paper-cutter) :)

Here's little Finn while everyone was singing happy birthday to him!

Pleased with his "TWO CUPCAPES, Momma....TWO CUPCAPES cause I bigguh now, momma...I TWO" :)

I used the fabric to cover my curtains, and it definitely changed the look of the room a little bit.

All of Finn's little friends came wearing their pajamas.....I mean, it is a goodnight story, right? :)

Goodnight stars.....Goodnight air...

Goodnight noises everywhere...... :)

Fall Mantel .... two little straw wreaths and a pile of pumpkins

Fall is here....and even though I said I'd never welcome the cooler weather, I'm actually feeling all cozy and warm sitting by the fire.

I'm ready for hot drinks and fall fashion :) 

I'm a sucker for wooly tights and leggings....and boots and scarves....and ponchos. And my sparkly gold flats from Zara. sigh....I could go on.

But for now, instead of draining the bank account for a new fall wardrobe, I decided to invest in a few pumpkins :)

I kept it simple this year.  

(mostly because I'm going to have to take it all down again next week to decorate for Finn's birthday party!)

These are just some plain old branches that were spray-painted orange.

Anyone else enjoying autumn coziness? :)