Halloween Craftiness

Today is Halloween and this past week I had the chance to use my creativity to make some treats for Tiffany's classroom and decorations for my front porch.  

I was so excited that Tiffany's class was having a Halloween party, she was getting to wear her costume at school, and the whole school was having a costume parade.  After living in Arizona for the last six years, where every holiday was either completely ignored by the school (like Halloween) or rendered completely non offensive (like the winter party and winter concert that didn't have any holiday songs or references to the fact that anybody might celebrate anything in the upcoming weeks of December), it was nice to be in a place where the kids can just have fun being kids and enjoy dressing up and eating candy.  I decided that to celebrate, I needed to make awesome treats for her class party.  The fact that I could make awesome treats was special too.  Arizona only allowed store bought treats to be brought to school, BOO.  I decided I really wanted to learn to play with chocolate, so I went to Michael's, bought candy melts, sticks, sprinkles, and lollipop bags, then hit up the store for some marshmallows, and made these.

They came out great.  I was a little surprised by the thickness of the candy melts.  I had envisioned drizzling the orange across the white, but there was no drizzling going on.  I took a break and Google'd chocolate covered marshmallows and Wilton candy melts and found that most people recommended a dip and spin along the edge of the bowl to remove the excess technique.  Realizing that drizzling wasn't going to be an option, I gave up trying that and just did some white with sprinkles, some orange with sprinkles, and some white and then dipped partially in orange.  They came out amazing and her class loved them.  

Then, while surfing in blog land last week I came across a super easy craft using milk jugs, and I forgot where I found it, so unfortunately can't link to it, but since that person mentioned seeing the craft on Family Fun, I know it's not an original.  The whole craft only cost me 29 cents since I had the rest of the materials already in my stash and only had to buy one piece of green felt..  I used 3 milk jugs, one strand of orange lights, three pipe cleaners, a sharpie marker, and one piece of green felt, and this is what I came up with.

Pretty cute huh?

Tiffany made the albino spider while I was busy making these 

so he needed to be in the picture too.

Have a Happy Halloween!!

Not A Prude

Anyone that knows me, knows that I'm not a prude. 

 I know how to have a good time, but this.... 

SERIOUSLY.DISTURBS.ME.

Those are not the costumes I was considering for myself this year.

Those are the TWEEN costumes my TWELVE YEAR OLD had to choose from this year.  

Really???  Thank you so much for including those SEE THROUGH TIGHTS with that ADULT costume that isn't more than a freaking TUBE TOP!!  That so makes this more appropriate for my child that is just barely beginning to notice boys.  Way to tell her that slutting it up is the way to get their attention.  

OH.  And they wanted $35 - $40 for that crap! 

 Break my wallet and turn my kid into a hooker at the same time.  

I refused.  We ended up with this, a Geisha costume.

CRAP!

My twelve year old is dressing as a hooker for Halloween!  

OH WELL, at least she's going to be a COVERED UP hooker.  

(yes, I know, Geisha weren't really hookers, the Orian were the hookers)

Oh yeah, and this covered up costume...  $14.99.

Sweet!

But next year, I'm boycotting store bought costumes.  

Like it or not, my kids and I will all be dressing like this next Halloween.

I'm just disappointed that I didn't find all these great homemade costume ideas from

 Disney's Family Fun until after I had wasted two days driving all over town

 trying to find prude costumes for my kids.

Giving credit where credit is due

After writing yesterday's post, I realized that I may have exaggerated ever so slightly about the fact that my husband claims he can build stuff and yet has only ever built me a mantel.  The mantel was part of a complete living room remodel.  I've got some pictures, but you're going to have to use your imagination for some of this story.  Unfortunately I wasn't so good about capturing this whole process on film.

This is what we started with.  A cute little house that we rented for three years before we purchased.  See those two floor to ceiling windows in the front.  Yeah, I hated them.  My couch backed up to them so I could never open the blinds without showing the neighborhood the back of my couch.  Plus they were drafty.  For three years I said, "If this were my house, I'd take those windows out and put in one (dual paned) window that doesn't go all the way to the floor"

Three days after we closed escrow on the house, the neighbors were invited over, beer was purchased and within a few hours those windows were gone, and in their place was a beautiful eight foot wide by four foot high dual paned window set inside brand new framing.

Now we needed to put up new drywall, texture, and paint,  

but we couldn't do that to just this wall,

 it wouldn't match with all the others in the room if we did.  

The entire room and adjoining hallway were re-textured and painted.  

By my hubby.

We said goodbye to the 1970's style popcorn ceiling too, courtesy of my hubby.

Then he brought the room into a more modern age by installing recessed lighting, 

a ceiling fan, and crown moulding.  You can kinda see part of the fan and one

 recessed light in the picture above.

He had never done stucco before, so he called a friend that had, and the outside got finished too.

Here's a picture I took before the final color coat of stucco went on.  

Somehow I never got a picture of the end result.

I found this picture from the following Halloween where you can see just a smidge of

 the decorative moulding and ledge that the hubby built around the new window.

Then there was that mantel that I referred to yesterday.  

Here is it's before picture.

This was the crappiest mantel ever, and another thing that I had said for three years 

I would fix if it were my house.  It was made out of 4 x 4's for the pieces that surround the 

brick and then sitting on top of that were two warped 1 x 4's.  Anything I tried to set on top

 would tip over either because of the warped condition of the boards or the gap between

 them that ran the length of the mantel.

Utterly useless.

I personally got to use a sledgehammer and a crowbar to remove this.  

Oh my was that fun.

I sketched out what I wanted the mantel to look like and my hubby built it for me.

It was perfect and looked just like my sketch.

Do you think I got a picture of it?

Sort of?

Here is a picture from the following Christmas.  You can see a corner of it.

The last step in the remodel was ripping out the old grey carpet and installing laminate

 flooring in the whole house.  As soon as the hubby did that, we decided to sell the house 

and move to Arizona.  I never got any pictures of the laminate floors.

Thinking about all this reminds me of how much more fun it is to live in an old house.  

I like to build stuff.  

And break stuff with sledgehammers. 

 I need another old house. 

And some wood.

And a new saw for the hubby.

Squirrel

Maybe it's the changing of the leaves, or the fact that I can tell that each day has less daylight than the one before, but I've never been so aware that winter was coming.  Our work pretty much comes to a dead stop in winter.  This is the time of year I need to prepare for several lean months.  I stock the freezer. I try to put aside enough money in the bank to pay the bills for at least three months.  I don't spend money on anything that isn't a necessity. I feel a bit like a squirrel trying to hoard nuts.

Now it just figures that this would be the time I would be inspired to create things too.  While everything is dying around me, I want to make things.  I want to pretty up my foyer, I want to re-finish my dining room table, I want to build stuff.  Oh my goodness how I want to build stuff.  Yesterday Jen over at Let's Make It Ours wrote this about how she needs to learn how to use power tools so that she could build all these awesome creations byAna at Ana-White.com.  Now I want to learn how to use power tools too!

It seems like Ana and I have a lot of the same taste in furniture.  The expensive Pottery Barn type stuff that I have lusted after for years but would never buy, because I just can't justify spending $600 - $1000 on a cabinet to collect all the crap in my entry way.  But I want it, oh how I want it.  I've even spent hours looking online for something similarly awesome without the Pottery Barn price tag.  No luck.  Until yesterday.

See there's Ana with the cabinet I've been lusting after for years, that she MADE herself, and tells me and YOU how to make here.  So I'm all gung ho to go buy some wood and start making a cabinet, but crap, just like Jen, I need to learn to use power tools, oh and theres that little thing about not spending any money that isn't absolutely necessary.  I do, however, have a husband that is pretty handy and knows how to build stuff.  That's what he tells me anyway.  We've been married for fifteen years and I can't tell you how many times I've looked at a table or bookshelf that I've wanted and he's told me he could build it cheaper.  Except he never does and I end up buying some POS bookshelf made out of particle board at Walmart.  Well he did build me a new mantel once, and it was awesome, but that's it.

So today I called him out on it.  I said, "For fifteen years you've told me you can build stuff and I've been dreaming of a cabinet like this for almost that long.  You MUST build me this cabinet.  Oh, and teach me how to use the power tools because there's about  15 more things on Ana's site that I want to build too."

He smiled at me (because I'm so adorable when I'm being demanding), then he told me that he didn't think that saws and I were a good combination. Remember last week when I told you about the ladder rule.  Yeah, that totally extends to anything I could maim myself with.  He may have said something to the effect of "I've seen you walk".  So what if I trip over air, I insisted that if he taught me how to use the the power tools properly I could be safe and retain all my appendages.  Finally, he relented and told me he would help me build my cabinet..  Only, in order to do this, he'd need a new saw since his was stolen years ago.

So I can start building stuff as soon as I can find extra money to buy wood and a new saw.

head.desk

When a piece is missing

My hubby just returned from a two week trip.  Originally he was only going to be gone for one.  I spent the first week being rather productive.  I did some blogging.  A quiet house is so conducive to blogging.   Plus I gave myself a project to complete so I wouldn't have time to be miserable.  My project, finish unpacking the boxes in my room.  Yeah, I know, we've been in this house since July, but since the hubby and I are the only ones to ever see my room, it's always the last to be cleaned, unpacked, etc.  This time however it's taken even longer than usual.  The first day I tried to tackle my room I discovered the problem.  The closet was all jacked up.  There were boxes shoved in it and the clothes were all mixed up, shirts, pants, hubby's stuff, my stuff.  I had to clean out and organize the closet before I could do the room.  By the end of the week it was done.  The room was beautiful and ready for my hubby to be home to enjoy it.

The weekend approached and I was giddy with anticipation, but then he called and asked me if I thought he should stay another week.  I wanted nothing in the world more than to have him home, but if he stayed, there would be work.  Work would mean a paycheck we wouldn't have otherwise.  Paychecks mean we can eat and pay bills and stupid stuff like that.  He wanted to come home too.  He hates Los Angeles, with it's smog, traffic, and rude people.  We both decided to do the smart thing and have him stay another week.  To say it was a painful decision would be an understatement.  This is when I started crumbling.
That second week he was gone he missed so much.

Our oldest went to Homecoming and he wasn't here too see how beautiful she was.

We had some rain and wind which made our scarecrows fall down.
I didn't have the requisite muscles to make them stand up again.

So they stayed like this, looking like zombie scarecrows.

I think the worst though was missing his birthday.  Other than a Facebook wall filled with birthday wishes, his special day passed like any other.  He got up, went to work, and returned to his brother's house to sleep on an air mattress.  Happy Birthday indeed.  So I was determined to do something special for him in honor of his birthday upon his  return.  I decided I needed to bake him a cake.  There's just one small problem.  His favorite cake, German Chocolate, and I'm allergic to coconut.  As much as it's his day and all, this is cake we are talking about.  I can't make it and then not be able to eat it.  He got birthday cupcakes instead.  Half had German Chocolate frosting and half had Cream Cheese frosting.  Compromise people.  It's all about the compromise.

Today he got up and made the scarecrows upright again.

Just when I had gotten used to having zombie scarecrows.

My Singing Dryer

When we moved to Michigan we brought all of our appliances.  Our side by side fridge that's been with us for 7 years and 3 states and has only needed to be fixed once, then our freezer that we bought about 4 years ago in Arizona which of course decided to stop working when we got here, and our washer and electric dryer.  Of course the new house has a gas hook up for the dryer.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm really happy that it has a gas hook up.  I much prefer a gas dryer to an electric one.  (I prefer gas stoves too, but couldn't get that lucky apparently.)  So of course I had to go out and buy a new one, and when I got to the store I kept being drawn to this one.

It was on sale even.  $669 the plain old style one was like $500.  I wanted it.  So I took this picture, sent it to the hubby and said "Can I?  Please????".  While I waited for his response, I tracked down a sales person and pumped her for information.  I need the stats.  Tell me why, other than the fact that it's all new fangled looking, I should get this one over the old school one.  Please tell me how to convince my husband that we need to have THIS one and not any other one.  Well for starters she told me, it's even cheaper than $669.  She pulls out her calculator and after making some calculations tells me that it will in fact be only $600 at the register.  Well, that's awesome, what else.  So she goes on to tell me that it is more energy efficient, and that it's smart, like it will stop when it senses the clothes are dry, or will keep going even when the time has run out if the clothes are still wet.  And, if you don't come unload it right away, it will intermittently tumble the clothes to keep them from getting all wrinkly. Now I REALLY REALLY want it, and am prepared to beg, when the hubby texts back and says "If that's the one you want.".  Well that was easy.

A few days later it was delivered, and a few days after that the hubby finally got it hooked up.  By then there was a mountain of laundry that needed to be done.  When we dried our first load in it we discovered it sings!. It wasn't cool enough with it's energy efficiency and what not, they had to make it even cooler, every little thing that it does is accompanied by a charming little tune.  Turn it on, you get a tune.  Select a cycle, you get a tune.  When it's done, no annoying buzzer here, you get a jaunty tune.  If you don't come unload it right away, not only is it intermittently tumbling the clothes to keep them from getting wrinkly, but it reminds you that it is still not unloaded with a little tune.  Of course I love it.

Except for today when I discovered that the sensor thingie doesn't work too well when there is just one comforter in there.  It keeps playing it's little tune and each time I go to unload it, the comforter is NOT DRY.  I wouldn't call it wet, but it's damp for sure.  I'm sure there is probably some fix for this, some kind of just one comforter setting on the thing.  It's so smart otherwise, I can't imagine it being dumb about drying comforters. It's probably operator error.  I should probably read the manual.  Except I don't know where it is.

Someday I'll get my freezer fixed too, but it's been on hold since I blew my extra money on the singing dryer.

This is so cool

Some of you may have witnessed this phenomenon before,

but this is my first time.

  

 I'm awestruck by the variety of colors.  

I expected the yellows and oranges, but was taken completely by surprise

by the fiery reds, the pinks, and even purples.

Just beautiful

Sorry If This Makes You Dizzy

I apologize in advance if this post makes your head spin.  My train of thought sometimes derails, takes side trips, and switches tracks before arriving at a station which may or may not be the intended destination.  Hopefully you can make it to the end, but if not, I hope you find something awesome when your train of thought jumps tracks.  

As those of you who regularly read my blog are painfully aware, 

I have not been blogging regularly in quite some time.

This post isn't about excuses BTW.

You all know why it's a miracle that I blog AT ALL.

The thing is though, that when I'm not blogging, I'm also not reading blogs.

I'm not checking in to see what everyone else that I follow is posting.

I'm not getting inspired to write more or do crafty things that I see on some of my favorite blogs.

And I need that.  I get so caught up sometimes in my ridiculously busy schedule that I put myself at the bottom of my list.  At the end of the day, there isn't any time left for me, what I like to do, the things that make me happy.

So the  past week, while I've been checking in and blogging, I've also been catching up with some of my favorite blogs and finding new ones that are absolutely amazing.

Ready?  Here comes the part that's going to make you dizzy.

This is what I did yesterday.  All day, while the kids were at school.

I was checking out the blogs I follow and I saw a post on Tip Junkie about a Coffee Table repair. Now I don't have a coffee table in need of repair, but the info might come in handy some day.  Like if I saw a totally awesome coffee table on the side of the road for free because it needed repair.  If that ever happened I would totally know what to do, so I hop over there to read it.  Down at the bottom of the page there were some links to more articles on Second Hand Furniture Repair, and the one about file cabinet makeovers caught my eye.  I actually just found the mother load of old file cabinets at the Habitat For Humanity Restore, and since I need more file cabinets, both at home and at my new office (yeah, the business now has a real office, more about that later), I really needed to know how to make file cabinets pretty, because sitting in an office with a bunch of banged up, dull gray file cabinets staring at me all day is surely a one way ticket to loony town.

I look at each makeover one by one and when I get to number six it takes me to this makeover by Sew Woodsy, she used Mod Podge to do hers and mentions Mod Podge Rocks and when you follow the link it takes you to a post about the filing cabinet makeover featured on Tip Junkie #3.

We've kinda gone full circle here.

Dizzy yet?
Computer freaking out because you have 10 tabs open?
You might want to close a few.  We aren't done yet.

Ok, where was I?  Oh yeah, Mod Podge.  So at this point I'm like "Whaa?  There's a WHOLE blog dedicated to Mod Podge???  Really??  That's so Awesome!!  I love me some Mod Podge".  So I start poking around over there and get lost in ideas.  She doesn't just have stuff about crafting and Mod Podge either, she has stuff about FOOD.  Sweet food.  Cake type food.  My favorite kind of food.  She's even doing a giveaway of the book Cake Pops by Bakerella.  Which, if you hurry right over there before midnight EST you can totally still enter BTW, and no, writing a post about hers isn't required for entry, all you have to do is leave a comment. So of course I had to go check out Bakerella, and from there I found Cakespy, with not only recipes for yummy goodness but also the most adorable artwork featuring cupcakes.  OMG.  Yeah, and I'm so totally ordering THESE for my Christmas cards this year from her site.

Need a bucket yet?

Anyway.
After going off on that little side trip I went back to Mod Podge Rocks and finished exploring.  I came across this Fall Canvas Craft Tutorial from My Blessed Life and after cruising her site for awhile came across her foyer makeover which is something else I really do need.  Right now, this is what you see when you walk in my front door. 

Hello doggie jail.
Hello Kibbles and Bits that the doggies spill out of their bowl onto the floor.

And then, if you turn to your right, you'll see this...

That would be the dreaded Flat Surface that collects crap, on the top of an attempt at shoe organization, next to a yet to be hung piece of art.  In fact it's a framed collection of Picasso sketches I picked up at IKEA.  Oh how I love that store.  I have wanted these sketches forever, but they've always been out of my budget.  This piece was a bargain at only $50 for the 5 sketches mounted and framed.  The cheapest I have ever seen them was $10 each and that was unframed.

Here is a closer picture, except I accidentally cut off the owl.  Ooops.

If you turn again you will see the front of the shoe organizer/junk collecting flat surface

Yuck.  Isn't it.

First we've got the prison gray walls that I can't do much about since
A) This is a rental
B) Hubby hates painting
 C) this particular area has cathedral ceilings which would require a really big ladder
(that we don't have) to reach the top of if I were to do it myself and finally
D) Hubby doesn't allow me to get on ladders.
Now before any of you go getting all feminist rights and
 "OMG, he doesn't "ALLOW" her on a ladder",
 just know it's for my own safety, I'm ok with it.
Those who know me in real life are busting up right now.
I trip over air.
I have no business being on a ladder.

Second, my shoe organizer.  Made by Closet Maid, purchased at Target.
Now sure I would have loved to have a real piece of furniture to store the shoes in my entry way,
 but that wasn't in my budget either and the shoes were out of control.

Third, the flat surface.  Somewhere under that pile is a plastic storage tote that houses all the gloves and hats, but it's been buried under sweatshirts, shin guards,
and Halloween decorations that fell off our front windows.

Last, the dog kennel completes the stark jail house theme that's going on
and sweeping up Kibbles and Bits everyday is getting OLD.

Now I'm on a mission.

I can't do anything with the gray background,
but that doesn't mean I can't liven it up with colorful accent pieces.
That shoe organizer.  It's going to get a Mod Podge makeover.
The flat surface is going to get accessorized to deter the flat surface dump.
Something better than a plastic storage tote is going to be devised for the hats and gloves.
The walls need stuff, but maybe not the Picasso piece.
It may be a little monochromatic for the space I now have pictured.
Maybe it should go over the door?
The dog kennel is going to be modified somehow to both make it pretty,
and keep the Kibbles and Bits inside.

Of course, I don't have any of the stuff I need for this project yet,
 so it's time to start hitting up garage sales and thrift stores.

I'll keep you posted.

Fall

The kids started school a month ago. New schools in a new town. Great schools. Schools that my kids love. This was one of my biggest fears. We'd move all this way and the kids would hate it. But they don't. They like it here, they really do. Not that they don't miss their friends in Arizona, but they aren't miserable every day, pining over what was left behind. Instead they are tackling each day with a smile on their face, looking forward to all the new and different things they can do here.

Aimee joined the swim team and started the year with a bunch of new friends. Kimberly is going to a real middle school, with lockers, changing classes, electives, and even having to dress for PE. Most of the kids Tiffany already knew from the neighborhood are in her class, plus she met some new ones.

Fall in Michigan has brought trees changing colors, and leaves to rake.

Surprisingly Kimberly LOVES yard work.

Give the kid a rake and she's in seventh heaven.

I hope the novelty doesn't wear off.

This is only the first tree to change.

The kids made scarecrows at our town's Harvest Festival

and decorated our yard with them.

A few nights ago, we got BOO'd.

The doorbell rang, and when we answered the door,

we found this adorable little guy attached to a bag of candy.

The instructions say:

1. Eat the CANDY!!!!

2. Make a copy of this picture to boo another neighbor

3. Leave a bag of candy and the copied piece of paper at their doorstep.

Remember to be sneaky.

4. Put the picture of the ghost in your window so everyone can see.

The kids thought this was the coolest thing ever.

I just hope that everyone enjoys winter just as much.

Summertime and Slimy Things

When we first arrived in Michigan this past June,

we stayed with our friend Alex.

Alex has fourteen acres of property.

And one pond.

In that pond were many different forms of life.

Algae, fish, leaches (eww),

and these...

That's a tadpole.

In a jar.

And here he is, swimming up to say hi.

We didn't let the kids keep the tadpoles in jars for very long.

They could look at them for an hour or so

and then had to return them to the pond.

Before long,

they weren't bringing tadpoles up to the house in jars any more.

They were bringing FROGS.

Big frogs.

No jars.

These were returned to the pond much more promptly.

Science Experiment Gone Wrong

I believe that it's good for kids to learn things by doing them,

 rather than reading about them in a book.  

So when Kimberly brought home a science project where she was supposed to grow a plant, 

I should have been excited right?  

Yeah.  Not so much.

Not because it's not a cool idea.

In concept.

It's the fact that I have a habit of killing anything that uses photosynthesis

 that I have ever tried to cultivate indoors. 

 I only have about a 50% success rate with things I try to grow outdoors.

Asking me to keep a plant alive in my house is akin to asking an alligator to babysit a chicken.

It's just not going to end well.  

My daughter's grade depends on me not killing this plant.

It's not fair.  To her mostly.  But also to me. 

 You don't know what kind of stress I've been under because of this.

To make matters worse.  It wasn't just one plant to keep alive.  

It was two.

She was supposed to start the two of them growing,

 then do something to one of them, to see how it changed how the plant grew.

The caveat being, whatever she did was supposed to be something that might naturally occur in nature.

So Kimberly went out in the yard, dug up some worms, and put them in with plant A.

That little thing there at the bottom.  A clipping of a plant that grows in our front yard.  

Not the bean plant she is supposed to be growing.  Not worms.  

She's good at following directions.  Can you tell?

This is plant B.  No Worms.

So everything was going just fine.  Both plants were growing.  

Plant A seemed to be growing slightly faster than Plant B, but nothing drastic.

I was actually beginning to wonder if the worms were going to make a significant enough 

difference  to count as a valid experiment.

They were getting equal amounts of sun sitting in my kitchen window.

Overlooking my sink.

The very sink where I was standing a few nights ago,

 trying to drain the grease off the meatloaf I made for dinner, 

without dumping the meatloaf in the sink.

While running VERY hot water so the grease wouldn't clog my pipes.

When I lost the grip on the loaf pan, the hot glass burning my hand.

When I jerked my hand away from the burning, I knocked Plant B into the sink.

Into the grease.

Into the hot water.

Somehow, miraculously, none of the potting material ended up in the meatloaf.

I scooped it up and placed it all back in it's cup.

Placed the cup back in the windowsill.

The next morning, Plant B looked like this.

Ooops.

Apparently meatloaf grease and scalding hot water aren't conducive to the growing process.

Who knew?

Also, I probably just earned my daughter an F on her experiment, because I'm pretty sure getting doused with meatloaf grease and scalding hot water are not something that would occur in nature.

On the bright side.  I didn't completely kill it.

Those are new leaves growing there at the top.

Road Trip Part 2

Yesterday's pictures were the ones I had taken of our road trip to Michigan. There is another side to the story though. We also gave a camera to the kids to document the trip. Here are some of the highlights according to them.

We stopped at Mc Donald's every morning.

See.

Because we had to have these.

Well Jay didn't, because he doesn't like coffee, he had a stash of Red Bull in the cooler in the back of the Suburban, but the rest of us wanted our caffeine in an ice blended caramel and whip cream topped form.

The dogs spent each day laying on the seat in between Kimberly and Tiffany. They falsely believed that the girls' Snuggies were for them and there were quite a few child vs. dog fights while they tried to work this out.

I don't remember seeing this, but the kids found a tire graveyard somewhere along the way.

Midway through Day 2, the Snuggie became a makeshift wall. Kimberly was fed up with being stuck in a car all day with everyone.

Aimee passed the time waving at all the big rig drivers we passed and seeing if they would wave back. There are quite a few pictures like this one of one of the other kids trying to document this process. What we ended up with was a lot of pictures of tractors where you can't make out the driver, let alone if he's waving or not.

No road trip would be complete without a truck with an eagle/flag mural on it's back windows.

And finally, Welcome to PURE Michigan, not just Michigan, but PURE Michigan.

Notice in the lower right hand corner.

That's me, rubbing my temples.

Road Trips and New Places

It seems like just yesterday we were preparing to move to Michigan and had the whole summer ahead of us. Now I find that it's suddenly fall and I haven't blogged in months. Of course we've been busy living life during that time, but I felt I should at least give you the highlights in pictures.

We drove across country from Arizona to Michigan at the beginning of June. We being me, my husband, our three daughters, three dogs, and two cats. Originally we planned to make the trip in four days. Driving with that many beings in a vehicle was so much fun (insert sarcasm here), that we decided to drive a little longer (like 6 hours a day) after the first day, so that we could get to Michigan in only three days. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Have you ever heard that things are bigger in Texas? Well if this cow (bull?) is any indication, that might be true. He was however a little camera shy and started walking the other way when I tried to get his picture.

Sticking with the big in Texas theme, this cross was huge.

Then of course there are your oddities on the road. I think this guy needs a few more bumper stickers. What do you think? He's got a little patch of window there on the right he still may be able to see out of.

Texas doesn't have a monopoly on big things though. The world's largest rocking chair is in Missouri.

Nice custom tail lights.

St Louis Arch. We didn't stop.

By the time we got to Illinois and came across another giant cross, I was beginning to think that Texas didn't have a lock on all things large.

And Finally, we made it to Michigan.