Halloween 2010

I read an article this week that said that Halloween was the second most celebrated holiday in the United States next to Christmas. This was very confusing to me. I have never really understood the appeal. Growing up my parents were against celebrating Halloween and since I have been a parent, we have either attended a church Fall Festival or I have been out of town at our annual women's retreat. This has allowed me to not really have to make a decision about how I feel about Halloween - which works for me! This year the retreat was early and our church wasn't having a big Fall Festival, so it was time to grow up and make a real parental decision....

For starters, we were definitely keeping the tradition of Jack and Smiley (the pumpkins) alive. The girls were so excited they jumped right in to pumpkin gutting...

Alaynah thought it was awesome.

and Carlie, well let's just say, she didn't.

Of course, I had to call in reinforcements by the name of Bo, our own personal creative genius!

Bo and Alaynah were hard at work customizing pumpkins. Carlie lost interest after about 5 minutes. She hung in there long enough to inform us all that her pumpkin, formally known as Jack, would be named Vamp this year.

Not to be outdone, Alaynah decided her pumpkin, formally known as Smiley, would be called Hardy this year. Why Hardy? Who knows.....

And where was Jason during the festivities you ask? Well, he was working on a pumpkin of his own. He was just doing it in his own perfectionist way.... First he sketched out what he wanted from an idea he saw on the Internet.

Then he pinned his sketch to his pumpkin and used a straight pin to punch out a form to cut out.

Then the carving began. He carved, and he carved, and he carved....

And 4 hours later he was satisfied with his pumpkin....

And the final product.......

Vamp

Hardy

And the amazing spooky graveyard

Now on to the decision about Trick-or-Treating.... I just couldn't really think of any reason I was opposed to it - so we decided to bring on the costumes....

Carlie wanted to be a vampire queen. I don't know where the fascination with vampires has come from - I swear she hasn't had any part of the Twilight craze. Anyway, Vampire it was.

And her sister, being the exact opposite child that she is, wanted to be a Colonial Girl.

Getting a group picture that made sense proved to be an interesting problem.. Check out the sweet Colonial girl who is oblivious to the spooky vampire coming her way.

Oh no!

They decided to become friends and headed out to gather the loot!

We ended up going to the Country Club and walking around the main loop. After we finished walking the whole thing we found out it was more than two miles of fun-filled Halloween spookiness. No wonder every one else was driving... Oh well - We all loved it!

The Luttrull's will now be a part of the Halloween Holiday Craze!!!! I think I might even dress up myself next year - MAYBE......

Happy Birthday to You!!!!

Today is my Granny's 84th birthday. Every year as many of my extended family try to get together and have a nice dinner out. So we all trekked out to Bone Island Grill at Sinclair Marina for some good seafood and even better company! This is all 4 generations of women in my family. What a wonderful heritage. I have been blessed to have many strong amazing women in my life that I count as role models - but my granny is the one person I want to be like more than anyone I know.
While we were there we took some group family shots. We haven't done this in quite some time so it was way past due. The lighting wasn't wonderful and we didn't plan ahead, but I am happy with how some of them turned out (even if I am in them). My mom was a great amateur photographer.....

Happy Birthday my sweet Granny. I love you more than I could ever say. Tonight was a great night. If only there wasn't such a gapping hole in our family left by Kenneth ( I will blog about this week later. It is just too soon)

Fall Retreat

I have been trying all day to figure out how to express what God did this weekend. It was indescribable and life changing for me. As I process all that God has taught me from this weekend, this is what has been going through my mind all day:

To really change the heart of a woman is a far greater miracle than to have moved one of those beautiful mountains we stared across at all weekend.

My God is still in the BIG MIRACLE working business. He reached down with all of His dynamite power and whispered "move" over my hard heart, and you know what, It did!

Praise His Holy Name...

A Special Treat

I have been so excited to try this super cute idea I read on Me and My Pink Mixer. The fact that the leaders are going to the Fall retreat early has given me the perfect excuse. It also ended up being a good reason to avoid getting everything else I needed to accomplished.

So what do you get when you combine a simple cake mix,

English Toffee Bits,
Butter Cream Icing,

and small Mason Jars???
The makings of cupcakes in a jar!!! The blog I read used chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate - which I think is a fantastic idea; however, I was going for a very Fall inspired goody. I used Butter Pecan Cake mix to make the cupcakes and butter cream flavored icing. I put a cupcake in the bottom of each jar.
Then I added icing and toffee bits...
Last but not least, I topped it off with another cupcake. I used a serrated knife to cut around the edges so the cupcakes fit a little better. I put on the lid, added some fabric, and tied on a plastic coordinating fork.
I was so happy with how they turned out. I hope all of the leaders feel a little extra sweetness and love tomorrow when they get their cupcakes in a jar.
I even had an extra one left over for Jason when he got home from church tonight!
YUMMY!!!!

Adding Adsense

Has anyone ever heard of adsense?
I have been tempted to sign up for it just to see how it works for a long time. Today I took the plunge. If my blog changes or has crazy ads, oops....
Hopefully it will be a great thing. I guess only time will tell. Let me know what you think...

I am so excited!

I am so excited because...

The weather is going to be great.

Robin Hall is coming and bringing friends.

The worship service is going to be awesome.

There will be some new faces.

There will be many old friends.

There will be some returning favorites.

Low carb breakfast casserole.

Fall leaves.

Most importantly... God has promised to meet with us. I know my life will never be the same...

Are you excited???

SLEEPOVER

I have been promising my girls they could have a back to school sleepover since two weeks before school started. What can I say? I've been busy....

Anyway, I finally made good on my promise and allowed both girls to invite all the girls in their classes. I felt certain that this approach would work because I just knew everyone else was as busy as we were so not that many kids would be able to come but at the same time no one would feel left out.

So when I got all 16 girls home I wasn't feeling overly prepared...
Lucky for me, everyone was just excited to be at a party and they didn't notice my mild panic. They came right in and made themselves at home - which is what I want everyone who comes to our house to do!
We had lots of discarded shoes...
And lots of little girl stuff...
And most importantly - Lots of yummy after school snacks!!!
Which everyone seemed to really enjoy.

Pizza came next and then we all hit the yard. The girls had the best time playing in the wonderful Fall weather. They were enjoying themselves so much that we waited too long to start tye-dying t-shirts and it was dark before everyone was finished.
Last time we did this we used my kitchen table and I learned that outside was the best location for some projects.
The girls stayed outside and played soccer and hide and go seek in the dark. I had to force them to come in and take showers. And I thought getting dirty and staying that way was just for little boys!
Kenneth came out of his room one time. It was only long enough to get food and he quickly fled the giggles and locked himself in his room. I don't think he knew what to make of so many girls in one room.
But by 9:30 everyone was settled in and watching the original 'Pippy Longstocking'. I made them. It was my favorite movie when I was their age and it felt appropriate that they love it too. At first, most didn't seem to sure about it but after 10 minutes they were all singing along and laughing their heads off. I was thrilled.

I know that they didn't all go right to sleep, but they were quiet and didn't last past midnight. They were up with the sun (7:00ish) and ready to go. Breakfast consisted of 18 muffins, a dozen eggs, two boxes of cereal and a gallon of milk!

They were all so sweet and well behaved. My girls are so lucky to have such an amazing group of friends and I am so lucky that they all wanted to come hang out at our house.

We will do it again sometime.... but not too soon...