Happy Halloween Y'all!

This is our first Halloween in Louisiana.  It's also my oldest son Seth's 20th birthday.  This is the first year I will not be spending this day with him, but we will celebrate when we see each other in a few weeks.

This is Seth on his 19th birthday.

I have made a pumpkin cake for him for many a birthday.

 

One thing about having a Halloween birthday is you always have a theme to build your birthday party around.  When Seth was little all the kids would wear their Halloween costumes to his party and we'd have a hayride.  We did bobbing for apples one year, but all the kids got wet and made a fat mess so we didn't do that again.  I remember the year I attempted caramel apples and all the caramel slid off and puddled around the bottom of the apple.  I tried to make it sound gourmet by calling it "Apples on a stick in a bed of caramel"!  Basically it was a recipe fail!

I've made these ghost pops as party favors for years.  I made a batch for Luke to take to school, only to find out it was not allowed, so now I have two dozen ghost pops all dressed up and no place to go!

One thing I love about Halloween and Fall is decorating.  Actually I love that about every season, but there is something about the colors of Fall that makes me happy.  When Seth was born on Halloween I started collecting pumpkins and Fall decorations.  I have as many decorations for Fall as some people have for Christmas.

We are enjoying having a wood burning fireplace in our new house.

Luke wanted to carve the jack-o-lantern all by himself this year.  I think he did a great job!

Bring on the trick or treaters!

 

Happy Halloween from Louisiana Y'all!

A Groovy Dress

Now that I am unpacked and I've decorated for fall, I've decided it is time to drag out the sewing machine and get sewing for my darling neice.  I've also added another little bundle of joy to sew for and that is my friend Amy's darling baby girl  Anna-Kay.  Here is the little dress I made for her.

I used a pink gingham check fabric with eyelet trim.



 

I had enough fabric left over to make this matching bib.  If only I had a monogramming machine I could have put the baby's initials on it.

I love this peasant dress pattern.  It is such a simple pattern, yet it is so versitile.  Here is my newest version of the peasant dress I made for my darling niece.

 

This version has long sleeves in a coordinating fabric.

 

I added some elastic to the upper arm to give the sleeve a gathered look.

 

 

  

 

I added a coordinating border with a trim detail using a third coordinating fabric.  This is the first time I've done this trim detail and I love how it turned out!  I took a strip of fabric and folded it in half to create a narrow border then sewed it onto the dress along with the wider border fabric.

 

I'm dying to see how it looks on my darling niece!  Oh, and speaking of my darling niece, she will be a big sister come spring!  My sister is expecting her second darling baby.  Maybe I'll have a little boy to sew for this time.  We'll have to wait until the spring to find out though.  Can't wait!!!

 

Join me here:

Debbie Doos Newbie Party

 

From My Front Porch To Yours 

 

i heart naptime

 

Wow Us Wednesdays

 

Long Time No Blog

Yes, it has been a long time since my last post - six months to be exact.  A lot has transpired since then.  I've had 3 parties -


A graduation party
 

 

A baby shower

An 18th birthday party 

I've sent two sons off to the prom with their sweet girlfriends...

Taken my son to have his Senior pictures taken...

 

Attended award ceremonies and Senior luncheons and recognition services for Josh...

I've created 10 scrapbooks to give to the children in my class at the end of the year.  That's a labor of love, but a lot of work.


I've moved one son home from college, while getting a second son ready to go off to college. I've attended college orientation for my second son and I did nothing to embarrass myself like I did at the UGA Orientation,.

 

 

Then I moved two sons off to college, one two hours to the north of my house and the other two hours to the south.

Josh in his new dorm room at VSU

 And on top of all this I prepared to move 500 miles away to Louisiana. I will not even go into the nightmare that the move has been, but I will say that we are in our new house and I'm making headway into getting us settled. I do love our house, but it has been difficult going to a house that is half the size. I've lost a breakfast room, a bathroom, a bedroom, a garage and a large storage closet. Finding a place for all the things that were in those rooms has been tricky. I'm getting there though.

Good bye old house

Hello new house

We are enjoying Louisiana, however, as it turns out, I'm not a big fan of Jambalaya (it's too spicy for me!), and I have not run into many heavily bearded men in camo or people with thick Cajun accents who catch gators!  The Louisiana accent is much different than I thought it would be actually.  Not many people have a thick Cajun accent, but instead sound very "Yankee" to me.   I would have sworn our real estate agent was from Long Island, but turns out she was born and raised here.  One thing I have seen a lot of are people wearing Saints and LSU jerseys!  My youngest son and I try to count how many people we see wearing team jerseys when we go to the store.  On Friday Luke's school is allowing the students to wear their favorite team jersey instead of their uniform shirts.  I'm sure Luke will be the only kid wearing a University of Georgia shirt with an Auburn jacket!

I know this has been a long post, but I wanted to tell you what I've been up to and to let y'all know... I'm Back!!!