Thursday, October 29, 2009

Giving up on a Perfect Halloween

Giving_up_on_a_perfect_Halloween

My aspirations are not too terribly high. I would only like to be finished baking, packaging and curling ribbon by tomorrow morning. Just in time for the pre-school jam-your-face-full-of sugar sessions.

I don't know why, but Halloween has escalated in the holiday category to somwhere in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Maybe that's reaching a little, but it has made a large jump above St. Patrick's Day, so there are pre-school parties to be had and little gift bags to be packaged. There are also party sign up sheets with positions to be jockeyed for.

In Ollie's class I won a pizza! YES! Swing by the pizza place and have glorious delivery goodness for $5. In Henry's class, I missed the boat and am baking cupcakes. That's okay, though because it gave me the opportunity to buy orange icing. I don't believe I've ever suffered through decorated with it before!

So far, I've done the cupcakes {ran out of vegetable oil and found out you can sub apple sauce!! Wonderful and fluffy cakes- love that tip!} - notice I got rid of the rest of those darn sugar pumpkin things that keep making their way into my mouth-Oct 09.5 006
and the baggies, but still need to work on the teacher cookies
Oct 09.5 007
and the ribbon curling on the kiddos' baggies. {bags shown below are lovingly placed on top of a MOUND of 3 loads of laundry needed to be folded}.
Oct 09.5 001
I know I need to give up on perfect, like my friend Mary encourages, but this is actually the stuff I love about being a mom more than the macaroni stuck to my jeans.

Did you know that my family owns a florist? My aunt and uncle run it and we always grew up working there in the summers and over Christmas break during college. So, curling ribbon is in my blood. And I love a good teacher gift! Something about the smell of sucking up gift giving in the morning gets me out of bed.

Halloween has come a long way from the years where we roamed the streets barely breathing through our masks and asking complete strangers for candy. To think- there wasn't even a trunk in sight!

But I'm happy for a fun excuse to have a party.
And we won't even have to have slobber on the inside of our plastic Smurf masks!
We've come a long way, baby.

I'm off to finish the fun stuff, but here are a few updates:
: : : : : : : : :

#1- This post is linked to my good friend Mary's Giving Up on a Perfect Halloween at Giving Up On Perfect. Go over there and tell her "hey" {scrounge up a Southern accent if you don't have one} and see all the other wonderful Halloween stories there. She is having AMAZING giveaways, so go comment, link your stories and participate.

#2- BIG ANNOUNCEMENT
I am super, duper excited that I will have a post published at (in)courage tomorrow {Saturday}!! WOW! So thrilled and thankful. (In)courage is the website and blog for Hallmark's Christian division- Dayspring. I would love for you to check it out! EEEK!

#3- Our fun 80s Halloween party we were planning for earlier has been postponed for now. One of the hosts has the swine flu {the dad of the family! Oh no!}, so they figured they would keep that to themselves.
Thank you.

#4- You can still enter the Create a Caption giveaway to win a $25 Chili's gift certificate! You can do it!! If anything, go read the other comments. Y'all are hysterical!

11 comments:

phillips phamily said...

Congrats on the (in)courage post! That IS exciting!

Ivy said...

Love all the goodies you have been making! very exciting about the (in)courage post! Can't wait to read it:)

Melissa said...

You know, this is the kind of stuff I love about being a mom too! I don't do the gift bags, because there's another mom in our class who always does them, but I am the cupcake mom of our class! Congrats on the (in)courage post!

Becky said...

i gave up on perfect a skillion years ago, as evidenced by my house and it's current state. and hello? i can't believe how we used to have to trick or treat, lol!! however, do you remember being in high school and still going and hitting up the neighborhoods down flowers chapel road? total score!!

Mr. and Mrs. Nurse Boy said...

Yet another thing we have in common. I always find myself knee deep in holiday projects for the teachers and the class. The only difference? My post would be a little more negative the day before the holiday. The night before, around midnight, I am always telling my husband to NEVER, EVER let me start another big holiday project EVER AGAIN.

Then, I just ignore him when the next holiday swings around.

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Nurse Boy

Mary @ Giving Up On Perfect said...

Woo-hooo!!!! I'm so excited for your incourage post, my friend.

And thank you for linking up and linking out. You are wunnerful.

And finally - hello? - those cupcakes look uh-maze-ing!!! (Mmm...sugar pumpkin things...mmm)

amykat said...

Oh wow! Congrats on your (in)courage post - I will check it out!
As far as the perfect Halloween goes...I can't say that I'm a sucker for all the H-ween Hoopla....but I'll cheer you on!
I'm sure the moms of your boys' classmates love the sugar rush of the cupcakes. I think I would be wanting to throttle you. :)
Either that - or I would steal the cupcakes from my child!
They look delicious!!

amykat said...

Oh wow! Congrats on your (in)courage post - I will check it out!
As far as the perfect Halloween goes...I can't say that I'm a sucker for all the H-ween Hoopla....but I'll cheer you on!
I'm sure the moms of your boys' classmates love the sugar rush of the cupcakes. I think I would be wanting to throttle you. :)
Either that - or I would steal the cupcakes from my child!
They look delicious!!

ohAmanda said...

I'm with you---I love a good gift! And curling ribbon---*swoon*

YAY to you for being on (in)courage! You're famous!

The Writer Chic said...

Hil -- (in)courage!!!! Yea for you!!! Yea for me 'cause I know you! ;)

Paula said...

Congrats on the post at (in)courage! I usually stop there first thing in my day, but found you first through Giving up on Perfect. So it was fun to find your site on the day your post was up at (in)courage. :)

Nice work!

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