Party preparations

We're having a little Halloween par-tay here on Saturday so Claire and I have been busy making decorations this week. Decorating the fireplace was first. We made lots of paper bats.

In fact, the bats are kinda all over the house.

And we made watercolor paper lanterns. We've made these every year. They are very fun to make and look so pretty with candles in them. Tutorial here.

Claire and Annabel (who may have played hookey from school today) made these fun paper plate skeletons. I found the craft "here" and they are fun to make and cute to display.

This one is on our front door. Do you remember that my camera is lost? I'm using this terrible one right now...that's why everything is blurry and fuzzy. Bleh.

This one we posed. He's pointing the way upstairs for more games.

These letters are framed in my kitchen. There is this blog out there called "Graphics Fairy" and she has all these great free printable graphics.

The vintage artificial eyeball printables from Graphics Fairy are cool too. We put them on all of our family photos, but Sammy won't let them put them on his. He thinks they are grose.

Then we printed out spooky labels for our apothecary jars. They say things like "bat wings" and "mice dust" and "frog legs". I forget where I found them but now I have to fill them with spooky things like eyeball candy or something.

Then, to be nice, Matt put up these pictures that my mom gave to me that have been sitting in a box for months waiting to find the perfect home. Getting them all straight was a giant pain but he did a great job.

I love them so it's a shame I couldn't get a better picture of them. They are little tiny paintings of parks and buildings in Chicago around 1900.

Some of the places pictured are near our house. St Ignatius is a fancy high school that is close to our neighborhood and then there are places like Lincoln Park, Union Park, and old mansions on South Prairie Avenue (in what is now the South Loop).

My mom inherited them from my Nana, and she was kind enough to give them to me. So they finally found a home in my little pink couch room so I can look at them all the time. Thanks mom!

Wella is getting bigger and chunkier and funnier all the time.

Here she is concerned.

And laughing. Look at the chubs! Blow this picture up and kiss her face. You won't regret it.

Claire and Annabel still can't get enough of her. They use her to play ridiculous games and then they crack up laughing. Today they were playing a game with her where she was getting married to stuffed animals. Hey, she was happy and so were they for long enough for me to get some work done, so I'm not complaining. Hopefully, we'll get some fun pictures on Saturday night of the Halloween party. We're very excited around here. I love Halloween.