October Swap Group - Fall Burlap Bunting

October was Jessica's turn to host Swap Group. I knew it would be a fun night, she is such a great hostess.

I LOVED her treat bar. It was so cute and so yummy. :) My favorite was the chocolate raspberries, even though I didn't seem to get an up close picture of just them.

Jessica always has the coolest stuff. I love her water container. And the little chalkboard, how cool is that!

In August, for her birthday, I gave her some cupcake books. Her pumpkin cupcakes came from one of the books. They turned out so cute.

For her craft, Jessica choose Fall Burlap Bunting. I've never worked with burlap before, and since there was no sewing, I was excited.

We started by cutting out the triangles. I wanted to do a fall and a Halloween banner, so I cut out twice as many.

Before hand, I had decided on my words and printed them out on regular paper. The letters were about 2 inches high.

We cut the letters out in squares and taped them to freezer paper. Then we traced around the letters with an exacto knife. On letters that had a center, like an "o", we had to save the center part for later. Before I could cut out "fall", one of the other gals showed up. She had precut several out using her Cricut machine. I have a Cricut, why wasn't I smart enough to do that. :p So instead of cutting out mine, I used one of hers.  

We ironed our letters onto the burlap. This is where you needed the center piece.

After that, we used a sponge type tool to paint our burlap through our stencils. After letting them dry, we peeled the stencil off.

Finally, we hot glued ribbon on to give it color and flourish.

I had to take a picture of this cute ghost, even though now I can't remember who made it or who won it.

My triangles all finished up.

My finished "fall" banner. I put it up long enough for a picture and will put it back up after Halloween.

My Halloween banner. I LOVE it! 

Thanks Jessica for choosing such a fun craft! The group is talking about going back to just swapping tucks or ornies, but I kind of hope they don't. I have LOVED learning new crafts.

Corn Maize

After my Pampered Chef Party, we decided to go to the Corn Maize with Andrew & Jessica. They go ever year at night. We had never been in the dark, so I was excited. (On a side note, I was also excited to learn that my old winter coat fits now that I've lost all this weight.) We bought our hot chocolate and glow sticks and were off.

A picture at the top of the bridge.

I was trying to get a picture of the near full moon while looking through the corn husks. I wish my pictures had turned out better, the moon looked so cool.

Right before I took this picture, we were joking that he was going to break his string and his glow stick would fly into the corn. Right as I clicked the picture, his string broke and his glow stick flew into the corn. Luckily it didn't go far, so it wasn't hard to find.

Andrew was guide. We would stop at most splits so he could study the little map that comes on a postcard. 

It was a great night. We had TONS of fun and can't wait for next year.

Josh's Elk Hunt

I love October because it means Halloween is here. Josh loves October because it means time for hunting season. He has been like a little kid. Each day he would text his brother telling him how many more days until elk season.

The elk season opened on Saturday, so Josh and his brother hiked in on Friday so they could camp overnight. This plan was made months in advance, so long before the weather turned cold. I thought when we saw snow in the mountains, two days before, they would change their minds. But not these die hard hunters. They still hiked in on Friday.

Saturday morning they woke up to more snow and fog.

A picture of their camp.

I'm so glad their hard efforts paid off. Josh shot his elk Saturday morning.

They hiked out with just the head (the important part) on Saturday. Then on Sunday they rode the horses in and brought the rest out. I'm so proud of my husband and how he works to take care of his family. And I love how excited he gets about hunting.

Pampered Chef Party

October is my favorite time of year, so I try to find many ways to celebrate it. This year, I decided to host a Pampered Chef Party. I have spent the last 6 weeks pouring over my Taste of Home Halloween magazines and my menu kept growing. Part of the Pampered Chef Party is that you make a dish, but I still wanted to serve some fun Halloween dishes. At first I was only going to make the pretzel pumpkin grahams, but then I remembered my cake plate. So I decided to make something to go on it. Then I remembered my spider dish, so I had to make something to go in it.

For punch, I made Spooky Citrus Punch. It was so good!

The chocolate bars I had my Pampered Chef Consultant make. They taste a lot like an Almond Joy bar, only better.

The Pumpkin Pretzel Grahams.

Goblins Popcorn.

Pumpkin Ribbon Bread.

Somehow, I only took picture of my nephews at the party, but none of the other guest. :) Sorry friends, I guess that means they are cuter. I also had to get a picture of them each wearing Halloween shirts I gave to them a few weeks ago. It melted my heart how cute they each looked.

I had to get a picture of Barb holding these two. The older child, Tyler is her grandson. When she decided to hold my sister's baby, he was a little concerned. When his grandma got up to pass the baby on, he was right at her elbow so his grandma wouldn't forget him.

Daxsen in his Halloween outfit.

Valex in his Halloween shirt. He had just looked outside at Zipper. He is so CUTE!

Sleeping Cats

During my Pampered Chef Party, some of my guests wanted to meet Gaby. I knew she was hiding in the bedroom because our cats are not social creatures. What I didn't expect was to find her hiding in the same place Pyro was hiding. That is the closest I've ever seen her get to Pyro without Pyro hissing at her. I think she had to have snuck into the other side so Pyro didn't know she was there.

I also had to take this picture of Gaby and Zipper sleeping on the bed. I think he's pinning her down so she won't bite him when she wakes up. Chewing on him seems to be her favorite thing to do.

Fall Swaperoo '11

I told my Swaperoo partner that I was obsessed with pumpkins. I am so glad she took that to heart. I LOVE the wood pumpkins she sent me and the pumpkin lantern. And the pumpkin cupcake holders. I also loved the chocolate and potpourri.

Hair Makeover Reward

One day, back in March, I woke up with the desire to start a diet. Trust me, it felt very strange to me. I only told a few select people, simply because - I didn't think I could do it. I didn't want to tell people about it and then fail.

Thirty weeks later I'm proud to announce, I did NOT fail. I'm now down (almost) 50 pounds!!!

I'm not done with my weight loss journey yet, but I decided it was time for a big reward for all my hard work. So I got a hair makeover. I kept the same cut, but all new color. I.LOVE.IT! Its hard to see, but even my bottom layer is a darker color, which I LOVE. And I LOVE the red. Yep, I LOVE it all.

I also switched to an orange feather for Halloween.