It's party time! Looks easy doesn't it? Trying to take a bite of a dangling apple with your hands behind your back isn't as easy as it looks.

However, practice makes perfect. The girls wanted to keep their apples and try their luck again. Guess what? The one practicing was the only one that was able to get a bite! Perseverance pays off.
They played hot pumpkin - similar to hot potato. No throwing girls.They had fun with a mummy wrapping contest, played who can find the most ghosts (embellished tootsie roll pops), the pinata, decorated "Boo" signs and dined on a ghoulish dinner.

We're getting ready for the party around here. My son was home sick yesterday with a cold and put this shadow on our stair case for me. Thanks Junie-Moon for sharing your Martha downloads.
The kitchen table is set and ready for its monster treats and ghoulish delights.

The village is set up in the butler's pantry. I need to figure out a way to hide my cords. This was the "sweet" collection from Michael's last year. I love the candy corn road. I wish they would come out with more pieces. Michael's do you hear me? I'm a great customer.

We hung this big spider in the dining room. That's about as scary as I get!

The pinata has been hung. Sorry about the blurry photo. It was swinging in the wind.

I'm so lucky. My husband's chef at work prepared the majority of the food for our little goblins. My daughter requested the apple pie purses that Daddy brings home when they are on the menu. They are served drizzled with caramel sauce and vanilla bean ice cream on the side.

We love visiting a pumpkin patch every fall. We squeezed in some time to visit one in Iowa. It was so beautiful there. You can see the corn stalks in the field behind the pumpkin patch.

I caught this one of brother showing her a few of the good ones to pick. Of course they were too big to bring back on the airplane. We left them with my sister.

Anyone for a game of checkers?

Arrrr! Everyone that knows my husband is now laughing hysterically. I still can't believe he dressed up for our neighborhood costume party last night. I have to show you another photo of him to compare this with because he is always dressed professionally. There were some great costumes last night. The redneck couple absolutely took the cake. Let me tell you, they were so out of character. They have a stunningly beautiful home and the husband is a partner in his engineering firm but you would never know it by their apparal last night. We were all laughing hysterically.
Another favorite of mine was the Scooby couple. Michelle and her husband looked fabulous.
Our lovely hostess really outdid herself with her decor and our wonderful food. I think this was the first time I had dressed up for Halloween since college.

Every Cowgirl could only dream of having a room as adorable as this. My talented friend Carolyn redecorated her daughter's bedroom that matches the enthusiasm her daughter has for horses. It's been about a year since I've seen Carolyn's beautiful home and since then she has redecorated three rooms. She totally transforms these rooms. Nothing is left undone, walls, furniture, windows. Her master bedroom makes you feel like you're in Tuscany. While I was enjoying gazing longingly at her beautiful suite, I spotted a beautiful bag on one of her chairs. As I exclaimed how exquisite it was, she laughed and told me that it was a gift for me!I was speechless for the first time in a long time. I adore it! Thank you Carolyn! My daughter and I drove down to join them for the Tucson Miniature's Show. What fun it was. We met the most magical vendor. I call her the "Fairy Lady". She spent so much time with us, educating us on how to create magical fairy gardens of our own. Look at what she created with an unfinished wooden "Michael's" cabinet.

She also makes these darling fairy baskets. We purchased quite a few little items from her and need to get busy.

Pumpkin deliveries were made to a few of Taylor's little girlfriend's yesterday for her upcoming Halloween party. I tried to come up with a clever idea for invitations. Of course I was thinking of a clever "paper" idea, but then this popped into my mind. We have been busy planning the "spooky" menu and activities. I got some great ideas this week at our Halloween bunco. Our hostess found clever downloads from MarthaStewart.com. She rocks Halloween!

Favorz is the name of the delectable cookie boutique that our Girl Scout troop ventured to yesterday. I am the"Outings Coordinator" for our troop. My job is to plan one outing per month. This one was really fun. These are cookies that my daughter and I purchased. You can see their creations here at Favorz. Kelle, the proprietor, generously prepared six cookies for each of our girls to decorate. They turned out really cute. She also made a special Girl Scout cookie for each of the girls. The decor in the boutique was fabulous. Of course we all shopped and it was difficult not to purchase one of everything. If you live in Arizona, I highly recommend Favorz.


Her eye for detail and presentation is amazing. Even her bags are adorable.

I'm off to teach for the afternoon. Sigh - I love half-day assignments!

Dianne was my partner for the Sweet and Sinister Black and White swap. She generously sent me some very sweet and sinister items. The Bippity Boppity Boo Hot Chocolate is definitely the sweet item and the manicured hand is without a doubt the sinister one. I plan to greet all of the guests at my daughter's Halloween party by shaking their hands with it. Read the darling kitchen towel. My kitchen is delirious all right! My kitchen desk is the perfect location for the clipboard and notepad. Dianne has the most beautiful home and offers yummy edible and non-edible items on her sites. Thanks Dianne!

Pink - not only is it my most favorite color, but it's the color of the beautiful roses from my husband for our anniversary. It is also the color of the lightbulbs in our outdoor lights. They were given to us when we picked up our "Race for the Cure" shirts and were instructed to pink up the night.

Pink is the color of the streaks my daughter and I sprayed in our hair for "Race for the Cure."

Pink is also the color of the layout I worked on this weekend. I used Natasha Burn's beautiful papers, some shabby chic tissue paper and card, a Foof-a-la flourish and Brenda Walton's dollhouse collection. I also used a a favorite new product - Delish Rub Ons.

Happy Anniversary to us! 21 Years. Gotta celebrate that. I think I have a severe case of wanderlust. I told my husband not to buy me an anniversary present. He said "why not?" I said, well if you really want to buy me something, how about a few plane tickets? Wink! It was one year ago today that we were having our 20th anniversary dinner at a former sea captain's home on Cape Cod. I wanna go back. I guess that's what makes it special, when the trips are just for the big years. We are trying out a new restaurant tonight. Maybe we'll talk about where we should go for our 25th.

While I was in Omaha, I spent an afternoon with Mrs. McFabulous. She took me to a new wonderful boutique with the most dreamy walls. The sweet owner informed me that she hired the same artist that did the walls at Curious Sofa. I had to exercise some self control because our next stop was at Voila and I knew that they carried the Mary Carol collection from Nell Hills. Teresa treated me to this darling mercury glass birdy. I love it.

We lunched at a fun pasta restaurant where we caught up on each others lives and had lots of good laughs. As we parted ways, she suggested that I take my favorite drive on my way over the bridge back to Iowa. We both agreed that we would love to have Happy Hollow Boulevard as our address.
I would have loved to have taken several photos of the beautiful homes. I only managed to snap one through the car window. Dream Drives should capture this boulevard if they haven't all ready. It's dreamy all right.

You have to go - if you have never been. It is such a treat to visit Nell Hill's in the charming town of Atchison, Kansas. I think I've only known about Mary Carol Garrity for about a year now and I all ready own 3 of her 5 books. My children and I took a trip to the midwest to visit my sister in Iowa over fall break. Most of our trips back home were bittersweet. So happy to see my family and spend time with them, but so very sad because both of my parents were ill with long-term illnesses. Needless to say, when we were home, we didn't see much of the midwest. We are on a quest to see all 50 states. I decided to rent a car and take the kids to Missouri and Kansas. Just a short 2-hour drive. We studied the map and decided to drive to St. Joseph, Missouri. I then looked over into Kansas to see what the closest city was and my heart started racing. Could it be that Atchison was the location of Nell Hills? I raced for one of her books and found that it was. How lucky for me. I purchased her "Feather Your Nest"

book at Nell Hill's and she signed it for me. I do enjoy my nest Mary Carol!

I love that she dedicated this book to her girlfriends. Where would we be without each other? After reading her books, I really wanted my front entrance spruced up but had some challenges. I took several photos of the front of our home and met with one of their wonderful designers. She gave me some great suggestions. We started working on them the day after we returned home. (I've only been back for two days). I regret that I couldn't take more photos. The store is very crowded with excited shoppers leaving very little room to take photographs but I did manage to take a few. I purchased this whitebark cone. I need to go shopping to find some greenery to fill it with. I bought this silver, tinsel oblisk. They were also displaying them in the bark cones. I also bought 8 square, bird embossed ivory plates to coordinate with our black and ivory harlequin dinner plates. Now I have a little story to tell you about how wonderful people are in the midwest. We had to pass through St. Joseph, MO to exit on Highway 59. When we arrived, that section of the freeway was closed. We stopped at a Hardees to ask for directions. Three people overheard, came up to the counter and gave us three different sets of directions. We walked out to our car and a lady tapped on my window and said "My sister said to follow us. She'll lead you to the highway." We followed her for about 10 minutes, they pulled off to the side of the road, the sister got out of the car and said "Now honey, you just follow this road for 15 minutes and you will be in Atchison, KS." How sweet was that?